If you’re seeing a listing for Inside Out 3 dated 2024, you’re looking at a glitch in the digital matrix. The movie everyone is actually talking about is the 2024 sequel that introduced Anxiety to the console. It’s a massive critical darling with a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s the second chapter, not the third.
The "Anxiety" Pivot
The 2024 film (the real one) is a pivot from the childhood wonder of the original to the internal demolition of puberty. It’s relatable—sometimes painfully so. If your kid is hitting those middle school years, the arrival of Anxiety and the "demolition" of the old headquarters is the specific hook that makes this version work.
While the first movie was about the necessity of sadness, the sequel is about the complexity of a growing ego. It’s a bit more frenetic than the original, which explains the high audience score (94%)—it moves fast, it’s funny, and it captures that specific brand of teenage overthinking. If your kid is prone to "spiraling," this movie gives you a vocabulary to talk about it without making it a big, heavy thing.
Why you're seeing "Part 3"
You can blame the YouTube algorithm and "concept trailers" for the confusion. There are dozens of fan-made trailers for a third installment that use AI-generated voices and clips from other movies to rack up millions of views. It’s enough to make any parent think they missed a theatrical window.
In reality, the franchise currently ends with Riley’s high school transition. If you’ve already looped that 2024 sequel on Disney Plus and are looking for what actually came out recently, you're better off looking at the 2025 slate. We've ranked the actual heavy hitters from last year—including Zootopia 2 and the new Wallace & Gromit—in our guide to the Best Family Movies of 2025: Top 20 Picks Ranked by Age.
If they liked the first two
If your kid is obsessed with the "core five" emotions and is begging for more, they might find the sequel's shift toward social anxiety a bit intense if they’re still on the younger side (closer to that age 6 rating). For the 10+ crowd, it’s a bullseye.
The friction here isn't about "bad" content; it’s about the shift in stakes. The first movie was about a move to a new city; the second is about the fear of not having friends. It’s a more sophisticated kind of stress, but since critics and audiences both rated it significantly higher than your average cash-grab sequel, it’s clearly a "ghost" movie worth chasing—under its real name.
