***SPOILERS***

Please continue pre-release discussion here

Movie
Elio (2025) (Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaņa, Remy Edgerly)

Studio
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios

Release Date
June 20, 2025

Rating
PG

Runtime
1h 39 min

Box Office
Opening weekend:
- million domestic
- million worldwide

Box Office Mojo

Synopsis

Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination, finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be.

IMDB
IMDB 7.2, 994 votes as of 6/20/25

Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes 86% Critics, - Audience as of 6/20/25

Metacritic
Metacritic Score 66 Generally Favorable as of 6/20/25

Trailer:

Poster



Merchandising

Well, I just got back from seeing it and surprisingly I really liked it. The advertising for this was honestly kind of lackluster.

But, this movie had a lot of charm and heart. It reminded a lot of some 80s science fiction family movies like Explorers, The Last Starfighter and maybe a little ET. Glordan and Elio were a great pairing and had a lot of cute and funny moments.

If you have young kids, this is worth taking them to see it. There were a lot of young kids and their parents at my show and the reaction seemed very positive. It got a big round of applause when the credits rolled.

There is a mid credits scene that is kind of cute, but not a mandatory watch.

If you’re curious about Elio’s eye patch, it’s explained in the movie. Not really a big deal.

Saw it yesterday with the kids. I'll be honest I dozed off in the middle of the movie, but that's probably more because of lack of sleep. It is charming especially as DJariya said if you have nostalgia for that 80s era of Nasa space exploration and movies like Space Camp and Explorers, but man is it predictable and even nonsensical at times in the plot. I also thought the human designs were pretty bland. I know why they gave Elio the eyepatch for storyline reasons but man if not for that he's a pretty generic looking kid as well.

Even as predictable as it can be I'm still a sucker for these kinds of family movies and it's not like they don't do a good job pulling on heartstrings. I'm sure it also hits well with people who suffer or have suffered from loneliness and loss.

I don't know why they used the same Carl Sagan quote twice. You'd think it would be more effective just being used once. Also love the reference to ALF, I'm sure there are lots of little things to look out for (if you stay awake)

There is a mid credits scene and then a small end credits scene that is basically an ad for the next Pixar movie.

My eldest, who loves animation, thought that KPop Demon Hunters, which we just watched the day before, was much much better. Completely different movies of course but man that's not a good thing to hear comparing it to a Pixar movie (even if Kpop is really good)

I had this exact experience yesterday. Went to see Elio at a matinee and was almost completely bored. A very bland piece of generic kiddie entertainment. It does have a promising start, but then its ideas and its character designs and its jokes settle into a corporate sameness that I can't believe came out of Pixar. Later in the evening I watched KPop Demon Hunters, and although the subject matter wasn't my cup o' tea, it had the energy and innovation that Pixar USED to have. This Sony stuff is the future, man.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...&utm_id=618150

THR wrote a write up with some anonymous sources on the disaster that was Elio's production.

Went way over budget. Production budget reportedly ballooned to almost $200M.

The original cut that was practically done was scrapped because test audiences said they liked it, but wouldn't see it in the theater. Pixar freaked out.

They hired new directors for the new version. The original director left.

The original cut had LGBTQ themes that made Pixar nervous, so that was changed.

A key actor left due to constant script. changes.

I thought the movie was great. I couldn't tell they had productions issues because to me it seemed to have a consistent theme and story which usually doesn't survive such drastic changes.

It was Pixar's love letter to science fiction. Filled with much more heart and soul than Disney's own Strange World. I thought the set up was great, even though they did take they typical Disney shortcut of killing off the main protagonists parents, it still quick tracks the relationship between Elio and his aunt. the struggle between them was realistic and palpable. I really liked that the Aunt was able to tell that it wasn't Elio. Because the movie set it up as if she was much happier with him than the real Elio. I wish they had fleshed out the other aliens a little more but they did a excellent job of portraying the world of the aliens. I thought the Glordon was great and loved the buddy dynamic. The subplot with Glordon and his dad was well done too and continued the theme of expectations for children and their parents.

I thought the movie was absolutely gorgeous. Like a lot of Pixar movies you could take a screenshot of many scenes and hang it on your wall as art. What I think is amazing is the different levels of detail that Pixar puts in their movies now. For instance Glordon the worm has hair as does Elio. It's such a small detail but on close ups like when the two are hugging it provides a level of detail that I feel, really makes the scene seem more tangible.

I think it's really unfortunate that Disney will likely learn the wrong lessons from this movie. And I really chide anyone that constantly complains about Disney only churning out sequels and remakes but didn't go out and support an wholly original and well done movie like Elio. It's really a shame but we vote with our dollars and those dollars scream sequels and remakes and comic book movies. If you're a Disney fan, or an animation fan, and don't go out and support movies like this then you're part of the problem.

Elio wears an eye patch in this movie. My daughter has a lazy eye and also wears an eye patch everyday. When I pointed this out to her, she was not amused. Her response was something along the lines of "Thanks Dad for reminding me that I have to wear an eye patch. The last thing I want to do is watch a movie that reminds me that I have to wear this stupid thing. Representation is lame and this movie can go f itself." I'm paraphrasing here, but that was the sentiment. I guess the point is that I don't think we'll be seeing this anytime soon.

Elio had to wear an eye patch in this movie because he was bullied and suffered an eye injury. Eventually it gets taken off.

Was Brave the first real public display of dysfunction on a Pixar film? I remember a film called Newt was cancelled earlier, but that was before it ever entered production.(I liked Brave by the way) But yeah, this story checks out, it just looked like Strange World all over again, with the same suggestive themes. Animated films have the disadvantage of not being able to turn on a dime, so these were stuck with the overdone themes they were originally pitched as.

I got a lot of the same vibes as others mentioned on here. Explorers, Last Starfighter, Space Camp, E.T., and I'll add Flight of the Navigator. If you like that era of kids/family sci-fi films, you'll love this one. My kids enjoyed it.

I think the theme of feeling alone didn't quite carry the film. And I thought the climactic sequence of dodging space debris fell flat. But the film was still well-done and mostly worked, especially considering reported production troubles. It's one of the better, recent non-sequel Pixar efforts.

It does look similar but it's totally different than Strange World. Strange World was one big uninspired mess. Despite the fantastical world it was set in it totally fell flat and was unforgettable. Elio is much better.

I think they nailed it. And you can tell the production folks have a love of scifi. It's evocative of the best of the genre like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I'll also mention that I think the soundtrack was really well done. I'm not familiar with Rob Simonsen's work. I've watched a lot of the movies he's composed; The Whale, Deadpool & Wolverine, Ghostbuster's Frozen Empire. But none of those really stood out.

Right, and there's a part in the plot for the eyepatch as well.

I do think the space/NASA nostalgia in this movie is great, but I can completely understand if that was part of the original vision and the rest of it was kind of hacked together. That and the parental relationships (and the alien designs) really carried the movie but otherwise the beats were, let's say, more ordinary than I would have thought.

I'm not even sure where the LGBTQ themes would have come in, unless there was a love interest for the aunt or something.

Thumbs Up

I wasn't joking about the eyepatch thing (why he was wearing it was not the point), but I was able to convince my daughter to go see this today. It did take some serious convincing though. Both kids said they liked it, and I thought it was solid, but it's far from upper tier Pixar. Definitely better than Elemental (their last original) though.

I agree with the post above on the space debris set-piece. It felt really undercooked and was the only part of the movie that immediately jumped out to me as possibly compromised by the reworking of the movie. But on the whole it was sweet and I laughed enough. Probably not going to get a lot of revisits, but a perfectly pleasant trip to the movies.