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Inside Out by Pete Docter

2015, Pixar

Inside Out takes a simple premise — what’s going on inside the mind of a young girl — and spins it into a delightfully imaginative, riotously entertaining, and deeply touching story about the emotions we all experience.

For much of young Riley’s life, her dominant emotion has been Joy (voiced with the appropriate level of effervescence by Amy Poehler), but when her family uproots from Minnesota to San Francisco for her dad’s new job, Riley’s emotional life grows increasingly jumbled. Much to Joy’s chagrin, Sadness begins to assert herself. As Riley sinks further and further into depression, the two seemingly opposing emotions must work together and traverse the young girl’s mental landscape in order to retrieve her core memories and help Riley rediscover who she is.

With its surprisingly nuanced story about emotional and mental health, I have no doubt that Inside Out has helped many people work through some deeply personal issues. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Inside Out contains what might be the most heartbreaking moment in all of Pixar’s filmography. Sweet Bing Bong, you’ll live on forever in our hearts.

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