The Most Paused Pixar Movie Moments

Sometimes, movies just require you to pause. Sure, the ideal viewing experience, as enforced by theatrical exhibition, is to blaze through the film, bathroom breaks be darned! But watching movies in the comfort of your own home, it's inevitable that something will cause you to pause what you're watching. Sometimes, this is due to life getting in the way, but other times, it's simply so you can appreciate the film. After all, movies are capable of instilling powerful emotions in us, delivering evocative imagery, and treating us with delightful visual gags. And sometimes, it's really rewarding to pause and appreciate what a film has just accomplished.

This is especially true when we're talking about Pixar movies. The incredible gems produced by this animation company have generated countless moments that require you to press pause and absorb what just happened on your screen. This can be due to a variety of feats, including delivering powerful emotional moments or simply the presence of an Easter egg that requires you to freeze the movie to find it. Whatever the reason may be, the most paused moments in the history of Pixar's filmography allow us to appreciate the various artistic feats of one of the world's most beloved animation studios. 

The first 20 or so minutes of "Coco" wow us with its animation, but that impressive nature comes from how well the visuals replicate reality. The animators at Pixar do incredible work rendering the village Miguel calls home with textures so tangible that it feels like you can reach right out and touch them. Emphasizing a sense of realism in this section of the film pays off big time once "Coco" shifts into a more fantastical setting when Miguel arrives in the fabled Land of the Dead.

Here, the level of detail and bright colors on display will require any viewer to pause the frame to make sure they're not missing anything. The screen is rich with obvious care and craft right down to the tiniest lantern and street corner. Through all that intricate detail, the Land of the Dead seems like the kind of place that could only exist in myths passed down from one generation to the next. The mind staggers with just how many streets and houses are contained here, and the possibilities for grand adventures seem truly limitless. It's a sequence that would already prove impressive in any context, but the story structure of "Coco" ensures the first glimpse of the Land of the Dead resonates as dazzling enough that you need to stop and take a moment to appreciate its splendor.

One of the most memorable sequences in the 2009 Pixar feature "Up" concerns Carl Fredricksen unleashing a swarm of balloons over his house and beginning to soar towards Paradise Falls. On his way, he begins to see sights he never would've dreamed of. For the first time in his life, he's able to look down upon the rows of houses and businesses that once surrounded his tiny domicile. And for the people on the ground, the rare sight of a house soaring through the sky provides its own sense of unparalleled wonder.

Among those in awe of Fredricksen's flying home is an unnamed little girl who's playing in her room when, suddenly, that swarm of balloons rises next to her window. As she races to get one last look at the house floating upwards, moviegoers will see their own unexpected but wonderful sight. Lying against the wall of this girl's bedroom is none other than Lotso, the eventual villain of "Toy Story 3." Considering that "Up" was released a little over a year before "Toy Story 3," this was the first time moviegoers ever got to see a glimpse of that Strawberry-scented character. It may not be as glorious of a vision as the mountains of Paradise Falls, but this debut of appearance of Lotso is still its own kind of wonderful sight.

"Cars 2" is a Pixar sequel that takes Lightning McQueen and Mater to international locations they've never traveled to before. Unlike these automobiles, though, the artists of Pixar actually had explored some of these territories in prior movies. For example, one scene takes Mater and super spy Finn McMissile to Paris, France, a location never seen in the "Cars" universe but one that was the backdrop of the 2007 Pixar movie "Ratatouille."

To reference the fact that Pixar had been to the City of Lights before, one of the most important buildings of "Ratatouille" — the restaurant Gusteau's — reappears here with a car-themed twist. Like so much in the "Cars" universe, this eatery has now been cheekily renamed to an automobile-themed pun. In a montage of sights found in this vehicle version of Paris, the camera briefly lingers on a restaurant named Gastow's. The film never returns to this location, so the viewer is deprived of the opportunity to see automobile versions of "Ratatouille" characters like Linguini. Still, any time Pixar can remind viewers of the existence of one of their most beloved motion pictures, it's a reason to take notice.

The Buy n Large corporation in "WALL-E" is shown to be so big that it helped cause the collapse of the Earth itself. It's an ominous warning of what happens when we give a single company too much power. The extensive tendrils of this corporation have been reinforced in other Pixar projects, which have frequently reused the Buy n Large logo as a go-to image when some random item needs a big brand to hail from.

In the case of "Toy Story 3," it's shown that Buy n Large does more than just develop robots and hoverchairs. When Buzz Lightyear's back is popped open, the viewer sees that he's powered by very special Buy n Large Alkaline batteries. It's a delicate reference to "WALL-E" that doesn't prove distracting. Viewers who may have forgotten about this company or never seen "WALL-E" won't even notice its passing presence in "Toy Story 3." For those who do catch it, though, it's a clever way to remind audiences of one of Pixar's most acclaimed motion pictures. 

When "The Good Dinosaur" hit theaters, many wondered where the folks at Pixar might hide one of their regular Easter eggs — the iconic A113, a reference to a crucial classroom at CalArts where many Pixar animators attended. Given that its characters were mostly prehistoric dinosaurs with no conception of numbers, it was unknown how the filmmakers would drop in this visual gag.

But the Easter egg, like life in the "Jurassic Park" movies, found a way into "The Good Dinosaur." It emerges in a scene where Arlo goes to check on the plants on his family's farm. These crops are contained in a patch surrounded by a wooden gate made out of sticks, some of which spell out A113. It's only on-screen momentarily,  but if you've got good eyesight and you're willing to scour the frame, you too can pick up on how Pixar managed to work a distinctly modern Easter egg into the past.

A critical setting for "Toy Story 4" is a pawn shop where the film's antagonist, Gabby Gabby, resides and eventually takes an adorable new character, Forky, as a prisoner. Not only is this setting an effective backdrop for Gabby to call home, but it also works as an opportunity to stuff the background with an avalanche of Pixar-themed Easter eggs. After all, pawn shops are absolutely stacked with random items, so why should this "Toy Story 4" location be any different?

Among the many possessions in this pawn shop that tie back into past Pixar movies, one that stands out is a vinyl record for songs by Ernesto de la Cruz. If that name sounds familiar, it's because it belongs to the musician that was at the heart of the plot of Pixar's 2017 feature "Coco." In that film, it was shown that, through duplicitous means, Cruz achieved such worldwide fame that his records were a common sight on any shelf, even ones belonging to a pawn shop in the world of "Toy Story."