Inside Out 2 is an American computer-animated film and the sequel to Inside Out. As the second film installment in the franchise of the same name, it was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios.

It is Pixar's 28th animated feature, and was theatrically released on June 14, 2024.

Inside Out 2 returns to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who've long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren't sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up and it looks like she's not alone.

Riley's emotions are happily tending to her during a hockey game and preparing the now teenager for high school. As they work in tandem, the emotions have overseen the creation of a sub-basement in Headquarters called the "Sense of Self" where they place the memories that help build Riley's character. This results in the creation of strands that voice Riley's inner self; "I'm a good person". Joy has also built a pipe that shoots out terrible memories they want to forget to the "back of the mind". Riley wants to try out for her high school's hockey team, the Fire Hawks, and the emotions make sure that Riley feels her best self.

In the middle of the night, the emotions are awoken by the sound of the puberty alarm. Headquarters is suddenly swarmed with workers who take apart the place and make additions to the control board. They leave without finishing but inform them of new people coming in. The emotions quickly learn that their effects on Riley are much more unstable, with her overreacting over minute details. Riley prepares to go to hockey camp with her friends Grace and Bree. She gets excited when she voices the prospect of them making the Fire Hawks together, but Grace reveals that she and Bree are actually going to another high school, much to Riley's worry.

Upon arriving at camp, the emotions are shocked to be greeted by Anxiety, a new emotion who constantly concerns herself with the worst-case scenario in Riley's future. They also meet Envy, who is constantly jealous and amused at the other's traits, Embarrassment, who rarely speaks to the others, Ennui, who chills out on her couch and alters the control board with her phone, and Nostalgia, who constantly reflects on the past, but remains downstairs throughout the majority of the film.

Riley runs into her idol, Valentina "Val" Ortiz, who became a Fire Hawk during her freshman year. Anxiety and Envy ensure that Riley comes off as assured in front of Val, though they manage to make it incredibly awkward. When Riley struggles with either going with Val or her friends, Anxiety forces Riley to ignore her Sense of Self. While in the locker room, Joy gets Riley to goof off with Grace and Bree. However, Coach Roberts catches them and orders everyone to give up their phones and has them do exercises, making Riley embarrassed.

Anxiety continues to push Riley to look cool in front of Val and ignore Grace and Bree. To accomplish this, she takes her Sense of Self and launches it to the back of the mind. Anxiety tells Joy that she needs to reinvent Riley for the future and has Embarrassment literally bottle up Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear and send them all the way back to the vault along with Riley's other hidden beliefs and emotions. In the meantime, Anxiety gets Riley to get back on Val's good side and motivates her to practice extra hard and to look good in front of her and Coach Roberts.

While in the vault, the emotions meet Bloofy and Pouchy, characters from a preschool cartoon show that Riley still likes, Lance Slashblade, a video game character that Riley and Disgust have a crush on, and Deep Dark Secret, a large being that hides Riley's most terrible secret. Deep Dark Secret breaks them out of their bottle while Pouchy produces a stick of dynamite to help them get out. Lance manages to defeat the security guards (by rolling into a ball and inadvertently knocking them into each other) and the emotions escape. They find the stream of consciousness and plan to find Riley's Sense of Self at the back of the mind. Joy convinces Sadness to return to Headquarters to recall them there through Joy's pipe at the right time.

Anxiety continues to cause Riley to alienate her friends in favor of Val and her group. During this time, she has her sarcastically quip about a band she likes, has her eating a protein bar that tastes like cardboard, asparagus, and broccoli, and pushes her to overwork herself, making her act out constantly. Joy, Anger, Disgust, and Fear's journey to the back of Riley's mind is blocked off by the Sar-chasm, forcing them to go a long way around through the aisles of Riley's long-term memory.

After Fear, Disgust, and Anger voice their frustration with their predicament, Joy snaps and admits that she does not know what to do and feels hopeless and pushed to her limit over constantly having an upbeat attitude. The others apologize and proceed to venture further. Back at Headquarters, Sadness has holed herself up in a corner, trying to read through the manuals for an answer. She is found out by Embarrassment, but since he begins to have second thoughts about Anxiety's plan, he keeps quiet about her presence. Meanwhile, Joy, Anger, Fear, and Disgust eventually get to Imagination Land but find that everything is being rearranged, save for "Mount Crushmore". They find that the massive pillow fort has been converted into a studio, which creates projections for Riley. The emotions convince the workers to envision positive ideas for Riley. While this causes Riley to be put at ease, this upsets Anxiety as she finds them unrealistic. The workers start ignoring Anxiety, and the emotions flee from security.

