This month sees the release of Pixar's fourteenth feature film Monsters University and it finds Pixar at quite possible the most important junction since their conception. They recently have come under a lot of criticism for going a bit overboard with the sequels and prequels to their original movies, plus their most recent output hasn't exactly been up the snuff compared to the golden run they had less than a decade ago.

Just this last week, Pixar head honcho Ed Catmull let us know that they are also thinking what we are thinking, with the following statement: "For artistic reasons … it's really important that we do an original film a year. Every once in a while, we get a film where we want or people want to see something continuing in that world - which is the rationale behind the sequel. They want those characters, which means we were successful with them. But if you keep doing that, then you aren't doing original films. We're going to have an original film every year, then every other year have a sequel to something. That's the rough idea."

In light of this, we've decided to have a look back over the cinematic history of Pixar's output, have a look into what might have been, and a look forward at what they've got coming up next.

TOY STORY (1995)
Budget: $30 million
Worldwide Box Office: $362 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: This is where it all began, and evidence of Pixar's greatness is already all too visible. The plot isn't exactly rocket science - stuff you didn't know was alive is actually totally alive when you're not looking - but the spot on voice acting, the fantastic characters, the perfect mix of humour and pathos… everything pushed the medium of animation into new directions. A warning shot of what was to come. Five Out Of Five.

A BUG'S LIFE (1998)
Budget: $120 million
Worldwide Box Office: $363 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: Why exactly this cost four times as much as Toy Story isn't clear, but the box office returns didn't quadruple in response. Not as good as Dreamworks' Antz, which was released around the same time, A Bug's Life is early evidence that Pixar hasn't ALWAYS been great. An absolutely fine film, in the most middling definition of the word. Three Out Of Five.

TOY STORY 2 (1999)
Budget: $90 million
Worldwide Box Office: $485 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: Upon release it was granted entry into the hollowed grounds of "sequels that are better than the originals", and while there are plenty who will continue to argue that point today, we'll be arguing that it is AS good, but not necessarily better. Still, as good as Toy Story is about as good as you can get, so… Five Out Of Five

MONSTERS INC. (2001)
Budget: $115 million
Worldwide Box Office: $563 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: There are so many new ideas to take on in this movie - monsters are real and live in their own universe, they break into ours to capture our screams which are used to power their city, but the monsters themselves are actually really nice - and they're melded together so fantastically that you hardly notice its genius. Also, Boo is a contender for the cutest animated character ever. Five Out Of Five

FINDING NEMO (2003)
Budget: $94 million
Worldwide Box Office: $921 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: Arguably this is Pixar's most beautiful movie, it also completely nails the father-son relationship with mega-laughs (thanks primarily to Pixar's funniest character to date, the Ellen Degeneres-voiced Dory) and ALL of the emotions. We defy you to watch this and not feel infinitely uplifted by its end. Five Out Of Five

THE INCREDIBLES (2004)
Budget: $92 million
Worldwide Box Office: $631 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: The closest that Pixar have ever come to making an action movie (can you imagine if Marvel let them loose with an adaptation??), The Incredibles plays like a mix of The Fantastic Four and Watchmen. Great visuals and explosive sequences, a killer score, hilarious screenplay, spot-on voice acting… what more do you want? Five Out Of Five
CARS (2006)
Budget: $120 million
Worldwide Box Office: $462 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: The first movie since they began to score less than 90% on the Rotten Tomatoes website, Cars was definitely a mis-step. The visuals were pretty great as per usual, and the voice cast was up to muster, but the story was just so very "meh". A race car that must learn to slow down and enjoy his life isn't exactly something kids can relate to. Three Out Of Five

RATATOUILLE (2007)
Budget: $150 million
Worldwide Box Office: $624 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: The story of a rat in Paris who longs to be a master chef, so teams up with an actual hapless chef in order to create something wonderful, this movie is actually an ode to artistry in general. The love of creating beyond all else, getting pleasure from the pleasure you see others get from your work, Ratatouille saw Pixar begin to wander into its most experimental phase of its filmography. Five Out Of Five

