I always feel a touch of trepidation when a new Pixar film comes to town. For every creation of unalloyed cinematic joy — Wall-E or The Incredibles – there’s one that just doesn’t hit the spot for me — Cars and Ratatouille most notably. Is it fair to compare a studio’s new film to their previous excellent ones? Maybe not, but having established different standards, I expect Pixar to live up to them.

And along comes Up. Which I’m delighted to tell you is perhaps the finest Pixar film yet. Again, note the name of the studio: this is not something you find me doing in other reviews. But Pixar isn’t like other studios. They’re not just the people who greenlight the project and sort out its budget and marketing; the Pixar team are involved at every stage of the lengthy process it takes to get from initial concept to finished film.

Oh, about the initial concept. Did you know that all the films Pixar have made started out in an informal pitch meeting way back when the studio was formed? Everything from Toy Story to Finding Nemo to Up was there in embryo around one dinner table. As brainstorming sessions go, that counts as a success.

Pixar’s unique working method is for people involved in a film to showcase their work to peers on a regular basis, for feedback to make what they’re doing even better. A lot of the egos involved in making film would shrink at that prospect, but Up demonstrates the power of the process. And please note — it’s feedback from their peers the filmmakers receive, not a demographically sorted random audience whose desire for a formulaic movie is pandered to.

Such a group would never vote for a movie starring a crotchety old man and a plump boy scout as its protagonists. And they wouldn’t have the aesthetic sense to come up with a story that contains so many beautiful and moving sequences, the most notable being the tear-inducing montage that takes you through the life of the film’s cube-headed hero Carl Frederickson and his long relationship with beloved wife Ellie.

A rickety house borne aloft by thousands of toy balloons. A pack of talking dogs. A zepellin piloted by a callous egotist who used to be Carl’s idol. This is the stuff that dreams are made of, and the scenes it gives rise to are regularly breathtaking in their conception and execution.

The scope is enormous, but tiny details count most of all, in ways that are human and cinematic at the same time. Carl and Ellie would swear to one another by crossing their hearts, so when the young scout Russell uses the same gesture to seal a deal with the old man, the audience knows just how much that simple movement means to him. Ditto when Russell is awarded a badge that Ellie made for Carl decades ago, a prize more valuable than anything else the lad could imagine.

It’s those emotional touches that bring life and meaning to the fantastic landscapes and stupendous set pieces that Up is made of. All that visual spectacle is correctly in the service of a powerful emotional experience, the antithesis of the empty merchandising advertorials that George Lucas bored audiences with in his second Star Wars trilogy.

What else is there to say? Up is cinema at its finest. The fact that it happens to be a fable told in drawings says perhaps that animators have a respect for the power of the image that goes beyond what some of the world’s most lauded filmmakers are capable of achieving. Make sure you see this magnificent film, and perhaps for maximum enjoyment go with someone who is a very different age to your own.