Cars

Cars is an animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, presented by Walt Disney Pictures, and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Its release date was June 9, 2006 in the U.S. and July 28, 2006 in the UK. This movie is the seventh Disney/Pixar feature film, and the final film under a contract with Disney created before the purchase of Pixar by Disney.

Directed by John Lasseter, who had previously directed other Pixar movies such as Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and A Bug's Life, the film is set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles. It features the voices of Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, John Ratzenberger, George Carlin, and Larry the Cable Guy. Many of the voices of the racecars are real race car drivers. They include Richard Petty, Mario Andretti, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Michael Schumacher. Notable cameos also included sports broadcaster Bob Costas as "Bob Cutlass," NASCAR broadcaster and former Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip as "Darrell Cartrip," Jay Leno as "Jay Limo", and Tom and Ray Magliozzi (hosts of NPR's weekly Car Talk) as Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze. The film was rated G by the MPAA. The film premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina.

Cars had a highly successful run during the 2006 awards season. Many Film Critic Associations such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006. Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from Rotten Tomatoes. Randy Newman and James Taylor received a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song (an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth). Cars was also selected as the Best Family Movie at the 2006 People's Choice Awards. Perhaps the most prestigious award that Cars received was the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature Annie Award.

However, Cars did not receive the inaugural British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for Best Animated Feature or the 2006 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Both of these awards went to Happy Feet. Cars' defeat at the Academy marked the first time since the award's inception that the winner of the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature did not go on to win the Academy Award, a big upset, since Cars was expected by most to win.