Adrian Molina

Adrian Molina (born August 23, 1985) is an American animator, storyboard artist, screenwriter and director. He is best known for his works at Pixar, including co-writing and co-directing Coco (2017) and Elio (2025).

Adrian Molina
Molina at the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival
Born	(1985-08-23) August 23, 1985 (age 39) Yuba City, California, U.S.
Alma mater	California Institute of the Arts
Occupations	Screenwriter director storyboard artist animator
Years active	2006–present
Employer	Pixar Animation Studios (2007–present)
Spouse	Ryan Dooley ​ (m. 2011)​

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.^[1]

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.^[1] Molina also illustrated the Little Golden Book for Toy Story 3.^[2] After getting an additional screenplay material credit for both Monsters University and 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.^[1][3][4]

In 2022, he served as an associate executive producer on the Academy Award-nominated Turning Red.

Following the success of Coco and the D23 Expo announcement in September 2022, Molina was announced to direct the 2025 film Elio.^[5][6][7] However in August 2024, it was announced that Molina had left the project, with Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi taking over the storywriting and directorial duties instead.^[8] Nevertheless, he retained his director credit on the film due to his heavy amount of work that he made.^[9] Later reports suggested Molina left after studio demands for edits to remove LGBT-related content from the film.^[10]

In March 2025, during the Disney Shareholder Meeting, CEO Bob Iger announced that the sequel to Coco was in early development, with Molina returning from the original film.^[11]

Personal life

Molina is gay. He has been married to Ryan Dooley since 2011.^[12]

Filmography

Year	Title	Director	Screenwriter	Executive Producer	Story Artist	Other	Notes
2007	Ratatouille	No	No	No	No	Yes	Animator: End Titles
2010	Toy Story 3	No	No	No	Yes	No
2013	Monsters University	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Additional Screenplay Material Opening Title Designer and director
2015	The Good Dinosaur	No	No	No	No	Yes	Additional Screenplay Material
2017	Coco	Co-Director	Yes	No	No	Yes	Additional Voices, songwriter
2021	Luca	No	No	No	No	Yes	Additional Story Contributor
2022	Turning Red	No	No	Associate	No	Yes
2025	Elio	Yes	Story	No	No	Yes
2029	Coco 2	Co-Director	TBA	No	No	Yes

Accolades

Accolades received by Adrian Molina

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Film	Result	Ref.
Annie Awards	February 3, 2018	Directing in an Animated Feature Production	Coco	Won	[13]
		Music in an Animated Feature Production	Coco	Won
		Writing in an Animated Feature Production	Coco	Won
Humanitas Prize	February 16, 2018	Feature – Family	Coco	Nominated	[14]
Imagen Awards	August 25, 2018	Best Director	Coco	Won	[15]