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 in the film include Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, and Jim Varney. The story is set in a world where toys come to life. It follows an old-fashioned cowboy doll named Woody (Hanks), who becomes jealous when a space cadet action figure, Buzz Lightyear (Allen), starts replacing him as the favorite toy of their owner, Andy.

Pixar was asked by Disney to make a computer-animated feature film told from the point of view of a small toy, after the success of the 1988 short film Tin Toy. Pete Docter worked on early story ideas with Lasseter and Stanton, but Disney rejected them because it wanted the film to be edgier. After several poor story reels, production was stopped and the script was rewritten. The new version matched the tone and theme Pixar wanted: toys deeply want children to play with them, and this desire shapes their hopes, fears, and actions. At the time, the studio had a fairly small number of employees, and it made Toy Story with only minor financial limits.

Toy Story premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995, and 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 worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of 1995. Critics praised the animation, the screenplay, the score by Randy Newman, the film's appeal to all age groups, and 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: Best Original Screenplay, where it was the first animated film nominated for that award, Best Original Song for "You've Got a Friend in Me", and Best Original Score. It also received a non-competitive Special Achievement Academy Award. In 2005, the Library of Congress selected Toy Story for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, describing it as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film's success launched a multimedia franchise, which includes four sequels beginning with Toy Story 2 (1999), a spin-off film called Lightyear (2022), and many short films.

Plot

In a world where toys can think and move but pretend to be lifeless around people, a group of toys led by Sheriff Woody prepare 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 receives a Buzz Lightyear action figure, who thinks he is a real Space Ranger and does not know he is a toy. Buzz impresses the others with his electronic features and becomes Andy's new favorite toy, which makes Woody 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 choose him, but accidentally knocks Buzz out the window. The other toys think Woody did it on purpose, and Woody and Buzz end up left behind after a fight. At Pizza Planet, Buzz climbs into a claw machine that he mistakes for a rocket, and the claw carries them both to the house of Sid Phillips, Andy's mean next-door neighbor, where they meet his mutant 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 to Andy open 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 cynical toy
• Jim Varney as Slinky Dog, a dachshund slinky toy
• Wallace Shawn as Rex, a nervous Tyrannosaurus figurine
• John Ratzenberger as Hamm, a smart-talking piggy bank
• Annie Potts as Bo Peep, a porcelain shepherdess doll
• John Morris as Andy Davis, the six-year-old boy who owns all the toys
• Erik von Detten as Sid Phillips, Andy's mischievous next-door neighbor who breaks toys for fun
• 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. After Disney rejected his idea for a fully computer-animated film and he was fired, he 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, and it was the first computer-generated film to do so. Disney's leaders, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, wanted Lasseter 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, with two main characters who became friends only after they were forced to work together. The script changed many times. Tinny became a space toy named Buzz Lightyear, and the cowboy doll Woody took over as the main character. Tom Hanks was cast as Woody, and Tim Allen was cast as Buzz.

Disney saw 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, making Woody a wise leader and making 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, and 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 its El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 19, 1995, and Pixar's was the next night at the Regency Center in San Francisco. The film opened on 2,281 screens on the 22nd and later expanded to 2,574. In some countries, the short film Roller Coaster Rabbit was shown before it. The film was also shown out of competition at the Berlin International Film Festival from February 15 to 26, 1996, and opened in other places in March 1996. For marketing, Disney spent $20 million on advertising, and companies such as Burger King, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and Payless ShoeSource paid $125 million for promotions. Many toy companies passed on making toys from the film, and Mattel refused to let its Barbie doll appear in it. Hasbro agreed to license 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 as a double feature with Toy Story 2. Filmmakers placed a second camera into each scene to create the 3-D effect. In 2023, the film was re-released in selected CINEMARK theaters as part of Disney's 100th anniversary. For its 30th anniversary, it was re-released in the United States on September 12, 2025, helping to 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 worldwide, which was more than Disney chairman Michael Eisner had expected. It became the highest-grossing domestic film of 1995 and the second-highest-grossing film of 1995.

Critics gave the film high praise 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, and John Lasseter received a Special Achievement Academy Award in 1996 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, and robotics researchers wanted to build artificial intelligence into their machines that were similar to the film's lifelike characters. Some writers have compared the film to an interpretation of Don Quixote and to humanism. The film was also selected in 2005 by the United States Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "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 and 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, including in the blooper reel of A Bug's Life, where Dave Foley says the line in character, and in 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, which 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 set out on a rescue mission. The film was first planned to go straight to video, but the cast returned and the story was seen as better than that, so it was announced in 1998 that it would be shown in cinemas. Toy Story 3 came out in June 2010. In that film, Andy's toys are accidentally given to a day-care center 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, with Chris Evans playing the original Buzz Lightyear, the toy that Andy received in the first film was based on him. Disney announced on February 8, 2023, that a fifth Toy Story film was in development. In Toy Story 5, Jessie is now the leader after Woody's departure, and the toys have to deal with Lillypad, a tablet that is taking up all of Bonnie's playtime. The film was released on June 19, 2026.