Three Toy Story Moments That Still Make Fans Cry

Toy Story 5 opens in Israeli cinemas today, and the article looks back at the franchise’s most emotional scenes from the four earlier films. The focus is on the moments that still move adults to tears, from nostalgia to the fear of being left behind.

In third place is Jessie’s backstory in Toy Story 2. The film shows how Emily once loved Jessie, then grew up and lost interest, leaving the cowgirl toy forgotten under a bed and later discarded in a donation box. The tearjerker is Sara McLachlan’s “When She Loved Me,” which turns the sequence into a short story about abandonment.

Second is the furnace scene in Toy Story 3, when the toys are trapped in a junkyard grinder and slide toward a huge fire pit. After failing to escape, they accept their fate together, holding hands as Woody, Buzz, Slinky, and Mr. Potato Head share what looks like a final moment. The article says the scene felt so intense it nearly crossed into destroying childhood itself, before the aliens arrived with the “Ooooooh” rescue in time.

At number one is Andy’s farewell to his toys in Toy Story 3. Now a young adult heading to college, he gives his toys to Bonnie, playing with them one last time after finding Woody at the bottom of the box. The article calls it not just Andy’s goodbye to Woody, but a whole generation’s goodbye to childhood, especially as the first film debuted in 1995 and Andy left home in 2010. It ends by noting that Toy Story 5 is rumored to deal with the challenge of screens, phones, and the digital world replacing physical play.