🎬 Movie📚 Kids · Ages 7–10Animation

Ratatouille (2007)

Name: Ratatouille
Released: 2007

About This Movie

A rat named Remy with an extraordinary palate and a passion for haute cuisine ends up in the kitchen of a famous Parisian restaurant, where he secretly controls a clumsy young garbage boy named Linguini by pulling his hair like a marionette. The premise is absurd, the execution is exquisite, and the film's love of food, art, and Paris is so infectious that it has reportedly inspired more people to apply to culinary school than any actual cooking show. Brad Bird directs with the same precision and ambition he brought to The Incredibles, except here the action sequences involve saut pans instead of superpowers.

Why It's a Classic

Ratatouille is secretly one of the most radical films Pixar has ever made, because its central thesis, "anyone can cook," is not a feel good platitude but a genuine artistic argument that greatness can emerge from any origin if talent meets discipline and passion. Brad Bird structures the film as a debate about this idea, with Anton Ego, the fearsome critic voiced by Peter O'Toole, serving as the embodiment of gatekeeping and elitism until his final review dissolves those barriers in a speech that has become one of the most quoted passages in modern animation. The moment when Ego tastes Remy's ratatouille and is transported back to his mother's kitchen is a Proustian flash of sense memory rendered in a single, silent close-up that communicates more about the power of food than pages of dialogue could. Patton Oswalt's vocal performance gives Remy an artistic yearning that is completely convincing and never cute. The animation of food preparation throughout the film is so detailed and appetizing that Pixar consulted with Thomas Keller of The French Laundry to ensure accuracy. Michael Giacchino's Parisian score, all accordion and strings, wraps the film in warmth without ever tipping into caricature.

Fun Fact

Brad Bird took over directing duties from Jan Pinkava partway through production and rewrote the story substantially, keeping Pinkava's central concept of a rat who cooks but changing nearly everything else. The Pixar team spent a week at Thomas Keller's The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, studying every aspect of professional kitchen operations, and several animators took cooking classes to better understand how hands move while preparing food. The fictional restaurant Gusteau's was later recreated as an actual dining experience at Disneyland Paris, where guests eat in a replica of the film's kitchen.

Parent Note

This is one of the gentlest Pixar films in terms of content. There is some mild peril, a chase involving an elderly woman with a shotgun early in the film, and the tension of Remy nearly being discovered in the kitchen. A brief scene involves a will and the concept of death, handled lightly. The film's themes of following your passion and being judged for who you are rather than where you come from make it especially meaningful for children who feel like outsiders. Appropriate for kids around four and up.