My Toy Story 5 Review: 5 kids (age 5-8), 3 big wake-up calls for me

I took five children, aged five, six and eight, to see Toy Story 5 last week. Vacation has started, and one of our bucket list must-dos (find more inspo for your summer activity planning in my ‘boredom is okay’ guide) was TS5 with a bestie. 

Knowing a little about the premise, I was expecting another excellent-but-not-life-changing instalment from the franchise. Dependably good, with familiar characters and a few new ones. Plenty of laughs and a couple of hours of entertainment while everyone enjoyed seeing Woody and Buzz back on the big screen. 

Unpopular opinion maybe, but for me TS3 and 4 never quite reached the level of the first two big releases. I couldn’t with confidence tell you off the top of my head what happened in TS3, and my kids actually favor Pixar’s horror-themed Halloween television special, Toy Story of Terror! over the feature films as a regular watch. 

TS5 for us was an absolute must-see, because it’s TS5. Now having been, I’d say it’s a must-see for parents, over kids. Kids will love it. But there is a lot a parent can take from it, in 2026.

This is really a film for parents, about tweens

Because while Toy Story 5 is still very much a film for children, it also feels like Pixar is looking ahead to the tween years – that complicated stage where children are no longer quite little kids, but they are not teenagers either.

It is the age where toys can start being replaced by screens, where friendships become more complicated, where children become more aware of what others think of them and where the online world begins to play a bigger role in their lives.

And watching it as a parent, that was what stayed with me. In fact, I turned to my friend fifteen minutes in when Lilypad makes her debut – Lilypad is the tablet bought for eight year old Bonnie in the movie – and said “I think this is more about us, than them.”

Our eldests are both eight, same age as Bonnie. Last time we saw Bonnie in TS4 she was five. There’s been a whole lot of very relevant, poignant development in Bonnie. And it’s the start of the summer vacation, we’re navigating screens, tech, school’s-out-friendships and all sorts …

You can see where me and my millennial, guilt-heavy head and heart were going here. 

Five questions I was asking myself on the drive home, then, and haven’t quite figured out.

1. Who is the real villain in Toy Story 5?

Every Toy Story film has traditionally given us a memorable villain.

Sid (shudder), Lotso and Gabby Gabby all created conflict in very different ways, but each one represented something bigger: cruelty, loneliness, fear of being unwanted.

The villain in Toy Story 5 takes the franchise (and Disney) somewhere new.

Rather than a single character causing chaos, the antagonist is linked to the changing landscape of childhood itself – particularly the growing influence of tech and the way screens can compete with imagination, creativity and play.

The primary line about tech from TS5 is spoken by Woody: “Toys are for play, but tech is for everything.”

So far, Pixar has celebrated the magic of toys because toys give children the freedom to create their own worlds. TS5 explores what happens when those worlds are increasingly shared with, or replaced by, digital ones.

2. How are we doing with tech, really?

My youngest – he turns six next week – is still (and always has been), a big, big toy player. The kind of kid who can get home, grab some toys and play on the floor for hours and hours. Sure, he loves soccer over and above these days. And he’s partial to a bit of YouTube after a long day. But he absolutely loves playing. Just playing. 

And so did I. But my eldest has never been into it. She is far more into collectibles, crafting and dance than straight toys. But I’ve noticed the slip and slide of both kids over the past year, away from their practical interests and imaginary or creative games, and into the arms of tech for chill. 

Don’t get me wrong. Screens have been with me forever. My 8YO is currently a room away watching The Parent Trap while I write this, after six hours of dance camp. My 5YO is upstairs looking at his soccer sticker albums. I’m here for both.

It’s less about ‘tech’ for me, and more specifically about the small, private scroll and (if you allow it) online chat that TS5 is getting at. For our parents, the problem was the TV. Give me scheduled programming – Netflix and Blippi, even – any day, over the pull of the tiny screen, held in my kid’s lap. Because I know that it’s not the same, and has fewer redeeming factors. I don’t need the AI overview to tell me that it’s worse. I just know it is. 

