Toy Story 5

Photo courtesy of Disney/Pixar. © 2025 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Well, there’s good news and bad news ahead of the release of Toy Story 5 this weekend. The good news is that it still has pretty great reviews from critics. The bad news is that even with that, Toy Story 5 is now the lowest Rotten Tomatoes-scored movie in the franchise, spanning back to when it began in 1995(!).

With well over 100 reviews in, Toy Story 5 has a 93% critic score. Obviously, anything above 90% is stellar, but it may not end up quite as beloved as the last four. Audience reviews are not in yet, though they may be lower than you think. The highest Rotten Tomatoes audience score for the series is Toy Story 4 at a 94%. Toy Story 2 is actually an 87%, and I believe that with a 100% critic score from 174 reviews, that may be the actual best-scored movie ever on Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s the full list.

• Toy Story – 100% critic score
• Toy Story 2 – 100% critic score
• Toy Story 3 – 98% critic score
• Toy Story 4 – 97% critic score
• Toy Story 5 – 93% critic score

Again, while a 93% is good, that is below a number of Pixar movies over the last decade or so, such as:

• Hoppers (this year) – 97% critic score
• Coco – 97% critic score
• Turning Red – 95% critic score
• Soul – 95% critic score
• Finding Dory – 94% critic score
• Incredibles 2 – 93% critic score

The new film is a commentary on aging (Woody has been poked fun at for his bald spot and growing stomach in recent trailers) and the war on traditional play due to technology, with a main almost-villain being a tablet, something almost all parents can probably relate to in 2026.

I was curious what some of the critics who thought Toy Story 5 was a miss had to say about it. Here are a few:

• The Film Maven (D+) – “In a year where Disney gave us the utterly darling, and original, Hoppers, Toy Story 5 feels like a reheated lunch.”
• Independent UK (2/5) – “The studio naturally holds back from portraying Lily as an all-out villain -- more a misguided soul, merely concerned with what’s best for Bonnie. But the film fails to drum up any kind of meaningful conclusion on the matter, even if it’s a nuanced one.”

Of course, 93% of critics have rated it positively, such as:

• San Jose Mercury News (5/5) – “The hard lesson to learn here, for both kids and adults, comes in balancing addictive screen time with finding connection offline with true friends.”

I will note, however, that even among the positive reviews, there are few perfect scores, with almost all 3/4, 3/5 or 4/5. Still, what matters in the end if box office, and Toy Story 5 is certain to do enormous numbers. That’s a story for this weekend once people start showing up, but a lower score is probably not going to keep away the masses by any means.

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