Lou

Lou (2017) is a Pixar animated short directed by Dave Mullins — watch online on iFILM. Six minutes, no dialogue, and a creature built entirely from lost-and-found items that somehow ends up being the most emotionally clear-eyed thing Pixar released that year.

Every day a boy named JJ steals toys from the other kids on the playground and stuffs them into his backpack. Lou — an animated tangle of scarves, balls, and forgotten belongings living inside the lost-and-found box — watches and decides enough is enough. When the playground clears, it moves in.

The short ran before Cars 3 and picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film. What Mullins pulls off without a single spoken word — explaining why a bully is a bully — is the kind of storytelling that makes the full Pixar features look like they're still trying to catch up. Stream Lou (2017) online on iFILM.