What Is the Metacritic Rating for Inside Out

The original Inside Out, released in 2015, holds a Metacritic critic score of 94 out of 100, placing it in the “universal acclaim” category based on 55 professional critic reviews.

This exceptionally high rating reflects the film’s critical success as a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent exploration of human psychology told through the eyes of emotions inside an eleven-year-old girl’s mind.

The film’s score of 94 stands as one of Pixar’s highest-rated films on the platform, a distinction that speaks to how critics responded to its originality and emotional depth.

Inside Out 2, released in 2024, received a Metacritic critic score of 73 out of 100, based on 59 professional critic reviews.

While this represents a significant drop from the original film’s 94, a score of 73 still falls within the “generally favorable reviews” category, with 90% of critics offering positive or mixed reviews and none offering outright negative assessments.

The comparison between these two scores reveals how the sequel, while well-received, did not quite capture the same level of critical enthusiasm that made the original a landmark animated film.

Table of Contents

• How Does Inside Out’s Metacritic Rating Compare to Other Pixar Films?
• Understanding What These Metacritic Scores Actually Mean
• The Gap Between Critic Scores and User Scores
• What Do Critics Value That Audiences May Overlook?
• Has Inside Out’s Rating Remained Stable Since 2015?
• How Do Other Rating Systems Evaluate Inside Out?
• What Does the Future Hold for the Inside Out Franchise?
• Conclusion

How Does Inside Out’s Metacritic Rating Compare to Other Pixar Films?

Inside Out’s 94 on metacritic places it among Pixar’s most celebrated works, comparable to films like Toy Story 3 (which scored 92) and WALL-E (which scored 95).

The original Inside Out achieved this rating by offering something relatively uncommon in mainstream animation: a film that treated emotional complexity with both humor and genuine psychological insight.

Critics widely praised the film’s ability to appeal to adults while remaining accessible to children, a balance that many films attempt but few achieve as successfully.

The 73 rating for Inside Out 2, while lower, doesn’t place it among Pixar’s weakest efforts. Films like Cars 2 (66) and A Bug’s Life (77, in the original 0-100 Metacritic scale) show that a 73 still represents solid critical reception. However, the drop from 94 to 73 represents a meaningful shift in critical perception.

Some reviewers questioned whether the sequel had enough new to say about Riley’s emotional life, while others felt it relied too heavily on the formula established by the first film without advancing it significantly.

Understanding What These Metacritic Scores Actually Mean

A Metacritic score represents an aggregation of professional critic reviews, weighted and normalized to a 0-100 scale. The 94 for Inside out means that the film achieved near-unanimous critical approval, a rarity in modern cinema.

Critics across different publications and perspectives—from major outlets to specialty reviewers—found the film worthy of recommendation.

This kind of score typically indicates that even critics who may have had minor reservations still found the film strong enough to recommend broadly.

The 73 for Inside Out 2 indicates what the platform calls “generally favorable reviews.” This is where important nuance emerges: a 73 is not a bad score by any reasonable standard, but it signals that not all critics found the film equally compelling.

Some saw it as a worthy continuation of the story, while others viewed it as retreading familiar ground.

The limitation of Metacritic scores is that they compress nuanced critical opinion into a single number—a critic who gave Inside Out 2 an 8 out of 10 (meaning “pretty good”) and a critic who gave it a 6 out of 10 (meaning “just okay”) both contribute to the aggregate, potentially obscuring where the actual critical conversation lies.

The Gap Between Critic Scores and User Scores

Inside Out 2 carries a user score of 7.6 out of 10 on Metacritic, based on 684 user ratings. This represents an interesting divergence from the critic score of 73 (which translates to roughly 7.3 on a 10-point scale).

The fact that general audiences rated the film slightly higher than critics suggests that regular moviegoers found it more satisfying than professional reviewers did.

This pattern has become increasingly common in recent years, as critics engage with films through the lens of originality, thematic depth, and artistic risk-taking, while audiences often prioritize entertainment value and emotional satisfaction.

For the original Inside Out, the user score was similarly strong, though the exact user rating is less often cited than the critic score, which dominated discussions of the film. The interesting comparison is that while the original film achieved rare critical consensus, Inside Out 2 saw critics and audiences diverge somewhat in their assessments.

This divergence is not unusual for sequels—audiences who loved the first film may have simply enjoyed seeing familiar characters and returning to that emotional world, while critics evaluated it more critically as a standalone work of cinema.

What Do Critics Value That Audiences May Overlook?

The 21-point drop from Inside Out to Inside Out 2 on Metacritic suggests that critics were evaluating the sequel by different standards than audiences. Critics often value originality, narrative innovation, and thematic advancement—metrics on which a sequel naturally struggles because much of the foundational work is already complete in the first film.

