Cars turns 20 this year, and Broomfield families are about to feel it
If you've got a kid in the back seat of a minivan anywhere between Broomfield and Westminster this fall, there's a decent chance “Cars” is already in heavy rotation on a tablet somewhere. The film just marked its 20th anniversary with a September 17 re-release, which means a whole new wave of Colorado parents are about to discover what the rest of us already lived through two decades ago: a bright red race car named Lightning McQueen teaching patience to anyone who'll listen. With the weather finally turning here along the Front Range and families starting to think about indoor weekend plans again, a film built around slowing down and noticing the small towns you usually drive past feels oddly well timed for a region full of people who do a lot of driving themselves, whether that's up to the mountains or just along the Northwest Parkway.
The real story behind “Cars” isn't really about plot, it's about Pixar at a crossroads. By 2006 the studio had already delivered “Toy Story,” “Monsters, Inc.” and “Finding Nemo,” and expectations were sky high. John Lasseter, fresh off directing duties and reportedly drawing on his own love of American road trips and classic cars, pushed the studio toward something slower and more sentimental than its previous hits. It was a gamble. Pixar's earlier films moved fast and cracked jokes; “Cars” asked audiences, including plenty of kids expecting another “Finding Nemo,” to sit with nostalgia for Route 66 and the fading small towns bypassed by interstates. That's a lot to ask of a movie about talking vehicles, and it's part of why the film has always occupied a slightly different space in Pixar's catalog than its predecessors.
The premise is simple enough that it barely needs explaining: Lightning McQueen, a hotshot rookie race car voiced by Owen Wilson, gets stranded in the forgotten desert town of Radiator Springs on his way to a championship race. There he meets a cast of local vehicles, including Paul Newman's gravelly, world-weary Doc Hudson, and slowly learns that winning isn't everything. It's a classic fish-out-of-water structure wrapped in gorgeous, sun-baked desert animation that still holds up remarkably well twenty years later.
Here's where I'll be honest with you: “Cars” was never Pixar's best, and the numbers bear that out. Rotten Tomatoes has it sitting around 75%, which sounds respectable until you compare it to the near-perfect scores Pixar was racking up at the time. Metacritic lands lower still, at 73, suggesting that critics who write longer, more considered reviews were a bit cooler on it than the broader Tomatometer crowd. That's a real gap, and it tracks with how the film has always been received: audiences who love cars and nostalgia tend to adore it, while critics judging it against “Toy Story” or “Finding Nemo” found it slower, more sentimental, and less consistently funny than Pixar's peak work.
My own verdict, watching it again at twenty years out: it's a good movie, not a great one, and that's fine. The Doc Hudson material genuinely lands, Paul Newman brings a weight to the role that elevates every scene he's in, and the desert vistas remain some of the most beautiful backgrounds Pixar ever painted. But the middle act drags, the jokes aimed at parents are thinner than in other Pixar films, and Lightning's arc telegraphs itself early. I'd call it a solid 3.5 out of 5, a film worth revisiting with your kids this season but not one to go in expecting Pixar's A-game. If you've got little ones newly obsessed with the sequels and spinoffs, this is the one that started it all, flaws and all, and it's worth knowing exactly what you're getting before you press play.
Facts verified as of October 1, 2026.