Emotions are at the forefront of every coming-of-age journey — real or frictional — and “Inside Out” takes that concept in a pretty literal direction. The 2015 movie centers on pre-teen Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) as she contends with the heightened emotions of a move and the typical highs and lows of general young angst. Pixar and other studios love to feature emotions in tangible and on-the-nose ways in animated films that particularly allow young audiences to grasp these often complicated concepts.
In “Inside Out,” the characters’ emotions run the show behind the scenes and duke it out for how they react to situations. While Riley’s emotions initially start out fairly simple with feelings like Joy and Anger, as she grows up and begins encountering more complex experiences, her emotions adapt and grow along with her — which brings us to “Inside Out 2.” Between movies like “Turning Red” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” here are seven animated coming-of-age movies like "Inside Out" with intense emotional arcs that often manifest in visual ways.
