Adrian Molina

Adrian Molina (born August 23, 1985) is an American animator, storyboard artist and screenwriter who works for Pixar. He co-wrote the screenplay and story of Coco (2017), which he also co-directed.

Early life and education

Molina was born in Yuba City, California to a Mexican family, and raised in Grass Valley. He graduated from Bear River High School in 2003, to subsequently attend and graduate from the California Institute of the Arts in 2007.

Career

Molina joined Pixar in 2007. He started as a 2D animator on Ratatouille. He later moved on to be a storyboard artist, working on Toy Story 3 and Monsters University. Molina also illustrated the Little Golden Book for Toy Story 3. After writing for The Good Dinosaur, Molina started his first assignment as a screenwriter, for Coco, and later went on to co-direct the film. He also wrote several lyrics for the film.

Following the success of Coco and the D23 Expo announcement in September 2022, Molina was announced to direct the upcoming feature film Elio, set to release on June 13, 2025. However in August 2024, it was announced that Molina had left Elio to work on another original film with Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian directing instead. Nevertheless, he is reportedly retaining his director credit because of the amount of work he directed that is being kept in the film.

Personal life

Molina is gay. He has been married to Ryan Dooley since 2011.

Filmography

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Executive Producer	Story Artist	Other	Notes
2007	Ratatouille	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Animator: End Titles
2010	Toy Story 3	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
2013	Monsters University	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Additional Screenplay Material Opening Title Designer and Director
2015	The Good Dinosaur	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Additional Screenplay Material
2017	Coco	Template:Partial	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Additional Voices, Songwriter
2019	Toy Story 4	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Pixar Senior Creative Team
2020	Onward	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
	Soul	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2021	Luca	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Additional Story Contributor Pixar Senior Creative Team
2022	Turning Red	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Partial	Template:No	Template:Yes	Pixar Senior Creative Team
	Lightyear	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2023	Elemental	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2024	Inside Out 2	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes
2025	Elio	Template:Yes	Template:TBA	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes

Accolades

Template:Sronly

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Film	Result	Template:Refh
Academy Awards	March 4, 2018	Best Animated Feature	Coco	Won
Annie Awards	February 3, 2018	Directing in an Animated Feature Production	Coco	Won
		Music in an Animated Feature Production	Coco	Won
		Writing in an Animated Feature Production	Coco	Won
Humanitas Prize	February 16, 2018	Feature – Family	Coco	Template:Nom
Imagen Awards	August 25, 2018	Best Director	Coco	Won

External links

• Template:IMDb name