REVIEW

Delightfully Prescient ‘TOY STORY 5’ Dazzles, Charms, and Breaks Your Heart

By Matt Oakes · June 16, 2026

I was seven years old when the first Toy Story arrived in theaters in 1995. My parents had recently divorced and I’d moved from one small town in Maine to another small town in Maine (for what it’s worth, all towns in Maine are small). A few months earlier, I’d watched Star Wars for the first time with my dad and brother in a motel room and immediately became obsessed with the world…and its action figures. Like any second grader suddenly dropped into a new school where he didn’t know anyone, I spent a lot of time alone. So I played with my toys.

Those Star Wars figurines fought alongside Mighty Max heroes and Beanie Babies to help defeat my brother’s Furby. POGs and LEGOS somehow found their way into the adventure. Plastic and plushies launched rescue missions as entire plots spooled out across my bedroom floor. Anything was possible. That boundless imaginative potential of childhood has always been the beating heart of the Toy Story franchise. The toys were never really the point. And the toys understood that: they were in service of their kid. Their mission was what their kid projected onto them. The worlds they entered together. Which makes Toy Story 5 such a poignant and emotionally-rich entry in the series because, for perhaps the first time, the toys aren’t competing with other toys for attention. They’re competing with technology; technology designed to capture and monopolize their kid’s time.

This is where we find Bonnie. Still surrounded by her loyal collection of toys but increasingly isolated from kids her own age, Bonnie is at her crossroads in life. She’s always been shy but that shyness threatens to turn into social isolation. With Woody (Tom Hanks) living out in the ownerless wild, the responsibilities of sheriff now fall to Jessie (Joan Cusack), who, alongside Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and the rest of the gang, is determined to help Bonnie make a real friend.

But before they can complete their objective, Lilypad (Greta Lee) arrives. A brightly lit smart device designed to be the ultimate companion, Lilypad immediately captivates Bonnie with encouraging notifications, colorful games, and an endless stream of digital engagement. The moment she enters Bonnie’s life, the toys understand the existential threat she poses not just for them but for Bonnie. They’re no longer competing for space in the toy chest, they’re competing against a machine specifically engineered to hold a child’s attention for as much of their time as it possibly can. And they’re losing.

But the problem with Lilypad doesn’t stop at its addictive qualities. Determined to prove she’s not merely a companion but a top-to-bottom upgrade over Bonnie’s dusty old toys, the device begins introducing her to a network of online “friends”, including a few girls from Bonnie’s dance class. The trouble is these girls aren’t particularly kind and Bonnie soon finds herself caught in a familiar modern trap: mistaking digital validation for genuine connection. Her self-worth becomes wrapped up in arbitrary online games, group chats, and the performance of pretending to be someone she’s not. At her first sleepover, all the other girls laugh at her dolls and instead only play with their own Lilypads. And suddenly Bonnie is also too cool to play with toys. Too mature for imagination. Too concerned with what her new “friends” think to simply enjoy the things that once made her happy.

It should come as no surprise that old school Pixar writer-director Andrew Stanton, working alongside co-writer/director McKenna Harris, is able to deliver such a sharp and poignant critique of modernity’s particular way of failing the young. At its peak, Pixar has always excelled at identifying universal truths – finding acceptance after feeling desperately lost, discovering purpose in places previously unimaginable, rejecting expectations to become your authentic self. But Toy Story 5 may contain one of the studio’s most prescient observations yet about contemporary childhood, packaging its ideas inside a movie that’s equal parts hilarious, heartbreaking, and uncomfortably honest about the world we’re packaging up and handing to our kids.

Toy Story films have always worried about the plight of kids growing up. Toy Story 5 worries about something different: kids growing up too fast in the hands of technology that probably shouldn’t be in their hands in the first place. Bonnie isn’t abandoning her toys because she’s naturally aging out of them. She’s abandoning them because social media, smart devices, and the pressure to perform a version of herself are accelerating that process, encouraging her to trade wonder and play for validation from online randos before she’s even figured out who she is and what she values in a friend.

What follows is Bonnie’s emotionally charged search for friendship and belonging, accompanied by Jessie, Buzz, Woody, and the rest of the gang trying to determine how they can still help. As always, they’re joined by a trove of new treasured (or, in this case, once loved) toys including this film’s highlight new addition Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), a derelict potty training device that gets some of the movies biggest laughs. Though Toy Story 5 features enough of the franchise’s familiar ensemble to still feel like home, make no mistake: this is 100% Jessie’s movie. While Woody and Buzz remain mainstays of the picture, the yodeling cowgirl finds herself carrying the emotional weight of the story as well as the bulk of its screentime. Having already endured abandonment once before, Jessie is left questioning whether she can survive another child moving on from her or whether, like Woody before her, it’s finally time to throw in the towel and embrace life as a lost toy.

What makes Jessie’s arc particularly effective is how naturally it dovetails with the larger themes haunting Bonnie. Both are confronting questions of identity at moments of transition. Bonnie is trying to determine who she wants to be while navigating increasingly complex social dynamics. Jessie is trying to determine whether her purpose still exists in a world that’s changing faster than she can understand. As always, the toys’ struggles function as mirrors for the children who love them. Pixar has never been especially subtle about this, but few studios are better at making those parallels feel emotionally honest and are able to just pummel you as if with a fully-loaded dump truck.

One of the cleverest things about the Toy Story franchise – and the reason it has remained evergreen entertainment and socially relevant for over thirty years – is its willingness to quietly reframe its central question with each new entry. The toys’ worldview may shift but they remain true to their central qualities. Woody still believes in loyalty. Buzz champions doing his duty. And Randy Newman’s music remains woven into the very fibers of these films, with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” continuing to hang over the each entry like a sonic mission statement. For decades, the series has championed the idea that friendship, companionship, and simply showing up for one another are enough.

Yet every installment has found a new way to interrogate that belief. Toy Story asked whether toys could survive when a newer, shinier toy arrived. Toy Story 2 questioned whether purpose could exist outside ownership. Toy Story 3 wrestled with the end of childhood itself. Toy Story 4 explored what happens when the purpose you’ve built your entire identity around suddenly changes. Toy Story 5 asks a distinctly modern question: what happens when attention itself becomes commodified?

And perhaps that’s why Toy Story 5 hits so hard. Every parent either already knows a kid like Bonnie or fears watching their own venture into the new digital wilds of childhood. We’ve all seen people – or ourselves – disappear into a screen. We’ve all felt the gravitational pull of devices, scrollable vertical videos, and precisely-tuned algorithms competing for – nay, demanding – our attention. Toy Story 5 understands that the real tragedy isn’t necessarily the horrors of technology itself, but what gets crowded out in its wake: imagination, quiet, presence, boredom. The little moments of life, where real friendships take root, interests spark, and personalities develop.

For thirty years, Toy Story has been asking what toys owe their kids. Toy Story 5 flips the question around and asks what adults owe their kids. The answer, Pixar suggests, might be protecting a little more of that wonder while it’s still there.

CONCLUSION: ‘Toy Story 5‘ is a funny, heartbreaking, and insightful meditation on childhood in the digital age, asking what gets lost when screens begin replacing imagination. The gang is all here but it’s newly-minted Sheriff Jessie – in her journey to help her kid Bonnie make a real friend – that this story belongs to.