RANKED: Every TOY STORY Movie, Best to Worst — Before TOY STORY 5

Published: June 4, 2026

By Movieguide® Staff

With TOY STORY 5 arriving in theaters this summer, the entire franchise is back in the conversation. Before you buy your ticket, here is where every entry actually stands — ranked by Movieguide®’s family content score, box office results and Movieguide® Award history — from best to worst.

No. 1 — TOY STORY 2 (1999)

“TOY STORY 2 is the type of movie you would like to keep for infinity and beyond!” Movieguide® declared when the sequel hit theaters in 1999. It is the only entry in the franchise to earn a family content score of +4 — meaning a “Biblical, usually Christian worldview, with no questionable elements whatsoever” — alongside a perfect 4-out-of-4 quality rating.

The review highlighted overt Christian references, including a clear nod to the parable of the prodigal son and a sustained emphasis on laying down one’s life for friends and even enemies. Woody’s rescue of Buzz, and his own willingness to give up celebrity for genuine love maps the whole movie onto something close to the gospel. TOY STORY 2 grossed $497 million worldwide — a remarkable number for 1999 — and remains the franchise’s purest meeting of craft and conscience.

No. 2 — TOY STORY 3 (2010)

Movieguide® Founder and Publisher Dr. Ted Baehr personally presented Walt Disney Studios with the Crystal Teddy Bear Award® for Best Family Movie of 2010 for TOY STORY 3 at the 19th Annual Movieguide® Faith & Values Awards Gala. The movie earned a family content score of +3 and a perfect 4-out-of-4 quality rating, with Movieguide® praising its “powerful, poignant picture of being delivered and redeemed.” The franchise’s Christian allegory reached its peak here: toys facing a fiery furnace reminiscent of hell, rescued by an act of grace rather than their own effort.

TOY STORY 3 crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office, the franchise’s highest-grossing entry at the time of its release. The Crystal Teddy Bear and the spiritual depth of its ending push it just above the original despite sharing its +3 content score.

No. 3 — TOY STORY (1995)

“TOY STORY has a heart of gold. It is funny, clean, wholesome, and virtuous,” Movieguide® wrote of the original — calling it “a masterpiece” and “a classic beginning to a new genre.” The first totally computer-animated movie earned a family content score of +3 and 4-out-of-4 stars, with a Christian worldview built around friendship conquering envy.

Its worldwide gross of $401 million in 1995 dollars was staggering for an untested concept. Woody and Buzz’s story of reconciliation and loyalty set the template the franchise would follow for three decades. It ranks third only because the sequel refined what it started and the third chapter brought the Gala hardware home.

No. 4 — TOY STORY 4 (2019)

Movieguide® called TOY STORY 4 “another breakthrough in great computer animation, and even greater storytelling,” with “incredible pro-family, pro-redemption, pro-self-sacrifice messages.” The review highlighted a very strong Christian worldview — overt self-sacrifice, loyalty to one’s calling, a villain transformed by redemption — and positive male-female romance as Woody and Bo Peep reunite.

The film grossed $1.073 billion worldwide, the franchise’s commercial peak. But its family content score of +2 — reflecting some genuinely scary ventriloquist-doll sequences and moderately questionable elements — keeps it out of the top three. It is a very good movie. It is not quite the franchise at its best.

No. 5 — LIGHTYEAR (2022)

Movieguide® did not soften its assessment. The 2022 review for LIGHTYEAR carried the headline “Pixar Goes Fully Woke” — and it earned it. The spin-off received the franchise’s only negative family content score: a -4, meaning “intentional blasphemy, evil, gross immorality, and/or worldview problems.” The movie sidelines Buzz Lightyear in favor of a lesbian character whose story becomes the movie’s moral center, promoting LGBT ideology and undermining the traditional family.

Audiences responded accordingly. LIGHTYEAR grossed just $226.4 million worldwide, by far the worst performance in franchise history. It stands as a cautionary example of what happens when storytelling gets subordinated to ideology.

TOY STORY 5 opens this summer. Director Andrew Stanton, who wrote the original and helped shape the franchise’s soul, is back at the helm. Christian families have every reason to hope the fifth chapter remembers what made the first four worth loving in the first place.

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