WALL-E (2008)
Budget: $180 million
Worldwide Box Office: $521 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: A robot living alone on an abandoned Earth that has been ruined by pollution. Almost entirely wordless for the first two thirds, this was Pixar really pushing the envelope in how far they could get away with in mainstream cinema. Turns out they can push it pretty far, as WALL-E was a risk that completely paid off. Five Out Of Five

UP (2009)
Budget: $190 million
Worldwide Box Office: $731 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: Yes, the opening sequence is possibly the most beautiful and emotional couple of minutes in modern cinema. Yes, the visual majesty of a house being carried off and away by thousands of balloons is fantastic. Yes, the characters are very funny and the voice acting is great. But it all kinda goes off the rails towards the end once the plane-flying dogs show up. Four Out Of Five

TOY STORY 3 (2010)
Budget: $200 million
Worldwide Box Office: $1.063 billion
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: Pixar's biggest commercial hit to date is also its darkest film to date. The trilogy capper of the Toy Story series goes to some pretty shady corners – the acceptance of death in the furnace room, for example - before the lovely, perfectly realised ending. Again, very funny, great voice cast, beautiful imagery. Five Out Of Five

CARS 2 (2011)
Budget: $200 million
Worldwide Box Office: $560 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 38%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: This was the first time the world realised that Pixar were not only capable of brilliance, as this forced sequel felt more like an elongated merchandising campaign than anything else. Not quite as bad as you may have heard, it is quite depressing to see just how mediocre it is compared to its recent run of genre-pushing excellence. Two Out Of Five

NEWT (2012)
Budget: N/A
Worldwide Box Office: N/A
Rotten Tomatoes Score: N/A
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: Don't worry that you've never heard of this movie, as it was due to be released in 2012, but got cancelled after it's plot – the last male of an about-to-be-extinct species of newt meets up with the last female, are expected to procreate, but they actually hate each other – was deemed too similar to Rio, released in 2011. Might've been another A Bug's Life VS Antz face-off, but we'll never know now.

BRAVE (2012)
Budget: $185 million
Worldwide Box Office: $554 million
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%
Entertainment.ie's Hindsight Review: After Cars 2 flopped (critically, it still made over half a billion in the box office, and enough to garner this year's Disney produced spin-off, Planes) and Newt was cancelled, it's nice to see Brave was a step in the right direction. But a step is all it was, as the moments of brilliance and lush visuals got mixed up with some pandering plot developments. Four Out Of Five

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY (2013)
Budget: $270 million
Worldwide Box Office: $301 million (and counting)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%
Entertainment.ie's Review: right HERE

THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2014)
Budget: N/A
Worldwide Box Office: N/A
Rotten Tomatoes Score: N/A
Entertainment.ie's Preview: Hypothesizing what might have happened if that asteroid had completely missed Earth and dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out, The Good Dinosaur finds the reptiles have developed to the point of becoming farmers. Sounds closer to the likes of Cars to us, but Pixar tackling dinosaurs is enough to have us interested.

INSIDE OUT (2015)
Budget: N/A
Worldwide Box Office: N/A
Rotten Tomatoes Score: N/A
Entertainment.ie's Preview: From the director of Up, this sounds like it could be Pixar's version of Inception. Taking place inside the mind of young girl, with her emotions as characters, it has been described as "unlike anything you've ever seen". Now this is the kind of thing we've come to expect from Pixar, and we are absolutely DYING to see it.

FINDING DORY (2015)
Budget: N/A
Worldwide Box Office: N/A
Rotten Tomatoes Score: N/A
Entertainment.ie's Preview: Director Andrew Stanton returns to animation after his foray into live action with John Carter didn't quite work out, and Finding Dory finds us one year after the events of Finding Nemo, with Dory and Marlin looking to reunite the forgetful fish with her long lost family. While more welcome a sequel than Cars or Monsters University, we're still not entirely sure this was necessary. On the other hand, more time with Dory can only be a good thing.

Further than that, Pixar have an untitled movie about Die de los Muertos (or the Day Of The Dead, for all you mono-linguals), plus there is talk of The Incredibles 2 (yay!) and Toy Story 4 (boo!). They have seven films lined up for release over the next five years, so here's hoping that Pixar don't become the cinematic equivalent of The Simpsons; once great, and not exactly terrible now, but should've quit while they were still ahead. Fingers crossed it doesn't come to that.