Discover great cinema and the connections that made it possible.
UNITED STATES · 2010
Toy Story 3
Synopsis
Woody, Buzz, and the rest of Andy's toys haven't been played with in years. With Andy about to go to college, the gang find themselves accidentally left at a nefarious day care center. The toys must band together to escape and return home to Andy.
Cinematic DNA
Lee Unkrich embedded a Totoro plush in the daycare scenes as a signal: Pixar was learning from Hayao Miyazaki. The emotional pacing of Toy Story 3 — the willingness to let quiet moments carry weight, to let sadness breathe — is inherited from Miyazaki's understanding of how to make children's films that don't insult the viewer's capacity for feeling. Unkrich documented this influence in 2010 interviews. My Neighbor Totoro is available on Criterion Channel.
We watched a ton of prison break movies. We watched everything from The Great Escape to Cool Hand Luke, all the obvious ones. Even some not so obvious ones like a French film called A Man Escaped by Robert Bresson.
— Lee Unkrich · Collider - Lee Unkrich Toy Story 3 Interview
Films with Similar Themes
friendship · loyalty · growing up · redemption · escape
