Eliohas landed on a Bottom 10 list on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The new Pixar animated movie was directed byTurning Red’s Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, who stepped in amid a creative restructuring that saw original director Adrian Molina depart the project to work on the upcoming sequelCoco 2. The new movie follows alien-obsessed 11-year-old kid Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab) getting his wish by being abducted, only to be mistaken for Earth’s ambassador by the intergalactic collective known as the Communiverse as it is under threat from the powerful alien warlord Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett).
Pixar’sEliois the production company’s only movie of the year, leaving a major gap ahead of 2026, which sees the debut of both the original movieHoppersand the sequelToy Story 5. Although it is their immediate follow-up to the record-breakingInside Out 2, which became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time in 2024 before being surpassed byNe Zha 2,Eliois not tracking as well as its predecessor. At the time of writing, projections for its opening weekend give it a domestic debut of just over $20 million, compared toInside Out 2’s $154.2 million.
Elio Has An 86% On Rotten Tomatoes, But It’s Still A Bottom 10 Pixar Movie
It’s One Of Their Lowest-Rated Originals
At the time of writing,Rotten Tomatoeshas aggregated 105 different critics' reviews ofElio, giving the movie an 86% score on the Tomatometer. Not only is this score 26% over the 60% threshold past which a movie can be considered Fresh, the amount of positive reviews is statistically significant and allows the site to deem the movie Certified Fresh. However, in spite of this,Eliohas still earned one of the 10 worst scores in the history of Pixar. Below, see a breakdown of the Rotten Tomatoes scores of all 29Pixar moviesthat have been released to date:
100%
92%
96%
99%
97%
74%
95%
98%
40%
78%
80%
76%
94%
69%
93%
88%
91%
73%
Elio(2025)
86%
By falling below 2020’sOnward, which is the tenth lowest-rated Pixar movie on Rotten Tomatoes,Eliohas officially become their ninth lowest-rated outingat the time of writing. The titles belowElioinclude the original Pixar moviesElemental,Cars,The Good Dinosaur, andBrave, as well as the lesser-regarded spinoffs and sequelsMonsters University(which is a college-set prequel to the Oscar-winningMonsters, Inc.),Lightyear(which is presented as the fictional movie in theToy Storyuniverse that inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy),Cars 3, andCars 2(which is the only Pixar movie to have earned a Rotten score).
Elio’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Low By Pixar’s Incredibly High Standards
Pixar Has Been On A Critical Hot Streak Since The Beginning
The reason thatEliohas landed in the Bottom 10 is the fact that almost every movie that the production company has put out since they made their feature debut with the originalToy Storyin 1995 has received glowing reviews from critics. In fact, of Pixar’s entire 29-film roster, only two titles (Cars 2andCars 3) have failed to become Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. With such a strong track record, which sees the Top 10 all landing between 96% and 100%,any score of 90% or less would have automatically placed a movie in their Bottom 10.
Pixar movies have been nominated for 48 Academy Awards and won 23, 11 of which have been for Best Animated Feature.
Pixar’s critical reception has been so profoundly positive thattheir Rotten Tomatoes domination extends far beyond just the ranked list of titles that they themselves have put out. On Rotten Tomatoes' list of the 100 best-reviewed computer-animated movies on the platform, there are seven Pixar titles (Toy Story 2,Toy Story,Finding Nemo,Inside Out,Toy Story 3,Up, andToy Story 4) in the Top 10, with the only other titles present being DreamWorks’How to Train Your Dragon(99%) at No. 4, Disney’sZootopia(98%) at No. 7 and Sony’sSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse(97%) at No. 10.
Elio’s 86% Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Even Below Pixar’s Average Score
They Only Have One Major Outlier
In addition to placing it in the Bottom 10 for Pixar,Elio’s 86% score sees it falling below the Rotten Tomatoes average for the company’s output. Although the Rotten score forCars 2pulls down their average significantly,at the time of writing it is 88%, so their new movie fell just slightly short. The fact that 20 of their 29 movies are above their own average also proves what tough competition the new adventure movie faced during its Rotten Tomatoes debut.Eliois even further below Pixar’s median, which is now the 94% score earned by 2016’sFinding Dory.
There are likely several reasons for the new movie underperforming compared to the majority of its predecessors. For one thing, theoriginal concept forEliowas very different.The movie’s narrative was significantly retooled, changing the main character’s motivations entirely, which resulted in a certain unfocused sensibility that a number of critics picked up on. Other members of the small group of critics who gave it Rotten reviews called it unoriginal and bland, saying that it lacks the emotional punch of Pixar classics. Another compared it toThe Good Dinosaur, another lesser-regarded original that is now Pixar’s 24th lowest-rated movie.
Elio’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Still Impressive, Even With The Bottom 10 Ranking
It Would Be A Solid Score For A Non-Pixar Movie
Even thoughElioreviewscan’t quite compare to previous Pixar titles, its Rotten Tomatoes score is still remarkable. By earning a Certified Fresh 86% score,it is tied as the 36th highest-rated movie of 2025 on Rotten Tomatoes in generaland as the 13th highest-rated movie of 2025 when only counting major wide releases. This places it above a number of notable new releases, including the Celine Song romanceMaterialists(82%), the latest Wes Anderson outingThe Phoenician Scheme(78%), the Tom Cruise sequelMission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning(80%), and the live-actionHow to Train Your Dragonremake (77%).
Eliois tied at 86% withThe SurferandThe Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
With such competition,it is hard forElioto stand out, even thoughits 86% score would place it in the Top 5 of a number of major long-running franchisesincludingJurassic Park(it would be No. 2 below the original movie’s 91%),The Lord of the Rings, (No. 4 belowThe Two Towers' 95%,Return of the King’s 94%, andFellowship of the Ring’s 92%), andHarry Potter(No. 4 behindDeathly Hallows: Part 2’s 96%,Prisoner of Azkaban’s 91%, andGoblet of Fire’s 88%). Therefore, a Bottom 10 placement does not necessarily indicate a failure onElio’s part.
