Toy Story

This article is about the 1995 film. For the franchise, see Toy Story (franchise). For other uses, see Toy Story (disambiguation).

Toy Story is a 1995 American animated adventure comedy film directed by John Lasseter. It was written by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, and Alec Sokolow. It was the first entirely computer-animated feature film and the first feature film made by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The voices include Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, and Jim Varney. The story takes place in a world where toys come to life. It follows an old-fashioned cowboy doll named Woody (Hanks). Woody becomes jealous when a space cadet action figure, Buzz Lightyear (Allen), becomes the favorite toy of their owner, Andy.

Disney asked Pixar to make a computer-animated movie told from the point of view of a small toy. This came after the success of the 1988 short film Tin Toy. Pete Docter worked on early story ideas with Lasseter and Stanton, but Disney did not like them. Disney wanted the film to be edgier. After several story reels did not work well, production stopped and the script was rewritten. The new version matched the tone and ideas Pixar wanted. In it, toys really want children to play with them, and this feeling shapes their hopes, worries, and actions. At the time, Pixar was a fairly small studio, and it made Toy Story with only small money limits.

Toy Story premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995. It opened in United States theaters on November 22. It set a record for the highest-grossing opening weekend. In the end, it earned over $363 million around the world. This made it the second highest-grossing film of 1995. Critics praised the animation, the screenplay, the music by Randy Newman, and the way the film appealed to all ages. They also liked the voice acting, especially by Hanks and Allen. It has a 100% approval rating on the film website Rotten Tomatoes.

The film is often called one of the greatest animated films ever made. Because it was the first computer-animated film, it is also seen as one of the most important films in the history of animation and of film in general. It received three Academy Award nominations. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and it was the first animated film nominated for that award. It was also nominated for Best Original Song for "You've Got a Friend in Me", and for Best Original Score. It also received a non-competitive Special Achievement Academy Award. In 2005, the Library of Congress chose Toy Story to be saved in the United States National Film Registry. It described the film as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film's success started a multimedia franchise. It includes four sequels, beginning with Toy Story 2 (1999), a spin-off film called Lightyear (2022), and many short films.

Plot

Toys in this world can think and move, but they pretend to be lifeless when people are around. A group of toys led by Sheriff Woody get ready to move to a new house with their owner, Andy Davis, and his family. At Andy's sixth birthday party, the toys worry that he might get a new toy to replace them. Andy gets a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Buzz thinks he is a real Space Ranger and does not know he is a toy. He impresses the others with his electronic features and becomes Andy's new favorite toy. Woody feels jealous.

Two days before the move, Andy is allowed to bring one toy to dinner at Pizza Planet. Woody tries to trap Buzz so that Andy will pick him instead. By accident, Woody knocks Buzz out the window. The other toys think Woody did it on purpose. After a fight, Woody and Buzz are left behind. At Pizza Planet, Buzz climbs into a claw machine because he thinks it is a rocket. The claw carries them both to the house of Sid Phillips, Andy's unkind next-door neighbor. There they meet Sid's strange, broken toys. Later, Buzz has an existential crisis and realizes he is a toy. After Woody helps him, the toys work together to rescue each other and get back to the Davises.

On Christmas in the new house, the toys happily listen as Andy opens his presents. But when Andy receives a puppy, Woody and Buzz nervously smile at each other.

Voice cast

See also: List of Toy Story characters

Tom Hanks (left, pictured in 2023) and Tim Allen (2012)

• Tom Hanks as Woody, a cowboy doll and Andy's favorite toy
• Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, a Space Ranger action figure
• Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, a grumpy toy
• Jim Varney as Slinky Dog, a dachshund slinky toy
• Wallace Shawn as Rex, a nervous Tyrannosaurus figurine
• John Ratzenberger as Hamm, a clever piggy bank
• Annie Potts as Bo Peep, a porcelain shepherdess doll
• John Morris as Andy Davis, the six-year-old boy who owns the toys
• Erik von Detten as Sid Phillips, Andy's mischievous next-door neighbor who likes to break toys
• Laurie Metcalf as Mrs. Davis, Andy's mother
• R. Lee Ermey as Sergeant, the leader of a troop of green plastic army men
• Sarah Freeman as Hannah Phillips, Sid's younger sister
• Penn Jillette as the Buzz Lightyear commercial announcer
• Joe Ranft as Lenny, a toy pair of binoculars
• Jeff Pidgeon as the Aliens, a group of green squeeze-toy aliens

Production

John Lasseter first learned about computer animation while working at Walt Disney Feature Animation. Disney did not want his idea for a fully computer-animated film, and he left the company. He then joined Lucasfilm. In 1986 he became a founding member of Pixar, which Steve Jobs bought that same year. Lasseter's short film Tin Toy won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. It was the first computer-generated film to do so. Disney's leaders, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, wanted Lasseter to come back, but he chose to stay at Pixar. Instead, Disney agreed to make a film with Pixar, based on Tin Toy and called Toy Story. Katzenberg encouraged the writers to make it a buddy film. This kind of story has two main characters who become friends after they are forced to work together. The script changed many times. Tinny became a space toy named Buzz Lightyear, and the cowboy doll Woody became the main character. Tom Hanks was cast as Woody, and Tim Allen was cast as Buzz.