Inside Out in 2015 introduced audiences to a novel concept: that a film could dramatize the internal emotional landscape of a character. By 2024, this was no longer novel, which may explain why critics felt the second film needed to push further conceptually than it did.

Audiences, by contrast, often measure films by whether they deliver satisfying character moments, effective humor, and emotional payoffs. On these measures, Inside Out 2 largely succeeded, which explains the relatively higher user score. The tradeoff here is that critical acclaim and commercial appeal don’t always align.

A film can be original, ambitious, and critically successful (Inside Out) or entertaining, emotionally resonant, and moderately successful with critics (Inside Out 2). Understanding this distinction helps explain why the sequel didn’t receive universal acclaim even though most viewers who saw it enjoyed the experience.

Has Inside Out’s Rating Remained Stable Since 2015?

Metacritic scores are generally fixed once the initial critical window closes, though the site does occasionally update them if new significant reviews are added. Inside Out’s 94 has remained remarkably consistent since the film’s 2015 release, a testament to its enduring critical reputation.

The film has not undergone the kind of critical reevaluation that sometimes happens with older films—where critics revisit them years later and adjust their assessments. This stability suggests that the initial critical consensus around Inside Out was not based on temporary excitement but on genuine recognition of the film’s quality and innovation.

A warning worth noting: Metacritic’s methodology has evolved over time, and older films sometimes appear to have inflated scores compared to newer films evaluated under current standards. The 94 for Inside Out, achieved in 2015, reflects that era’s critical evaluation.

If the film were released today and evaluated fresh by contemporary critics, it’s possible the score might be slightly different, though the high quality would almost certainly still be recognized.

Similarly, Inside Out 2’s 73 may look different in historical perspective—some films initially considered merely “good” have been critically reassessed upward as audiences and critics have had more time to process them.

How Do Other Rating Systems Evaluate Inside Out?

While Metacritic provides one lens, other rating platforms tell complementary stories. IMDb, which aggregates user ratings, typically shows Inside Out (2015) with a score around 8.2-8.3 out of 10 based on hundreds of thousands of user votes.

Rotten Tomatoes shows Inside Out with a 98% Tomatometer score (critic consensus) and typically a high audience score in the 90s.

These platforms confirm what Metacritic suggests: the original Inside Out was exceptionally well-received both by critics and audiences. For Inside Out 2, Rotten Tomatoes shows a lower critic consensus than Metacritic suggests, with an 80% Tomatometer score, indicating that a smaller percentage of critics gave it a “fresh” review.

The IMDb user rating for Inside Out 2 is typically in the 7.9-8.0 range, slightly higher than its Metacritic user score but still suggesting that audiences found it solid but not quite as remarkable as the original.

The variation across platforms reminds us that no single rating system tells the complete story—each captures a different slice of critical and audience opinion.

What Does the Future Hold for the Inside Out Franchise?

The critical reception of Inside Out 2 raises questions about how Pixar might approach future entries in this franchise. A 73 on Metacritic is not a failure, but it’s not the kind of score that generates the same level of prestige or cultural conversation as a 94.

If Pixar develops an Inside Out 3, creative decisions will likely be influenced by the recognition that critics wanted more substantial innovation rather than incremental storytelling.

This could push future sequels toward riskier creative choices, or it could result in Pixar shifting focus to original properties that offer more novelty.

The Inside Out franchise’s Metacritic trajectory—from 94 to 73—reflects a broader pattern in animation where originals often outscore sequels, not because sequels are necessarily bad films, but because critical evaluation inherently rewards innovation more than execution.

Whether future Inside Out projects can achieve the kind of critical heights the original reached will depend on whether Pixar can find genuinely new emotional territory to explore within Riley’s developing psyche, or whether the diminishing returns visible in the sequel’s score will continue.

Conclusion

Inside Out’s Metacritic rating of 94 represents one of the highest critical assessments of any animated film in recent decades, reflecting universal acclaim from professional critics.

The original film’s score stands as a marker of genuine critical achievement, combining emotional sophistication with broad entertainment appeal in a way that resonated with nearly all who reviewed it.

In contrast, Inside Out 2’s 73 score indicates competent but less universally praised filmmaking, a sequel that satisfied most viewers but failed to generate the same critical excitement as its predecessor.

Understanding these scores requires recognizing what Metacritic captures and what it obscures. A 73 is not a bad score, and audiences who haven’t seen Inside Out 2 should not be discouraged from watching it; the fact that 90% of critics gave it positive or mixed reviews means most found it worth seeing.

However, the gap between 94 and 73 tells a meaningful story about how the franchise shifted from groundbreaking originality to accomplished but more conventional storytelling.

For film enthusiasts tracking how critics evaluate animated films and sequels, the Inside Out ratings serve as a compelling case study in how innovation and consistency trade against each other in critical assessment.

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