Toy Story 5

Let’s be clear: The Toy Story series hit its apex with the beautifully heartbreaking third chapter, and the franchise could have easily just stopped there. Toy Story 4 and, now, Toy Story 5 don’t have anywhere near the same impact as the earlier films; however, if you think of them not as movies but as new seasons of an ongoing TV show, these later sequels maintain an overall level of quality that make them passingly entertaining without staining the reputation of the brand.

With that level of measured expectations, Toy Story 5 is a perfectly fine continuation of the now three-decades-plus–old series, and this latest installment offers both new places for its characters to go as well as an acknowledgment of changing habits and technologies. In 2026, it’s hard out here for a toy — whether you’re an action figure or a dinosaur or a horse or even a plastic fork — what with all the screens sucking all the attention out of kids. And it’s that real-world dilemma that Toy Story 5 tackles with both wit and wisdom. (If you thought this movie was going to demonize screens completely, I have a Disney Emoji Blitz app on my smartphone that would argue otherwise.)

Young Bonnie (voiced by Scarlett Spears) still engages with her toys, led by Jessie (Joan Cusack), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and all the other characters we’ve gotten to know in previous movies, but she’s very shy about making new friends. Jessie sneaks across the street to check out the new kids in the neighborhood, only to be told by their neglected toys in the yard that “the era of the toy is over,” what with the children (and their parents) constantly glued to their devices. Jessie thinks that Bonnie would never neglect her and her fellow playthings, until the day that Bonnie’s parents bring home Lilypad (Greta Lee), a hypnotic tablet that lets Bonnie chat with girls in her dance class while they all play games online.

The quest to find Bonnie a real friend — in particular, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a young equestrian — rather than a bunch of chat-room Mean Girls drives the plot here. Jessie returns to the site of her Toy Story 2 trauma (the tire swing is still there) and encounters a bunch of Blaze’s neglected battery-powered devices that, it turns out, need love too: a toilet-training game (Conan O’Brien), a camera (Shelby Rabara), and a hippo-shaped GPS (Craig Robinson) join Jessie in her quest to bring the two girls together, with the hopes of also being rescued from the junk drawer.

Screenwriters Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris (also credited as director and co-director, respectively) spin an impressive number of plates, giving us multiple characters — yes, Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep (Annie Potts) return from their “lost toy” exile — and locations while keeping the narrative both cohesive and suspenseful. The verbal and visual gags land, and the performances are terrific, both from the vets (Cusack’s Jessie gets a moving moment of closure with her past) and the newcomers (O’Brien is hilarious, while Lee brings a wonderfully nefarious tone to the seemingly omnipotent Lilypad).

The original Toy Story back in 1995 set the tone for CGI animation for decades to come, and while the work here isn’t as groundbreaking as it once was, it’s still occasionally breathtaking, from moments of photorealism to the sight of a squadron of Buzz Lightyear drones (long story) flying in formation.

Toy Story 5 makes the case that screens can play a role in kid’s lives (with parental supervision) so long as those screens occasionally get turned off for interaction with toys, nature, and fellow kids. I’d argue that another element that develops children’s curiosity, imagination, and inner life is boredom, so here’s hoping Toy Story 6 takes the slow-cinema route, giving us Bonnie on a five-hour car trip with no toys and no reading material, forced to entertain herself with anything her own mind can conjure.

Director: Andrew Stanton
Co-director: Kenna Harris
Screenwriters: Andrew Stanton & Kenna Harris
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Conan O’Brien, Scarlett Spears, Greta Lee, Shelby Rabara, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Craig Robinson, Lori Alan, Jay Hernandez, Bonnie Hunt, Kristen Schaal, Tony Hale, John Hopkins, Wallace Shawn, Ernie Hudson, Krys Marshall, Jeff Bergman, Blake Clark, Anna Vocino, Bad Bunny, Jerome Ranft, Annie Potts, Matty Matheson, John Ratzenberger, Keanu Reeves, Melissa Villaseñor, Alan Cumming
Executive producers: Pete Docter, Jonas Rivera
Producer: Lindsey Collins
Music: Randy Newman
Sound design: Coya Elliott, supervising sound editor; Stephen Urata, re-recording mixer
Production companies: Disney, Pixar
In English
102 minutes