Here is Cinephile Corner’s ranking of every Toy Story movie from worst to best:
6. Lightyear (2022)
There’s a lack of interesting, personable characters within Lightyear, as if they were all typecast from other Pixar movies. They’re either sentimentally sweet, aloof, or arrogant. And maybe the movie could’ve been saved had these characters had more time to develop and interact, but that aspect of the film is tossed aside frequently for big action set pieces and rambunctious chase sequences.
5. Toy Story 5 (2026)
In its fifth installment, the Toy Story gang runs into an antagonist they probably never could have imagined would become an existential threat 30-plus years ago when Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the crew first met one another: technology. Through the franchise’s first four entries, the antagonists were almost always one of their own. Stuffed toys and dolls competing for relevance and notoriety from their owner, toys being kept in mint condition for the sake of valuation, or the looming threat of destruction, culminating in Toy Story 3’s arguably still-unmatched emotional wrecking ball of a finale. But Toy Story 5 reckons with the much more contemporary reality that toys may simply not be the dominant form of entertainment for 10-year-olds anymore. Learning pads, phones, screens, and other technology have emerged as a way for kids to funnel six to eight hours of their day, and one day you are your kid’s favorite toy and the next you are quite literally being swept under the bed.
4. Toy Story 2 (1999)
3. Toy Story 4 (2019)
I was certainly in that camp in 2019, always favoring original stories over rehashes of the same material over and over (I’ll probably act the same way when Toy Story 5 nears because I clearly haven’t learned my lesson). Toy Story 4 quickly expels any notion that it shouldn’t exist – the different themes and new characters actually make the franchise as engaging as ever.
2. Toy Story (1995)
1. Toy Story 3 (2010)
