The “Toy Story” franchise is not only considered one of the gold standards of Hollywood history but also has a nearly perfect record at the Oscars. Between “Toy Story” winning a Special Achievement Oscar for its groundbreaking animation in 1995, “Toy Story 3” winning a Best Animated Feature Oscar and Randy Newman’s long-awaited first Oscar in 2010, and “Toy Story 4” repeating for Best Animated Feature in 2019, the franchise is nearly perfect as a story and as an Oscar winner – which is the kind of history Pixar could stand to repeat right now with “Toy Story 5.”
Since “Toy Story 4” won Best Animated Feature in 2019 and “Soul” did the same in 2020, Pixar has had an uncommonly long wait for its next Oscar. In fact, between “Luca,” “Turning Red,” “Elemental,” “Inside Out 2,” and “Elio,” Pixar has been shut out at the Oscars for five straight years, which is its longest drought since Best Animated Feature became an Oscar category in 2001. As such, it stands to reason that if Pixar can’t even snap that losing streak with a new “Toy Story” movie, it might not happen for quite a while longer.
Every “Toy Story” film except “Toy Story 2” has won an Oscar, and that only really happened to “Toy Story 2” because there was no Best Animated Feature Oscar in 1999 – and because Newman and Sarah McLachlan’s tear-jerking song “When She Loved Me” was nominated in the same year as a Phil Collins song from Disney’s “Tarzan” and the cleanest song from “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” But maybe that is kind of an ominous sign for “Toy Story 5” as it puts the spotlight on Jessie the cowgirl for the first time since that “Toy Story 2” musical number, with a spiritual sequel song from none other than Taylor Swift to boot.
The “Toy Story” franchise has also gotten all its showcase songs nominated, although Newman’s “Toy Story 3” song is the only one to win. Nevertheless, the easy assumption is that Swift will have that covered, especially since the Oscar is pretty much the only musical award she hasn’t won yet. Leaving that aside, however, Best Animated Feature is really the big prize “Toy Story 5,” and Pixar is aiming for – at least if it doesn’t have the exceedingly high raves and tears that made “Toy Story 3” a Best Picture nominee to boot, back when everyone thought that was the story’s ending.
Pixar isn’t exactly starving for Oscars, especially since “Toy Story 3’s” Best Animated Feature was the studio’s still record-setting fourth in a row from 2007-2010. Yet that movie and moment are considered the end of Pixar’s golden, nearly-perfect 15-year run of greatness from 1995 to 2010, and things have been spottier ever since. It did manage Oscar wins for “Brave,” “Inside Out,” “Coco,” and then “Toy Story 4” and “Soul” from 2012 to 2020, but it has come up empty in the rest of the 2020s.
Part of that is due to a sea change of voters for Best Animated Feature, as more diverse demographics from other countries have helped launch films like “Encanto,” “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “The Boy and the Heron,” “Flow,” and “KPop Demon Hunters” to the last five animated Oscars. Pixar has still gotten a nominee in each of those years, but the likes of “Luca,” “Turning Red,” “Elemental,” “Inside Out 2,” and “Elio” could not match the raves and creative heights of those five winners, nor the Pixar winners of old. They did have a fair share of fans and wrung their share of tears in the classic Pixar fashion, but nowadays, the high bar set by the old Pixar classics seems a bit too high to match.
If any film is in danger of falling into that trap, it is “Toy Story 5,” considering its four predecessors. Even “Toy Story 4” had its reputation take a hit after winning its Best Animated Feature Oscar, as it didn’t shake off some lingering feelings that the franchise really didn’t need a fourth movie and a new “ending.” As such, since “Toy Story 5” isn’t the kind of surprise comeback movie “Toy Story 4” was before it was released, and since almost no one believes there won’t be a sixth movie at some point, the hype for this new chapter is more cautious than excited – despite the expected $150+ million opening weekend anyway.
“Toy Story 4” still had the brand name and the echoes of old classics to easily win Best Animated Feature, but that was in a time when Pixar remained the unquestioned king of animation. Now the new sequel is out in an age with more diverse winners who aren’t all from Pixar or America, and an age where Pixar hasn’t recaptured its old glory in a while – even with its last major sequel in “Inside Out 2” two years ago. Perhaps being a “Toy Story” movie is no longer enough on its own to win an Oscar anymore, just as being a Pixar movie in general hasn’t been enough since 2020.
Of course, between the box office to come and some of the early social media praise, “Toy Story 5” is surely going to do well enough to get a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination anyway. There might be somewhat of a risk in Pixar canceling itself out, since “Hoppers” already came out and got its own share of praise and box office this spring, albeit more on an “Elemental” and “Turning Red” level than a “Toy Story” kind of level. But even if Pixar gets two films in, or only gets “Toy Story 5” in, the rest of the year ahead has some open question marks.
At this time last year, “KPop Demon Hunters” was mere days away from quietly going on Netflix and weeks away from becoming a worldwide sensation, so any crazy thing can happen in the second half of 2026, too. Dreamworks already has a potential word-of-mouth hit in “Forgotten Island” set for late September, while Disney Animation will put out an actual non-sequel Thanksgiving holiday film for the first time in a few years in “Hexed.” But smaller films like “Flow” and “The Boy and the Heron” can ride critical raves to Oscar wins these days too, and this year has already seen the emotional graphic memoir “Tangles” make waves at the Cannes Film Festival. However, a distributor and a 2026 release are still pending.
For all we know, whatever comes along to steal the spotlight for Best Animated Feature is a film none of us have heard of yet, let alone a “Toy Story 5” level blockbuster. That has generally been how the animated Oscar races have gone in this decade, as the day when Pixar could claim the trophy by birthright and box-office muscle alone has been over for a while. However, maybe the days of a “Toy Story” film claiming an Oscar by birthright and reputation alone still have one more round left in them.
The mere existence of a “Toy Story 5” in the first place proves Pixar cannot let go of its greatest franchise as a safety net – a true “In case of emergency, break glass” option to restore its former glory, if temporarily. But if “Toy Story 5” is the first post-1999 movie in this franchise not to win Best Animated Feature, and the second in franchise history not to win any Oscars at all, then that will be the most depressing milestone yet about how far Pixar, and this series, have fallen since their heights in 2010. Though if “Toy Story 5” really is worthy of its past classics but loses at the Oscars anyway, that would say more about how the rest of the animation world has truly closed the gap on Pixar, regardless of what Pixar has or hasn’t done in the meantime.
“Toy Story 5” will set the bar high for Best Animated Feature in some way when it comes out on June 19th. Yet unlike in past years when a “Toy Story” and/or Pixar summer release ended all hope for other animated movies at the Oscars then and there, we still have to wait and see if something else can match or surpass Jessie, Woody, and Buzz’s new adventure – and it won’t be a total shock if something does.
Have you seen “Toy Story 5” yet? If so, what do you think of it? Do you think it is the frontrunner for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars? If not, do you think it will at least be nominated? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
