Toy Story 5 (2026)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, June 19

PG Running Time: 102 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

As we have come to expect, Toy Story 5 continues the franchise’s thoughtful exploration of childhood imagination and adult reality.
Jessie, voiced by the incredible Joan Cusack, finally gets the spotlight she deserves.
Emotional, funny, and thoroughly entertaining, Toy Story 5 finds yet more magic among these wonderful assortment of toys.

NO

With Woody and Buzz as more supporting characters this time around, if you don’t connect to Jessie’s story, this may be a disappointment for some viewers.
Anytime you reach the fifth film in a franchise, and one that is more than 30 years old, there are going to be those who feel like the general story has run its course and there’s nothing left to really discuss.
A few side plots feel somewhat underdeveloped and can distract from the film’s main story of understanding friendships, connection, and the impact we can make on one another.

OUR REVIEW

In her end-credits song for Toy Story 5, Taylor Swift sings that “love has a way of bringing things back to life.” This proves to be a fitting sentiment for a film franchise that appeared to conclude perfectly with 2010’s Toy Story 3, before returning for two more adventures in 2019 and 2026. Nearly three decades after the original film redefined animation and introduced the world to Pixar Studios, this fifth installment finds itself balancing the weight of nostalgia, skepticism, and expectation on its very ample shoulders.

I am happy to report that Toy Story 5 largely defies those odds. Director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E) finds the magic once again, crafting a tender, funny, and heartwarming ode to childhood, connection, and imagination. Stanton, working with co-director and co-writer Kenna Harris, also brings the series into a more modernized world that kids and families find themselves in. Here, an eight-year-old girl named Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) gets a Lilypad, a kid-friendly tablet that helps her find friends, play games, connect to the internet, and discover the world at the tap of a finger.

One of the things Toy Story has always acknowledged, as the franchise evolves, is the role toys play in kids’ lives. That evolution from dolls, gadgets, LEGOs and action figures to personal devices means that “playtime” can now look singular in practice; namely, a kid sitting down with a device, maybe with some headphones, isolating themselves from others. When phones can give us everything, instantly and on demand, many of us simply click until we find something that entertains us. Our imagination can often rest. Our focus shifts to a single touchpoint. We don’t need anything else, except maybe food and drink - which we can get while using our devices.

Stanton touched on elements of this societal shift in 2008’s WALL-E. But here, the reliance on gadgets and computers is made all the more real and relatable when Bonnie’s Lilypad helps connect her with kids in the neighborhood and at her school. Shy, she struggles to speak to her peers, but with her Lilypad, it’s all so much easier.

Left behind of course are the toys that Bonnie played with, as she realizes her friends don’t really want to play like that anymore. Cowgirl Jessie (a really wonderful Joan Cusack) tries to talk to Lily (Greta Lee) about Bonnie spending all of her time with the Lilypad. Lily, seeing no issue, makes her device even more accessible, leading to Bonnie’s toys being accidentally boxed up and stored in the garage.

Interestingly, Stanton and Harris share both sides of the conundrum parents face nowadays. We see both the elation of Bonnie’s parents as their daughter opens up and makes friends, but also the anxiety and trepidation that comes when their child is singularly focused, seemingly for hours and hours on end, shutting out the real world around them.

Smartly, Toy Story 5 becomes Jessie’s movie. The decision to frame it from her perspective allows Cusack to blossom and finally develop Jessie into a fully-formed, well-rounded, deeply-felt character, whose trauma of being left behind informs her concerns about Bonnie abandoning her toys.

Early scenes show Jessie standing on a rooftop and seeing kids all around Bonnie’s neighborhood staring into screens, creating a technological glow that feels like a doomsday scenario of sorts for our toy friends. Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) get side stories this time around: Buzz is finally mustering up the courage to share his feelings for Jessie, while Woody is becoming aware of his age with a shiny bald spot and weight gain. Elsewhere, a fleet of technologically-enhanced Buzz Lightyears are stranded on an island and band together to find their rightful owners.

Stanton and Harris’ film can stumble a bit when the focus is not on Jessie’s main pursuits, but their film is quite sincere in its storytelling, especially when it explores friendships and the power created through human interaction. Bonnie’s potential friendship with a girl of a similar age, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), captures the awkward tap-dance of meeting new people who share your interests.

For all the fantastical adventures and comedic exploits the Toy Story movies have brought us, they are at their best when they find the beating heart of what it means to be human. To have limitless imagination. To not be afraid of the things which make us happy and to cherish the moments that make us dream a little bit bigger and wish for a more wide-open world.

Here, through Jessie’s efforts to help Bonnie form meaningful friendships, seek balance through traditional and modern play, and to underscore meaning and value for not only herself and others, we have a de facto superhero emerge before us. Where Buzz Lightyear promised us “infinity and beyond,” and Woody’s “reach for the sky,” became a rallying cry of sorts for the franchise, Jessie’s signature moment might be sitting under a familiar tree, finding a strange box in the dirt, and fully realizing her impact on someone she thought forgot about her.

As Swift’s song reflects on a love believed to be lost but present all along, Toy Story 5 nails those emotional beats yet again. The film makes us believe in the connections we create with the people and things that matter most to us. What can feel like a fleeting moment in time for someone can be an encounter that leaves a substantial impact on another. And for all of its occasional diversions and rambling subplots, the Toy Story movies always score big when they remind us that the intersection of youthful innocence and adult realities is not that far apart.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Joan Cusack, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Greta Lee, Scarlett Spears, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Conan O’Brien, Shelby Rabara, Craig Robinson, Ernie Hudson, John Hopkins, Krys Marshall, Alan Cumming, Annie Potts, Keanu Reeves, Kristen Schaal, Wallace Shawn, Tony Hale, Blake Clark, John Ratzenberger, Melissa Villaseñor, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio

Director: Andrew Stanton
Co-Director: Kenna Harris
Screenplay: Andrew Stanton, Kenna Harris
Story: Andrew Stanton
Release Date: June 19, 2026
Walt Disney Studios

As we have come to expect, Toy Story 5 continues the franchise’s thoughtful exploration of childhood imagination and adult reality.

Jessie, voiced by the incredible Joan Cusack, finally gets the spotlight she deserves.

Emotional, funny, and thoroughly entertaining, Toy Story 5 finds yet more magic among these wonderful assortment of toys.

With Woody and Buzz as more supporting characters this time around, if you don’t connect to Jessie’s story, this may be a disappointment for some viewers.

Anytime you reach the fifth film in a franchise, and one that is more than 30 years old, there are going to be those who feel like the general story has run its course and there’s nothing left to really discuss.

A few side plots feel somewhat underdeveloped and can distract from the film’s main story of understanding friendships, connection, and the impact we can make on one another.