Inside Out 2 (2024)

Most people think so. 84% of audiences gave it a thumbs up, by Google's archived audience score. Critics agree, scoring it 82%.

Teenager Riley's mind headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone. Wikipedia ↗

Inside Out 2 is a 2024 American animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Kelsey Mann, the sequel to the 2015 original. The film follows Riley, now 13 years old, as she enters puberty and her emotional headquarters is thrown into chaos by the arrival of new emotions: Anxiety, a frantic, orange-hued emotion who quickly takes over operations; Envy, a small, teal emotion; Ennui, a languid French-accented emotion who operates her console from a couch; and Embarrassment, an enormous, shy pink emotion. When Anxiety exiles Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust to the back of Riley's mind to manage a pivotal weekend at hockey camp, the original emotions must find their way back before Anxiety's well-meaning but destructive control permanently reshapes Riley's sense of self.

Inside Out 2 became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, earning over $1.69 billion worldwide, surpassing Frozen II's record. The film's depiction of anxiety as an emotion that hijacks your mind with catastrophic thinking resonated powerfully with audiences, particularly young people navigating adolescent mental health challenges. Maya Hawke's voice performance as Anxiety was praised for capturing the emotion's paradoxical nature — genuinely trying to help while causing immense harm.