Film

Soul

Name: Soul
Genre: Animation, Family, Drama, Music, Fantasy
Released: 2020
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga

Pixar's most philosophically ambitious swing: a jazz pianist's near-death detour becomes a meditation on purpose, passion, and what actually makes a life worth living. It's gorgeous — the afterlife rendered as calming minimalist limbo, Earth as warm, grainy, lived-in New York. Funny and melancholy in equal measure, technically a kids' film that mostly works on grown-ups.

TMDb rating

8.1

If you liked this

Coco2017

Pixar's other great afterlife film, trading jazz clubs for a vivid, loving vision of Día de los Muertos — same ache about legacy, memory, and what you leave behind, wrapped in gorgeous music.

But If you found Soul's whimsy-with-teeth wearing, Coco doubles down on sentiment and might tip you into full tears.

Inside Out2015

Pixar's other great internal-world experiment, turning emotions into characters the way Soul turns souls into bureaucrats. Same studio brain, same trick of making abstraction feel intimate and funny.

But The metaphor is aimed a little younger and more literally at childhood; less existential dread, more coming-of-age.

Whiplash2014

The bruising, live-action flip side of Joe's jazz devotion — obsession without the cosmic safety net, showing how brutal chasing a spark can actually be.

But There's no cosmic reassurance here at all; it's tense, punishing, and offers none of Soul's warmth.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Matter of Life and Death1946

Soul's afterlife-as-bureaucracy and its two visual registers — muted limbo versus saturated life — are a direct descendant of this Powell & Pressburger fantasy, where a dying RAF pilot argues his case before a celestial court in monochrome while Earth blazes in Technicolor.

A dazzlingly inventive vision of the afterlife as paperwork and courtroom drama, decades before Soul's Great Before, with visual wit that still startles today.

But It's a 1946 British film with theatrical dialogue and stagey pacing; expect stiff upper lips, not Pixar's warmth.

Up2009

Pixar's earlier gut-punch about grief, purpose, and an old man learning that a life well-lived isn't the one you planned. Same emotional intelligence, different decade.

But The famous opening might be more devastating than anything in Soul, and the back half turns into a more conventional adventure.

La La Land2016

Another jazz-drenched meditation on dreams, compromise, and whether art and a "normal" life can coexist — just sung instead of animated.

But It's a musical through and through, and its ending trades Soul's hopeful ambiguity for something more bittersweet and final.

Ratatouille2007

Pixar's cleanest statement on finding your one true passion and pursuing it against every practical objection — Joe Gardner with a rat instead of a piano.

But It skips the existential machinery entirely; this is a simpler, sunnier story about talent and belonging.

The Book of Life2014

A different studio's stab at afterlife mythology — brighter, more folkloric, drawing on Mexican tradition to ask similar questions about how we're remembered.

But The animation and humor are broader and more kid-pitched; it lacks Soul's melancholy undertow.

Encanto2021

Swaps souls for family gifts, but the question is the same — what happens when your worth gets tied to one talent, and what's left of you without it.

But It's a full-blown musical with a much bigger, louder emotional register; less contemplative, more anthem.

WALL·E2008

Pixar at its most philosophical elsewhere in the catalogue — a nearly wordless meditation on purpose and connection, just wearing a sci-fi costume instead of jazz.

But It's a slower, stranger watch with barely any dialogue for its first half; less immediately accessible.

Buena Vista Social Club1999

Where Soul imagines a soul rediscovering jazz's spark, this documentary shows the real thing — aging Cuban musicians reunited late in life, playing with the same hunger Joe Gardner chases for an entire film.

Real musicians, real joy, real music — watching people in their seventies and eighties rediscover their gift is as moving as anything animated could stage.

But There's no plot or fantasy here, just performance and interviews; if you need narrative momentum, this will feel slow.

Wristcutters: A Love Story2007no page yet

Same premise — bureaucratic afterlife, a mismatched pair navigating it, big questions about whether life is worth living — but shot as a deadpan indie comedy for adults instead of a family film.

A scrappy, funny, oddly tender indie about limbo (literally, for suicides) that asks Soul's "is this all there is" question with way more deadpan and way less padding.

But Its subject matter is genuinely dark underneath the quirky comedy, and the tone is far drier and stranger than Pixar's polish.