The emotions run into a parade of future jobs and get onto a balloon of Riley as a judge and fly away. Anxiety has Riley get out of bed and head to Coach Roberts' office to see how well she is doing at camp. Sadness manages to steal Ennui's phone to prevent her from going through with it, but she is found out and captured. The emotions discover that Riley is "not ready yet", causing Anxiety to decide to pull ideas, portrayed as light bulbs. They call upon several, causing a brainstorm to form and hindering Joy, Disgust, Anger, and Fear's adventure. They escape the storm, but a giant light bulb is sent to Headquarters.

Anxiety suggested completely devoting themselves to making themselves look better than everyone else. Riley's new Sense of Self forms, created entirely by Anxiety's emotions, and now utters, "I'm not good enough." However, Anxiety nervously insists that it will go away eventually, which becomes concerning to the other emotions.

Joy, Disgust, Anger, and Fear finally reach the back of the mind and climb the mountain of abandoned memories. They find the Sense of Self and contact Sadness, who managed to escape thanks to Embarrassment. She is too late to save the other emotions as Anxiety tears apart the pipe back. Joy breaks down again as she cannot find out how to save Riley, who has grown into a self-conscious, self-hating individual. Anger calls upon Pouchy, who gives them a lot of dynamite to ride a flood of memories back to Headquarters.

During her hockey game, Riley accidentally bumps into Grace and is sidelined, causing her to have an anxiety attack caused by Anxiety rapidly attempting to fix Riley and creating a windstorm in Headquarters. Sadness, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy try to remove the new Sense of Self but aren't able to, due to Anxiety still in control of the console. The rest of the emotions return with the memories imbuing themselves into Riley's Sense of Self threads. As they make it back to the top, Joy reaches out to Anxiety, saying that she doesn't get to choose who Riley is so she can have a better future and that everything will be okay, and that she needs to let Riley go, freeing her from her own anxiety and allowing the other emotions to remove the new Sense of Self successfully.

Joy places the original Sense of Self on the pedestal, but the storm persists. After a remorseful Anxiety apologizes to Joy for what she's done and admits she can't determine who Riley is, Joy realizes that launching her mistakes to the back of her mind limited Riley's worldview. She removes the Sense of Self and allows the flood of memories to create a new one, making Riley complex and emotional but also help her understand that her mistakes also make her better person. Grace and Bree check on Riley, who admits she was upset over them going to different high schools and wanted to prove herself to make up for it. She apologizes for how she behaved, while she's still hurt Grace and Bree forgive her, promising that they will always be friends. The control panel willingly calls Joy to make Riley happy now that she is better, Riley continues to play and does so with a smile.

Riley continues warming up with Val and the rest of the Fire Hawks while keeping tabs on Grace and Bree. Anxiety now has a corner for herself so that she can relax but still makes sure they plan for the future. Embarrassment becomes more open, though he is still shy. The rest of the Emotions embrace their expanding family, though Nostalgia still remains in the basement. Riley, now having an ever-changing Sense of Self, continues to live her life as she gets a text about her possible Fire Hawks recruitment. She opens it and smiles.

In the mid credits scene, Riley's parents ask her how hockey camp went. The emotions grow worried, but Ennui simply has her say it was alright. Mom's emotions start to wonder what Riley meant by that, and then Mom's Anxiety appears when she looks at Riley's red locks and wonders if she made a band. Mom's Sadness welcomes Mom's Anxiety back to Headquarters while Dad's Anxiety appears and wonders the same thing that Mom's Anger wondered. Dad's emotions affirm that it's exactly what Riley said. They go back to watching the game.

In the after credits scene, Joy lets Deep Dark Secret out and asks what his secret is. He admits that Riley was the one who burnt the hole in the rug, and Joy admits that she thought it was when she peed in the pool. This causes Deep Dark Secret to lock himself in the vault again.

Main article: Inside Out 2 (soundtrack)

On March 7, 2024, with the release of the second trailer and poster, it was revealed that Andrea Datzman had composed the film's score, taking over for Michael Giacchino.

