REVIEW: ‘Toy Story 5’ Is So Completely Worth It

In a media landscape well over-saturated with sequels and IP maintenance projects, while original projects of all kinds languish at major studios for lack of resources or corporate interference, the Toy Story franchise has and still remains one of the few to never overstay its welcome—if we ignore one certain ill-fated cash-grab, anyway. Toy Story 5 is more than just the gold standard of what a sequel can be, several films into a long-running franchise. Toy Story 5 is the standard for what all animation and family films ought to be.

More than 30 years after Toy Story defined Pixar and changed the course of 3D animation forever, Andrew Stanton continues to build upon the legacy of the world’s most beloved animated toys, alongside co-director McKenna Harris. After Toy Story 4, Woody (Tom Hanks) left Bonnie’s (Scarlett Spears) room and all his friends to live free with Bo Peep (Annie Potts) and help out lost toys. He left Bonnie in good hands, though, making Jessie, Bonnie’s favorite toy (Joan Cusack), the Sheriff.

Toy Story 5 is about not growing up too fast without giving up the things you love.

Despite Woody and Buzz (Tim Allen) taking top billing, Toy Story 5 is Jessie’s movie. She is the main character in every sense—one of the movie’s many ingenious decisions that help it feel fresh without losing too much ground on what older fans love about the franchise.

For those who have been with her from the beginning, Jessie’s anxieties about being good enough and about being left behind are familiar and expanded on well from previous movies. For those meeting her for the first time, her journey throughout the movie is an excellent capsule of the tragedy of time and the beauty we can find as we flow through it.

The passage of time is a multi-layered adversary in Toy Story 5. Where some previous Toy Story sequels are about accepting that growing up means eventually leaving childhood behind, Toy Story 5 is about not growing up too fast, and how growing up doesn’t have to mean giving up the things you love; it just means they will change with time. This is made most literal by introducing an entirely new element into the universe: tech.

Technology isn’t for making friends; it’s for making money for the companies that sell it.

Tech, be it smart devices, toys with online integrations, or just basic toys that light up and make noises with batteries, has completely invaded the lives and psyches of young people everywhere. Toy Story 5‘s Lillipad (Greta Lee) represents all the worst that technology and an ever-more-online-integrated world can do to children.

The worst thing about how Lilypad harms Bonnie isn’t the way she turns the poor kid into a zombie, or how it zaps her social skills and gives her friends an unmonitored platform for bullying. It’s the fact that Lilypad thinks she’s actually doing what’s best for Bonnie.

This means that the kids watching Bonnie can learn how being too online keeps her from making real friends, while the adults watching can see that just because our lives are so dominated by technology doesn’t mean we should subject children to it, too. Technology, even when it’s marketed for children or as good for learning or making friends, exists to make money for the companies that sell it. It’s up to us to realize that addiction and loss of social skills come packaged with the tech.

Toy Story 5’s new characters make up for the old characters you might miss.

Toy Story 5 isn’t preachy about it, though. The banter between the toys is nearly always a joy; Lilypad is a complicated character instead of a mere arch villain, and the various plots and side plots are equally endearing, especially as they eventually meld together.

The biggest disappointment with the movie is just how little opportunity most of its legacy characters get to shine. While all of your favorites from Toy Story movies past are here, they only get a line or two each. While it’s fun to see everyone there, it’s disappointing to spend so little time with just about any of them.

There are a few new characters to be excited by, at least. There’s a trio of older techs: Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), Snappy (Shelby Rabara), and Atlas (Craig Robinson). They’re all quite fun, even while Smarty Pants’s toilet humor offers some of the crudest (and funniest) jokes in the series. They also help deliver an interesting point about how quickly tech toys become obsolete, becoming clutter and waste, while toys—good, quality toys—can last several lifetimes.

Toy Story 5 is an absolute delight, with so much to say about the modern state of childhood.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t really offer a satisfying conclusion to this thread. An army of Wi-Fi-enabled Buzz Lightyears offers a humorous C-plot, but the consequences of giving kids electronic toys aren’t really explored, in light of the subtle nods to the eventual obsolescence of all tech toys brought up by Smarty Pants and company. A new human character, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), is maybe the most exciting new addition to the cast, offering another point of view on the joys and tribulations of childhood, in addition to Bonnie’s.

Nevertheless, Toy Story 5 is an absolute delight, with so much to say about the modern state of childhood. It’s also just a fun time with beloved characters in a beautifully realized world. The animation is stellar, as are the storybook-style animations every time Bonnie is playing with her toys. Randy Newman’s score sweetly blends classic franchise melodies in touching ways, and Taylor Swift has one of her typically generic songs in the credits.

Toy Story 5 is just great. The story is as thrilling as it is touching, with a message perfect for the moment, regardless of your age, delivered with all the sensibility required to talk you through a really challenging set of subjects. You’ll come out of it as ready to put your phone down as you will be ready to embrace the way everything eventually changes with time, but it doesn’t mean that you have to change who you are to meet it.

Toy Story 5 is in theaters everywhere on June 19th, 2026. It is now streaming exclusively on Disney+.