A beloved animated franchise is turning Disney+’s rankings inside out. At the time of this writing, and coming on the heels of Inside Out 2’s streaming release on Wednesday, September 25, Disney’s emotionally charged film series is dominating the streamer’s Top 5 movies. As confirmed by Flix Patrol, the long-awaited sequel Inside Out 2, the original Inside Out and the 2015 short flick Riley’s First Date? rank No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4 respectively. And if not for the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-led Moana (2016), the Inside Out saga would have laid claim to gold, silver and bronze medals.
Back in June 2015, Inside Out took the world by storm as the seminal adventure of Riley Andersen and her inner emotions charmed moviegoers, which helped the Disney film make $850.3 million globally (per The Numbers). Critics loved all the Anger (Lewis Black) and Joy (Amy Poehler) overflowing in Riley’s head, and, as a result, the animated flick boasts a near-perfect Tomatometer rating of 98% to this day. And Poehler knew a sequel needed to be made from the get-go. The Saturday Night Live alumna said in an interview with PEOPLE (below):
“I’ve been bugging Pete Docter [CEO of Pixar] and the team and just saying, ‘When are you guys going to make another one? When’s that happening?’ When they told me their idea of how to approach the second one, I thought it was just genius.”
Inside Out’s Unprecedented Success
Pacifying Inside Out fans after the film’s debut was the nine-minute short film Riley’s First Date, which dropped later that same year in November 2015. But despite Amy Poehler pestering the Pixar powers-that-be, it took almost a decade for the full-length sequel to hit the Silver Screen. However, when Inside Out 2 finally dropped nine years later, its arrival not only invigorated the summer movie season, but director Kelsey Mann’s animated project also became the highest-grossing flick of 2024 with a worldwide take of $1.687 billion.
The follow-up adventure earned itself a “verified hot” Popcornmeter rating on Rotten Tomatoes — formerly the RT audience score — at 95%, while still enthralling the majority of critics to the tune of 90% on the Tomatometer. MovieWeb’s Inside Out 2 review proclaims the film to be “a creative journey through puberty’s travails,” and in-house writer Julian Roman gave the sequel a score of 3.5 out of 5. And don’t worry, because the film’s director definitely has ideas for a third feature-length installment in the saga. Mann said in an interview (via ComicBook.com):
“I love this world. It’s such a great world to play in, and ideas just kind of come from playing in this world, both for locations and characters. There’s so many ideas not only from the first film, but especially in this one, where I’m like, ‘That’s a really fun, clever idea. I don’t know how it fits into this particular story, but it should be used at some point.'”
While the 2024 summer movie season may have fizzled out, Mann’s Inside Out 2, along with Deadpool & Wolverine, helped ensure it’ll take quite the stellar performance by one or more of the fall’s highly anticipated titles, like Joker: Folie à Deux, Gladiator II, Wicked, or Venom: The Last Dance to rival the two biggest summertime hits for the title of most profitable film of the year. But for now, Disney+ is all about feeling Inside Out.
Inside Out, Riley’s First Date?
and
Inside Out 2
are all available to stream on
Disney+
at the time of this writing.