A fan of hand-drawn animation since his early childhood, John Lassater made a mark on the film industry with his Oscar-award-winning work on Tin Toy (1988) and Toy Story (1995).
Lassater, who currently serves as the head of animation at Skydance Animation, previously served as a chief creative officer at Pixar Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios. Over his illustrious career, he’s produced more than a hundred projects, including Frozen (2013), Zootopia (2016), Finding Dory (2016), and many more, each grossing over $1 billion.
Lassater has had seven Academy Award nominations in several categories, including Best Animation Short Film, Best Writing, and Best Animated Feature.
Wall-E
Wall-E is a sci-fi animated film by John Lasseter. The film presents the last robot on Earth, called Wall-E, short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class. This garbage-collecting robot has stayed on the abandoned Earth for over 700 years until a spaceship returns to Earth and drops a robot, Eve, to search for the last living plant. Wall-E gives the plant to Eve due to his love for her. After receiving the plant, Eve goes into sleep mode, but Wall-E refuses to leave her side even when the spaceship comes to collect her back. The film then follows Wall-E’s adventures in a spaceship named Axiom.
Tangled
John Lasseter creates a magical adventure for Disney fans in the movie Tangled. The film is about a young girl named Rapunzel who has extraordinarily long hair.
The story of Tangled starts when the queen of the kingdom falls ill and orders the guards to bring her the magical flower that can restore her health. After drinking from the flower, the Queen gives birth to Rapunzel. The power of the magical flower is transferred to Rapunzel’s hair.
A cunning witch discovers the magical powers in Rapunzel’s hair and takes her away to raise her as her own in a tower far away from the kingdom.
Many years later, a prince stumbles upon the tower where Rapunzel has been locked for 18 years, and they both plan her escape.
Ratatouille
Ratatouille is an Academy Award-winning John Lasseter movie about a rat named Remy who loves food and cooking. Remy befriends a young boy named Linguini to get access to a kitchen to follow his passion for cooking.
Remy the rat has always loved food and dreamed of being a French chef despite knowing the rodent-phobic aspect of the profession. Consistently inspired by his culinary idol, Auguste Gusteau, he falls inside the kitchen of Gusteau’s Restaurant while looking over it from the opened window in the ceiling.
Linguini is ordered to kill Remy as he is the one to capture him, but he fails to do so; hence, they come to a truce by letting Remy control his movements in the kitchen and having him enjoy the position of being a chef. However, this little secret leads to big trouble.
Howl’s Moving Castle
Howl’s Moving Castle is a 2004 Japanese animated film co-produced by Hayao Miyazaki and John Lasseter. This fantasy film presents a young girl, Sophie, the eldest of her sisters, who is running her father’s hat shop when he dies and left a debt behind for her to cover.
She creates a hat for a witch who is displeased by the hat and casts a spell on Sophie. Embarrassed by her appearance due to the curse, Sophie runs away and comes across Wizard Howl’s moving castle. The movie is based on a novel of the same name by English author Diana Wynne Jones.
Coco
Coco is a 2017 computer-animated film by John Lasseter that follows the story of a young boy, Miguel, who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead because he steals a guitar from Ernesto Dela Cruz’s grave, who he believes is not only a great musician but his grandfather.
To get a blessing to return home before sunrise, Miguel travels to the Land of the Dead with Hector, a deceased songwriter, where they sing and dance and are confronted with the truth about their families.