Elio

Elio is Pixar Animation Studios' 2025 science-fiction adventure, a cosmic coming-of-age story about a space-obsessed boy who finally gets the encounter with alien life he has always dreamed of, though not at all in the way he imagined. The project went through a notable creative evolution: originally developed and directed by Adrian Molina, the co-director of Coco, it was ultimately steered to the screen by directors Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian. Yonas Kibreab voices the title character, with Zoe Saldana as his aunt and guardian, Olga.

The story follows eleven-year-old Elio Solis, a lonely, imaginative orphan who is suddenly beamed up to the Communiverse, an interstellar body made up of representatives from civilizations across the galaxy. Mistaken for Earth's official ambassador, Elio is swept into a whirl of intergalactic diplomacy and danger, befriending a gentle alien named Glordon while trying to head off the belligerent warlord Lord Grigon. As he bluffs his way through the role of a lifetime, Elio slowly finds the sense of belonging that always eluded him back home.

A dazzling showcase for Pixar's latest lighting and design tools, Elio earned warm reviews for its animation and its heartfelt core, and audiences handed it a coveted A CinemaScore. Even so, it opened quietly and became one of Pixar's lower-grossing theatrical releases, before finding a much larger audience on streaming after its arrival on Disney+. Streaming on Disney+.