My kids have a tablet. Okay, I’ll be real. They have one each. My youngest has a beaten up device which they shared for years, and my eldest asked for a new one of her own, for her birthday. I’ve made it fully safe and imposed built-in limits that stop the thing being used for hours a day. 

But she loves it. And really, I worry that she loves it more than any other activity on offer. That’s not in itself a bad thing – tech is in her future, and I’m not anti-tech (I work in tech) – I just wish, as a parent, that it wasn’t the case. Just for a little bit longer. 

But wow, the pull of a device is strong. And yes, I lean on them to get. stuff. done. around my kids. 

How are we doing with tech, really? It’s a big question. And I have no idea.

3. Do we have enough of these tween movie hits?

The biggest thing I noticed watching Toy Story 5 was how much older it feels.

This isn’t just a film about toys coming to life. They’ve already done that, and it is about the children growing up.

It is also the first film in the franchise to receive a PG certificate rather than a U, which feels fitting given the themes it explores.

Alongside the humor and adventure are ideas that will feel very familiar to parents of middle school children:

• navigating friendships
• wanting to fit in
• online behavior
• cyberbullying
• pressure from peers
• changing interests as children grow

It captures that awkward stage where children still want the comfort of childhood, but they are also becoming curious about the wider world. There’s a scene where Bonnie gets invited to her first ever sleepover (at age eight, I know, Insta has some spicy chat re this) – and don’t get me going. I cried real tears, watching her head in full of excitement and expectation, only to curl up sadly alongside the other girls, all of whom were glued to small screens – side by side, but not engaging. 

That is something many parents recognise. One week your child is playing with toys on the floor – the next they are asking questions about phones, games, social media and what their friends are doing. 

I addressed it not so long ago with my kids, telling them about a situation I’d noticed in our local coffee shop, where four teenage girls came in, laughing and smiling, then all sat down, got their phones and headphones out, and didn’t say a word to each other for 45 minutes. Then they all got up and left. 

My kids were silent when I finished the story. They are young enough to still want the play date for the play and the connection, rather than a screen. They were devastated, and I was glad. 

More of these tween big screen hits please. Disney, Pixar, Warner, Universal … we are lapping them up. Can I get an honorable mention here for The live-action film adaptation of The Magic Faraway Tree which releases in the US on August 21, 2026. Similar themes and age groups, big learnings and inspo. 

The transition can happen faster than you expect.

4. Will I watch TS5 again this summer (and every vacation, hereafter)?

You bet. 

The timing of watching Toy Story 5 felt so appropriate, being right at the start of the summer vacation.

The school holidays are wonderful, but they also come with long stretches of unstructured time. There are moments when everyone is tired, the weather is unpredictable and the easiest solution is often to reach for a screen.

And sometimes that is absolutely fine.

Tech is part of modern childhood. Screens can be educational, creative and useful. They help parents get things done and they can be a brilliant source of entertainment.

But the movie made me think about whether we are sometimes filling every quiet moment too quickly.

Since watching it, I’ve been more conscious about creating space for the things that feel very traditional but still matter: playing outside, making things, reading, exploring and allowing children to be bored enough to come up with their own ideas.

Our guide to things to do with kids this summer has plenty of ideas for filling holiday days, while our list of activities for 2-year-olds on a plane shows that keeping children entertained does not always need a device.

5. Would I recommend it?

Toy Story 5 is still a fun family film, and the children I watched it with all enjoyed it.

But for parents, it offers some much-needed homework. It captures a moment many families are approaching: the point where childhood begins to change. Where toys become less important, friendships become more complicated and the digital world becomes harder to separate from everyday life.

I went in expecting coffee, 1.5 hours to decompress in the dark and nostalgia.

Instead, I came away thinking about the next stage of parenting.

I think that’s why Toy Story 5 works so well. It entertains children who are still firmly in childhood, while giving us parents a glimpse of the questions waiting just around the corner.

Up next: Am I THAT AI mom? Peek my ChatGPT parenting history (for real)