Film

Toy Story 5

The fifth outing sends Woody, Buzz and Jessie up against their most existential rival yet: a tablet that doesn't just steal Bonnie's attention but threatens to make physical toys obsolete altogether. It's Pixar doing what it does best — slapstick rescue missions wrapped around a genuinely wistful question about being loved versus being used. Big laughs, a lump in the throat, kids and nostalgic adults both covered.

TMDb rating8.4

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Toy Story 42019

The direct predecessor, and the one that actually answers what happens when a toy finds a kid who doesn't need it anymore. Essential context for where Woody's head is at going into this one.

But It ends the Woody arc so definitively that some fans felt a fifth film was unnecessary before it even existed.

Toy Story 4 poster

The Mitchells vs. the Machines2021

A hyper-inventive, genuinely funny animated film about a family fighting off a tech uprising while trying to actually see each other. Same anxiety about screens eating attention, dialled up to apocalypse.

But The visual style is deliberately chaotic and internet-brained; if you find that exhausting rather than exhilarating, it'll wear you out.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines poster

The Lego Movie2014

Toys with inner lives, a kid's playroom as the whole universe, and a third-act swerve about parents and childhood that lands harder than it has any right to. Relentlessly funny throughout.

But The jokes come at a machine-gun pace that can feel more manic than charming if you're not already on its wavelength.

The Lego Movie poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence2001

Both are about created beings whose entire existence depends on being chosen by a child, and both ask what happens the moment that child moves on.

Spielberg's cold, aching sci-fi about a manufactured child built to love a mother who can discard him whenever she likes. It's Buzz's fear of being replaced by a newer model, played entirely straight and devastating.

But It is bleak, slow, and emotionally punishing in a way no Pixar film would ever risk — this is not family movie night.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence poster
More like this (8)

Inside Out 22024no page yet

Pixar's other great franchise about the interior lives of things we don't usually think have them — this time emotions instead of toys. Funny, anxious, and unexpectedly moving about growing up.

But It leans harder into anxiety and puberty dread than the cheerful first film, which can feel heavier than you're braced for.

Wreck-It Ralph2012

A video-game character terrified of being seen as obsolete goes looking for purpose outside his own world — basically Buzz's fear turned into a whole plot, with brilliant arcade-era world-building.

But The video-game universe-hopping is a lot of setup before the emotional core kicks in properly.

Wreck-It Ralph poster

Coco2017

Pixar's most beautiful film about being remembered, forgotten, or kept alive by love — the same emotional machinery as Toy Story, aimed at family and memory instead of toys and childhood.

But It deals directly with death and being forgotten forever, which can hit far harder and sadder than you expect from the poster.

Coco poster

Up2009

Fewer toys, more balloons, but the same Pixar trick of smuggling a devastating meditation on loss and letting go into a broad, funny adventure film. A genuine classic.

But That opening ten minutes is famously a gut-punch; if you're watching with a young kid, be ready for questions.

Up poster

Paddington 22017

Not animated, not about toys, but the closest thing in cinema to Toy Story's warmth: decency as an active force, a small hero who just wants everyone to be okay, played completely straight.

But It's gentler and slower than an action-adventure crowd might expect — no chases through a landfill here, just kindness.

Paddington 2 poster

Klaus2019

A gorgeously hand-drawn-styled origin story for Santa that shares Toy Story's core belief: objects and gifts matter because of what they carry between people, not what they're made of.

But It's a Christmas film through and through, which makes it an odd fit outside December for some viewers.

Klaus poster

The Toys That Made Us2017

Toy Story mythologises the toy aisle as a place of magic and loyalty; this show shows you the boring, cutthroat business reality it was built from.

A documentary series digging into the real corporate history behind toy lines like G.I. Joe and Star Wars figures — the actual factories, lawsuits and marketing wars behind the shelf Woody would've stood on.

But It's talking-heads-and-archive-footage territory, dry in places, with none of the warmth or jokes of the franchise it echoes.

The Toys That Made Us poster

Pinocchio1940

Eighty-five years before Bonnie's tablet, this is the same question Toy Story keeps asking — what does an object have to do to become 'real' to the people who love it?

The grandfather of every talking-toy story: a wooden puppet who wants, more than anything, to become a real boy worthy of love. Beautifully animated, genuinely eerie in places, and much darker than the songs suggest.

But Its moral lessons are blunt and old-fashioned, and a couple of sequences (that island) are the stuff of childhood nightmares.

Pinocchio poster

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