Finding Nemo (G, 2003)

Marlin (Albert Brooks) is a fond but nervous and overprotective clown fish. A predator ate his wife and all but one of their eggs. When it's time for Marlin's surviving son, Nemo (Alexander Gould), to start school, the little guy is excited but Marlin is terrified. Nemo has an underdeveloped fin. Marlin has done a good job of making Nemo feel confident and unselfconscious. But Marlin is overprotective, which makes Nemo anxious to prove he can take care of himself. On his first day of school, Nemo swims too far and is captured by a deep-sea-diving dentist who collects fish for his aquarium. On a journey that will introduce him to extraordinary characters and teach him a great deal about the world and even more about himself, Marlin must go literally to the end of the ocean to find his son and bring him home. On the way he meets Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a cheerful blue tang who has a problem with short-term memory loss. They search for Nemo together, in the face of stinging jellyfish, exploding mines, and creatures with many, many, teeth. Meanwhile, Nemo has made some very good friends in the dentist's aquarium, including a tough tiger fish (Willem Dafoe) who helps him plan an escape.

Pixar Studios may have the most advanced animation technology in the world, but they never forget that what matters in a movie is story, characters, imagination, and heart. FINDING NEMO has it all. This epic journey filled with adventure and discovery encompasses the grandest sweep of ocean vastness and the smallest longing of the heart. The movie is a visual feast. The play of light on the water is breathtaking. While preserving the characters' essential "fishy-ness," Pixar and the talented people providing the voices have also made them each wonderfully expressive, and it seems only fair to say that they create performances as full and varied as have ever been on screen.There are some scary moments in this movie, including the off-screen death of Marlin's wife and future children. It's handled very discreetly, but still might be upsetting to some viewers. There are terrifying-looking creatures, but one of the movie's best jokes is that even the sharks are so friendly that in an AA-style program, they keep reminding one another that "fish are friends, not food."

There really are no bad guys in this movie -- the danger comes from a child's thoughtlessness and from natural perils. There are no angry, jealous, greedy, or murderous villains as in most traditional Disney animated films. Another strength of the movie is the way it handles Nemo's disability. But best of all is the way it addresses questions that are at the heart of the parent-child relationship, giving everyone in the audience something to relate to and learn from.