Long-running franchises have had tumultuous ups and downs over the many decades of cinematic history. For every long-running film series that’s retained its relevance and strength between entries, there’s another reviled for overstaying its welcome or eventually succumbing to the weight of its own legacy that it’s built. This only makes the pure magic of the Toy Story films all the more impressive, consistently growing with its audience both in time and emotion while beginning the heartfelt wonder and creativity, ingenuity that would soon become synonymous with Pixar over 30 years ago. Even the much-controversial 4th entry managed to be a moving epilogue to what was already a near-perfect trilogy.
Toy Story 5 mostly succeeds at continuing to provide more of the ingenuity that radiates through the franchise while also providing a great amount of nuance to both its commentary on our growing dependency on technology, as well as how connection with each other is key in a child’s growing development. Jessie takes center stage in the first Toy Story film to not have Woody as the lead, and it gives a fresh energy to the franchise as it brings the thematics of irrelevancy that toys have feared in this universe since the first film to a modern lens. The film is definitely rougher around the edges compared to previous entries, with its many cluttered subplots that are often incredibly disjointed, but Toy Story 5 is yet another worthy addition to what has been one of our most consistently great film franchises.
We start Toy Story 5 with Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), now 8 years old, and Jessie (Joan Cusack), now the Toy gang’s new sheriff since Woody left things in her hands at the end of the 4th film. Buzz (Tim Allen) is Jessie’s deputy throughout regular playtime escapades, but lately, Bonnie has been struggling to find other kids to make friends with, and Jessie has been trying to the best of her ability to make it happen, but soon discovers what has partially been preventing others from connecting with Bonnie: the ever-growing prevalence of tech.
It doesn’t take long for tech to finally invade the lives of our favorite group of toys as Bonnie’s parents gift her with a tablet called Lilypad (Greta Lee), and Bonnie becomes glued to the screen 24/7, seeing it as her best way to make more connections. Naturally, Jessie and the toys see Lilypad as the biggest threat yet to their playtime, but Lilypad sees online connection via an app called the pod as the better way to help Bonnie, leading to a rivalry brewing between the two. Jessie even talks to Woody (Tom Hanks) via walkie-talkie about tech starting to render toys obsolete, with Woody in many cases witnessing it firsthand, seeing abandoned toys everywhere on his continued lost toy adventures with Bo Peep (Annie Potts).
After a mishap at a sleepover, Bonnie is made fun of for still having toys, and she leaves Jessie and Bullseye in the car, where they fall out and are picked up by an elderly couple. It sends them to an old address written on Jessie, which happens to be where her first ever owner, Emily, resided (who was a huge part of Jessie’s backstory in the 2nd film). With Jessie and Bullseye separated from the gang and Woody returning to assist against the Lillypad, the toys must go on another adventure to save Jessie and find out what’s really best for Bonnie to make connections.
One aspect of Toy Story 5 that takes a bit longer to truly click is how disjointed its story can be in comparison to the other entries. There are many characters and plot threads to parse through here including a whole army of High-tech Buzz Lightyears that aren’t truly relevant until the film’s final third, new toys that act as a half way point between tech and regular toys like potty training toy Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), and the whole emotional core surrounding Jessie’s lead role and Bonnie’s development in the film to boot. These elements are never truly bad, and Conan O’Brien is particularly hilarious, getting a lot more mileage out of potty and poop puns than you’d expect, but the crowded nature of the narrative takes a slight bit to warm up to.
This is without even mentioning both Buzz and Woody, who are both in supporting roles here, but Woody’s injection in the narrative can be a bit perplexing at times. To be clear 5, thankfully, doesn’t ruin 4’s ending for Woody in him finding new purpose as a toy beyond having a connection with an owner, but, once he returns to Bonnie’s home to help assist the gang in their difficulties with Lilypad, you start to get the feeling that there’s a struggle to find something for him to do in a Toy Story film where he’s not the lead. They sort of playfully tap into his fighting with Buzz, which was more present in the first film, but much of what they do with him is like the writers bending the script a bit to make Woody more important to the grand scheme of things, since there can’t be a Toy Story film without him in it.
Luckily, the occasional clutter of Toy Story 5 is never a reflection of the entire film’s quality, as the franchise still has many new aspects to it that it brings to the table. Jessie’s foray into the spotlight of these films for the first time gives 5 a particular fresh cadence to it both visually and thematically. The animation here is stunning as always for Pixar, but 5’s most distinctive departure from 4 visually is trading 4’s unreal photorealism for a more playful nature to its visuals. Sequences where Bonnie or other kids play with their toys have a pastel color style to them that adds an even more wonder-filled touch to playtime and acts as a stark contrast to dreary areas Jessie finds throughout the film, where playhouses are now filthy and abandoned, with leftover toys helplessly hoping to be played with yet again.
Then there’s Jessie herself, who has a notable addition to certain reveals surrounding her in the second film. Becoming obsolete is a fear that’s tortured Jessie her whole life ever since Emily left her behind in storage all those years ago, and the film does a great job of not falling into the trap of making revisiting such an emotional touchstone of the franchise a nostalgia bait play of sorts. There exists a full engagement with our modern landscape, not just from the tech angle but from the existence of memory and showcasing that no matter how much time passes, it’s the memories we make through our connections that will be everlasting. 5 retreads a bit of what was also present as previous themes within other installments, but viewing them through Jessie’s lenses makes its heart even more varied.
Fear of irrelevance or abandonment has been a progressing theme within each Toy Story film; Woody’s fear of Buzz being Andy’s new favorite in the first, the ever percolating questions of what will happen to the gang once Andy grows up in 2 and 3, purpose for a toy’s life past owner fulfillment in 4, but 5 is truly the first film to bring an equal amount of emotional resonance to both toy and human characters. Toy Story 5’s commentary on tech slowly evolves from being fairly obvious to having a well-nuanced conversation on the crucial one-to-one human connections we lose when getting too wrapped up in technology that is ever too prevalent in the youth of today. The film handles these topics surrounding Bonnie with such care that it brings a new shade of emotionality to the franchise. And while the film was never going to be a full-on renunciation of tech, given Pixar is owned by mega conglomerate Disney and all, director and Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, along with co-director and screenwriter McKenna Harris, is able to get across the message strongly without sacrificing any of the heart or ingenuity these movies are famous for.
It’s always hard to live up to the hype when you’re the latest entry in a franchise of straight hitters (unless you count 2022’s dreadful Lightyear), and while Toy Story 5 doesn’t quite live up to the lofty heights of its predecessors, it crafts enough charm, playful characters, and emotional thematics to cement yet another worthwhile entry. It’s a rarity to be the weakest in a film series and still be quite good, but when you offer a welcomed change in leads, a delightfully silly third act, and a profound story surrounding our connection with one another being key to development, you’ve got yourself another winner in one of the most quintessential animated film series of our time.
Toy Story 5 will debut exclusively in theaters on June 19, 2026, courtesy of Disney.
While Toy Story 5 doesn't quite live up to the lofty heights of its predecessors, it crafts enough charm, playful characters, and emotional thematics to cement yet another worthwhile entry.
Lover of film writing about film. Member of the Dallas Fort-Worth Critics Association. The more time passes, the more the medium of movies has become deeply intertwined with who I am.
