Earlier this summer, Toy Story 3 celebrated its 10th anniversary. It’s hard to believe that the third installment in this groundbreaking animated trilogy is in the double digits now, especially with Toy Story 4 released just last year, but it’s to Pixar’s immense credit that they take their time with their sequels, putting lots of care and effort into making sure they’re as good as they can be (with perhaps one or two notable exceptions).
It’s for that reason in particular that Toy Story 3 is celebrated as being not only as good as its previous two installments but arguably better. With this long-delayed third installment, Pixar produced an intensely emotional, grandly profound mediation on this animated trilogy’s overarching themes on love, loss, deterioration, and impermanence, richly satisfying long-time fans while also keeping the younger audiences entertained. It solidified the Toy Story franchise as one of the all-time greatest cinematic trilogies.
