Woody (right centre), Buzz Lightyear (far right) and their playtime pals arrive at their new daycare home in a scene from Pixar's Toy Story 3. (Disney/Pixar)

Toy Story 3 has trumped Shrek 2 as the highest grossing animated film of all time.

The third instalment of the Walt Disney/Pixar franchise raked in $920 million US in global sales as of Friday, outpacing Paramount/DreamWork's Shrek 2, which took in $919.8 million US in 2004 when it came out.

First launched in 1995 by Pixar, the tale of a group of motley toys who come to life, led by cowboy Woody and his pal Buzz Lightyear, has been a top earner for Disney.

The DVD is slated to come out in November.

In terms of its position on the list of Disney's highest-grossing hits, Toy Story 3 comes in fourth, after the first two Pirates of the Caribbean films and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

Toy Story 3, created in 3-D, has gotten wide critical acclaim. Director Lee Unkrich said the long lag time between the last film and the current one was about finding the right story.

"We want all the films to be great whether they are a sequel or not," Unkrich said in June, when the film opened.

"Hopefully the fact that 11 years have gone by between Parts 2 and 3 show that we're not hustling out sequels to make a quick buck."