Toy Story 5

NOW IN THEATERS! “Welcome back, Pixar.” That’s the feeling Toy Story 5 left me with, and a lot of it comes down to director Andrew Stanton trusting an eight-year-old’s loneliness as much as he trusts the toys themselves. While Toy Story 1-3 is Andy’s story, this one is decidedly Bonnie’s and taken from a girl’s perspective.

Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is eight years old now, and just like Andy before her, she loves her toys. In the modern age, this means that playing with toys doesn’t make a kid popular. So, Bonnie doesn’t have many friends. She’s part of a dance class, and all the other girls are connected to one another thanks to their tech, i.e., little tablets. They talk to one another in chat, setting up playdates and planning sleepovers. So Bonnie’s parents cave and buy her a tablet named Lilypad (Greta Lee), who, like every toy in this house, only wants what’s best for its new owner, Bonnie. Except Lilypad thinks she knows best — better than Bonnie’s favorite toy, Jessie (Joan Cusack).

(L-R): Jessie, Buzz Lightyear, and Woody in Disney and Pixar’s TOY STORY 5. Photo courtesy of Pixar. © 2026 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

“Jessie fears she’ll be abandoned, so she goes on a solo mission with Bullseye to take down Lilypad.”

Lilypad gets Bonnie set up on social media and plugged into the other girls’ world, and for a minute it works, until a sleepover goes sideways and Bonnie realizes if she wants to be popular, she has to choose between her toys and tech. The online world turns on her fast, and the bullying starts. As Bonnie tries to stay in her friend’s favor, our beloved toys are cast aside. Jessie fears she’ll be abandoned, so she goes on a solo mission with Bullseye to take down Lilypad. Hoping to help is Buzz (Tim Allen) as her deputy, but instead of accepting help from Buzz, Jessie calls Woody, who is out in the world collecting forgotten toys with Bo Peep.

Through a misadventure akin to Woody and Buzz’s Pizza Planet adventure from the first film, Jessie is brought to her original home out in the country, where she was loved by Emily. Living there is another girl, lonely in the same way, who’d rather play with toy horses than swipe through a screen, and Jessie thinks pairing her up with Bonnie could turn everything around. Lilypad has other plans.