Jessie finally receives the story she deserves
Three decades after a cowboy doll first asked what it means to be loved, Pixar returns to that question with renewed urgency. Toy Story 5, opening June 19 and directed by Andrew Stanton, has drawn early critical acclaim not merely as a sequel but as a meditation on obsolescence, belonging, and the quiet fear of being left behind. In placing an AI-equipped tablet against a weathered cowgirl, the film appears to have found something universal inside a children's story — the oldest of human anxieties dressed in plastic and stitching.
- Critics emerging from early screenings reached immediately for the franchise's highest honors, with some placing the film alongside Toy Story 2 and 3 — the series' most beloved peaks.
- The arrival of Lilypad, an iPad-like AI character voiced as a well-meaning but destabilizing force, introduces a tension that feels less like villainy and more like the creeping dread of being made redundant.
- Jessie's long-awaited character arc drives the emotional core, as she confronts a world that may no longer need what she has spent decades offering.
- Director Andrew Stanton, an Oscar-winning architect of the franchise's DNA, frames the conflict not as good versus evil but as generational anxiety given a face and a voice.
- With Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and Joan Cusack returning alongside newcomers Greta Lee and Conan O'Brien, the film positions itself as both a reunion and a reckoning — a potential landmark of 2026 cinema.
Three decades into its life, the Toy Story franchise has produced something critics are struggling to contain with ordinary praise. The first wave of reviewers who saw Toy Story 5 this week emerged calling it emotional, warm, funny, and in some cases generation-defining. Opening June 19, the film appears to have achieved what sequels rarely manage — not just continuation, but genuine necessity.
The story picks up after Toy Story 4's bittersweet conclusion, with Woody gone and Buzz and Jessie leading Bonnie's playroom in his absence. The disruption arrives in the form of Lilypad, a tablet-like AI character whose purpose is to help Bonnie grow — not to harm the older toys, but to render them quietly beside the point. That distinction, between malice and obsolescence, is where the film finds its emotional weight.
Jessie sits at the center of it all, finally given the full character arc critics have long felt she deserved. Her decades of loyalty and experience count for little against a device that can do more, know more, and adapt faster. The film asks, through her, what it means to be needed — and what happens when the answer changes.
Director Andrew Stanton, who shaped the stories of all four previous films before stepping into the director's chair here, brings the sensibility of Wall-E and Finding Nemo to a franchise he has always understood deeply. His framing of technology not as a villain but as a mirror for generational fear seems to have struck critics as both timely and timeless — a children's story that, like the best of them, turns out to be about something much larger.
Three decades into the Toy Story franchise, Pixar has done it again. The first wave of critics who saw Toy Story 5 this week walked out of screenings reaching for superlatives—emotional, funny, warm, perfect. The film, which opens June 19, appears to have landed exactly where the studio needed it to: in conversation with the trilogy that made the series legendary.
Scott Menzel, a film critic with a wide platform, called the fifth installment a return to form that ranks alongside the original three films, praising its blend of humor and heart. He suggested it could be among 2026's best films. Daniel Baptista, host of The Movie Podcast, went further, describing the experience as generation-defining. Jazz Tangcay, Variety's senior artisans editor, wrote that Jessie finally receives the story she deserves, and that the film is emotional, funny, and genuinely warm. Meredith Loftus at Collider reported being moved to tears, placing the film in the company of Toy Story 2 and 3—the franchise's acknowledged peaks.
The plot reunites Woody with Buzz and the rest of the gang after the events of Toy Story 4, which ended with Woody departing to help abandoned toys find new homes alongside Bo Peep. In Woody's absence, Buzz and Jessie took over as leaders of Bonnie's playroom. Now, the emergence of Lilypad—a tablet-like character with artificial intelligence—forces the old crew back together. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and Joan Cusack reprise their roles, joined by newcomers including Greta Lee and Conan O'Brien, who voices a character called Smarty Pants.
The film's central tension emerges from the clash between traditional toys and new technology. Director Andrew Stanton, making his directorial debut on the franchise after working on the stories and scripts of all four previous films, explained that Lilypad functions as an antagonist not out of malice but out of the toys' reasonable fear of obsolescence. Lilypad is designed to help Bonnie move forward, built with toy-like intentions but equipped with skills the older toys lack. Jessie, by contrast, carries decades of experience but faces an uncertain future in a world where her relevance is no longer guaranteed.
Stanton is an Oscar winner who directed Wall-E and Finding Nemo, lending significant creative weight to this installment. His framing of the conflict—not as good versus evil but as generational anxiety made manifest—appears to have resonated with critics who saw in the story something both specific to childhood and broadly human. The film explores what it means to be needed, to be replaced, to adapt or resist. That thematic depth, combined with the franchise's proven ability to make audiences laugh and cry, seems to have created something that feels both familiar and necessary.
Notable Quotes
Lilypad is built like a toy in the sense that she wants to help the kid go forward, but she's got very different skills and zero experience, whereas Jessie has nothing but experience and is probably unprepared for what to do.— Director Andrew Stanton
Exploring the divide between technology and toys through Jessie results in a deeply profound, moving story.— Meredith Loftus, Collider
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a fifth Toy Story film matter now, in 2026? Haven't we already said goodbye to these characters multiple times?
Because the goodbye was never final. Woody left in the last film, but the toys remained. This one brings him back into a world that's moved on without him. That's a real human experience—returning to find things have changed.
The critics keep mentioning Jessie specifically. What makes her story the heart of this film?
She's been a supporting character for decades. Now she's the one facing obsolescence, the one who has to figure out if her experience still matters. That's not a toy problem. That's everyone's problem.
And Lilypad—the tablet character—isn't just a villain. It's a mirror.
Exactly. It's not evil. It's just the next thing. The toys are afraid of it because they recognize what it represents: their own irrelevance. Stanton frames it as a generational conflict, not a moral one.
Do the critics suggest this is heavy-handed, or does it feel organic to the story?
They describe it as profound and moving, not preachy. The emotion comes from watching characters we love grapple with real stakes—not saving the world, but saving themselves.
So this isn't nostalgia. It's reckoning.
It's both. You can't reckon with something unless you loved it first.