Disney watched the first half of the film on November 19, 1993, and it did not go well. Pixar later called this the "Black Friday Incident," and Disney's Peter Schneider stopped production. The team rewrote the script. They made Woody a wise leader and made Buzz clearly unaware that he is a toy. Production started again in February 1994. About 27 animators used 400 computer models to bring the characters to life. They worked very carefully to make the film look realistic. Randy Newman wrote the songs, and Walt Disney Records released the soundtrack in November 1995, the same week the film came out.

Release

Disney and Pixar each held their own premiere for the film. Disney's was at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995. Pixar's was the next night at the Regency Center in San Francisco. The film opened in theaters on November 22 and was later shown in even more theaters. In some countries, the short film Roller Coaster Rabbit was shown before it. The film was also shown at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 1996, and it opened in other places in March 1996. Disney spent $20 million on advertising. Companies such as Burger King, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Payless ShoeSource also created promotions for the film. Many toy companies did not want to make toys from the film. Mattel did not let its Barbie doll appear in it. Hasbro agreed to make toys of Mr. Potato Head but not G.I. Joe.

The film was re-released in Disney Digital 3-D on October 2, 2009, and was shown together with Toy Story 2. The filmmakers used a second camera in each scene to create the 3-D effect. In 2023, the film returned to some CINEMARK theaters to celebrate Disney's 100th anniversary. For its 30th anniversary, it was re-released in the United States on September 12, 2025. This helped start the promotion for Toy Story 5. The film was first sold on VHS in 1996, released by Walt Disney Home Video. It first came out on DVD on October 17, 2000, and later on Blu-ray in 2010. It was re-released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on June 4, 2019.

Reception

Executive producer Steve Jobs said Toy Story needed to earn $75 million for both Pixar and Disney to break even. The film went on to earn more than $350 million around the world, which was more than Disney chairman Michael Eisner had expected. It was the highest-grossing domestic film of 1995 and the second-highest-grossing film of 1995.

Critics praised the film when it was released. It earned a rare approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviewers liked its 3D animation and its voice cast, including Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards. In 1996, John Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award for helping to make the first feature-length computer-animated film possible.

Main article: List of Pixar awards and nominations: Toy Story

Influence and legacy

Toy Story had a big effect on the film industry because of its new computer animation. After the film came out, many groups became interested in the technology. Makers of graphics chips wanted to create images like the film's animation for personal computers. Game developers wanted to copy the animation for video games. Robotics researchers wanted to build artificial intelligence into their machines, like the film's lifelike characters. Some writers have compared the film to an interpretation of Don Quixote and to humanism. In 2005, the United States Library of Congress chose the film to be preserved in the National Film Registry because it is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Buzz Lightyear's line "To Infinity and Beyond!" has been used on merchandise, and by philosophers and mathematical theorists. In 2008, during STS-124, astronauts took a Buzz Lightyear action figure into space on Space Shuttle Discovery. They used it for experiments in zero-g. That same year, a father and son repeated the phrase to keep track of each other while treading water for 15 hours in the Atlantic Ocean. The phrase also appears in Beyoncé's 2008 song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", during the bridge. In 2012, the late Capital STEEZ released a song called "Infinity and Beyond." Disney has also referred back to Toy Story at least twice. One example is the blooper reel of A Bug's Life, where Dave Foley says the line in character. Another is The Shaggy Dog, where Tim Allen repeats his famous line. The characters also inspired the names of the Debian computer operating system releases, from Debian 1.1 Buzz in 1996 to Debian 14 Forky, the most recently announced future release. In 2013, Pixar designed a "Gromit Lightyear" sculpture based on the Aardman Animations character Gromit for Gromit Unleashed. It sold for £65,000.

Sequels and spin-off

The first sequel, Toy Story 2, came out in November 1999. In it, a toy collector steals Woody, so Buzz and his friends go on a rescue mission. The film was first planned to go straight to video. But the cast came back and the story was good enough for cinemas, so it was announced in 1998 that it would be shown in theaters. Toy Story 3 came out in June 2010. In that film, Andy's toys end up at a day-care center by accident as he gets ready to leave for college.

Toy Story 4 came out in June 2019, and most of the main cast returned. Woody, Buzz, and the others get used to life with Bonnie, who makes a new toy called Forky from recycled materials. On a road trip with Bonnie, Woody meets Bo Peep again and has to decide where his loyalties lie. A spin-off film, Lightyear, came out in June 2022. Chris Evans plays the original Buzz Lightyear, the toy that Andy gets in the first film, which was based on him. On February 8, 2023, Disney announced that a fifth Toy Story film was in development. In Toy Story 5, Jessie is now the leader after Woody leaves, and the toys have to deal with Lillypad, a tablet that takes up all of Bonnie's playtime. The film was released on June 19, 2026.