Inside Out 2 was released in theaters across the United States on June 14, 2024. The teaser trailer to the film was released on November 9, 2023, hinting that new emotions would be coming to Riley's mind.^[1] Following the teaser, the official trailer was released on March 7, 2024. Almost a week and a half before the film's release, a final trailer was unveiled on June 4, 2024.

Main article: Inside Out 2 (video)

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on digital platforms on August 20, 2024 while the physical was released on September 10, 2024 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 305 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Spicing things up with the wrinkle of teenage angst, Inside Out 2 clears the head and warms the heart by living up to its predecessor's emotional intelligence."^[2] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100, based on 59 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[3]

Despite the positive reviews, many viewers have stated how it is "not a kid's movie" most stated the film itself made them anxious. In addition, not only did it feel like a repeat of the first movie but it also felt like Turning Red all over again, another coming of age movie.

This is the first Pixar film to not have Disney's 100th anniversary logo since Lightyear, as it is the first Pixar film to have the post-100th anniversary version of the 2022 Disney logo.

This film marks the first Pixar project to use a combination of traditional animation and computer animation since Day & Night.

This is the third theatrical Pixar film not to be accompanied by a short film at the beginning. The first two being Toy Story 4 and Lightyear.

This is the second Pixar film where the sound effects of Luxo, Jr. bouncing on the I in the Pixar logo aren't heard at the beginning; music is heard instead. The first being Lightyear.

This is the second Pixar film to have A113 appear as Roman numerals (ACXIII), after Brave.

This is the second Pixar film to have a female main antagonist reform at the end after Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4.

Kelley Voss, who worked on the film, is the wife to Eric Voss who works on the YouTube channel New Rockstars. Their son is listed in the credits as a "production baby".^[9]

On the official poster for the film, Sadness is seen holding a "Yay!" flag. This flag made a singular cameo during Riley's hockey match at the start.

Jokes involving the French language are changed in the European and Canadian French dubs, such as the line, "Nicknames! I'm gonna call you 'Wee-Wee.'" to "Tu connais l'expression « L'ennui porte conseil ? »" (You know the expression "Boredom brings advice?").^[10]

As part of the film's release, several Disney's games celebrated with new playable characters from this franchise and released special events: Inside Out: Thought Bubbles, Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, Disney Speedstorm, and Disney Dreamlight Valley.

This film reveals that Anxiety, Ennui, Envy, Embarrassment, and Nostalgia are "secondary" emotions, as Riley's parents' counterpart of Anxiety comes out from behind a curtain while Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust remain the main ones in control.

Riley's jersey number at the start of the film is 28 to represent Inside Out 2 being Pixar's 28th animated film and her other jersey number is 15 to represent the first Inside Out film being Pixar's 15th animated film. It represents 2015, the year the first film was released.

For the second time, Joy and Sadness get sent away from Headquarters. Only this time, Anger, Disgust, and Fear are also sent away along with the two.

This is the second Pixar film in the 2020s to not be an original one, preceded by Lightyear.

This is currently the highest-grossing Pixar film in the studio's history, both domestically and internationally.^[11] This is also the highest-grossing non-original Pixar film in those same cases.

• Interestingly, this greatly contrasts Lightyear, which is currently the studio's lowest-grossing non-original Pixar film, both domestically and internationally speaking. Coincidentally enough, both films are from the 2020s.
• As in 2025, it is the last film where Disney holds the “highest grossing animated feature film” steak since Toy Story 3 in 2010 (succeeded by Frozen in 2013, The Lion King in 2019, then this film in 2024), as the Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 breaks the steak that surpasses this film and becomes the highest grossing animated film in February 2025.

This is the first Pixar film to be distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment on physical media in the United States and Canada after Disney shifted their physical media distribution to that division.

This is the first Pixar film in the 2020s to not introduce any confirmed son, something that other Pixar films in this decade prior to this one did.

• Ironically, the interquel series Dream Productions, which was released in the same year as this film did, introduces Xeni, the son of an unnamed father who is also Jean Dewberry's brother.

This is the sixth Pixar film where there is no lyrical song that was originally provided for its soundtrack. While the "TripleDent Gum" jingle was briefly heard, it technically came from the first film (much like how "You've Got a Friend in Me" technically originated in the first Toy Story film).