Toy Story 5 (2026)

It's on me that I haven't seen Toy Story 4 still, but to me, Toy Story is a perfect representation of what Pixar can do and why I've been annoyed by their slate over the past few years. I think ultimately Toy Story is just a vessel to tell adult stories through kids, but it doesn't necessarily feel overall preachy because they're toys. There's always a whimsical element to it.

I used to like the older Pixar, where it didn't feel like they were shoving a message down your throat. You had to come to the importance of their message through the characters in their stories, like Ratatouille and Wall-E. Then we got movies like Soul, where even from the title, it was very obvious what they were trying to talk about and explore. Now, because you're dealing with toys and they don't feel adult, there's always going to be a little bit of a removal. Yes, this one was preachy and had a message, but maybe it's just because I agreed with the message so much that I let it slide and really just found myself wrapped up in the story.

There are some parts that drag, but overall this felt really made with love and care. It's targeted primarily at kids and their relationship with phones and screens, but I think that adults have the same feeling of wanting to disconnect and wanting to tap into their inner child again. The most touching part for me was the different animation style to let us see a child's mind at work while playing with toys, and it brought me back to my childhood and that sense of imagination and play. This movie really makes you miss play and playing and looking at the world in a different way. There were times that I teared up, honestly, just because I missed that outlook on life.

My God, a Toy Story movie made me rethink my adult life. The power of Pixar.