‘Toy Story’ Makes Rotten Tomatoes History as the Highest-Rated Film Franchise Ever, and ‘Toy Story 5’ Just Sealed the Deal
Few animated franchises have managed to survive four decades of Hollywood without a single critical stumble, but the ‘Toy Story’ series has never really played by the same rules as everyone else. Since Pixar’s first feature film debuted in 1995, the franchise has grown into the studio’s most commercially successful series, grossing more than $3.3 billion at the box office, all while maintaining a level of critical goodwill that most studios can only dream about. That kind of sustained excellence across so many years and so many sequels is genuinely rare territory in modern cinema.
The story of how Pixar keeps pulling this off is inseparable from the studio’s willingness to treat each new chapter as a genuine emotional endeavor rather than a product extension. ‘Toy Story 5’ centers on Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the rest of the gang as their roles as companions are challenged when they come face to face with Lilypad, a brand-new tablet device voiced by Greta Lee, who arrives with her own ideas about what is best for their kid Bonnie. Directed by series creator Andrew Stanton and co-directed by Kenna Harris, the film arrives an astonishing 31 years after the original.
That arrival is now part of something genuinely historic. According to @cosmic_marvel on X, ‘Toy Story’ has become the highest-rated franchise ever on Rotten Tomatoes, with the five-film run posting scores of 100%, 100%, 98%, 97%, and 93% respectively. With ‘Toy Story 5’ officially in theaters, the full franchise scores across all five films place the series above every other franchise ever tracked on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus for ‘Toy Story 5’ reads that it proves old toys can learn new tricks while reckoning with an era of endless screen time, largely sidestepping franchise fatigue by reaffirming that children everywhere still have a friend in these lovable characters. In Screen Rant’s review, Jordan Williams asserted that the new installment pulls off the impressive feat of being the funniest and most emotional entry in the series. Not every critic agreed, with some pointing to its 73 on Metacritic as the weakest score in the franchise and questioning the necessity of continuing a story that had already seen two widely accepted endings.
Longtime Pixar writer and ‘WALL-E’ director Andrew Stanton, who worked on all previous ‘Toy Story’ films, takes the directorial reins of the franchise for the first time with this installment, and the result is described by critics as a movie with an ambitious and layered structure that places Jessie at the emotional center of the story. Tim Allen, speaking with WIVB, confirmed the film is very much about Jessie, with Woody and Buzz realigning around her journey.
On the box office front, ‘Toy Story 5′ is tracking toward a franchise-record global opening of around $275 million, which would make it the biggest international debut in the series’ history. The combination of record-setting critical standing and enormous audience anticipation positions the fifth installment as one of the defining theatrical events of the year, and a testament to what Pixar can still accomplish when the story earns its place. Whether you think five chapters is one too many or not nearly enough, the numbers on the Tomatometer make a compelling case that this particular toy box is far from empty.
