10 Roald Dahl Movie Adaptations, Ranked

At one time, Tim Burton was the perfect choice to adapt anything by Roald Dahl. That all changed in 2009, though, when Wes Anderson landed the chance to translate Fantastic Mr. Fox, and it was cussing perfect.

With the use of stop-motion, Anderson impressed his inimitable style on the already flawless source material. Anderson’s ever-present melancholy was akin to Dahl’s own penchant for the macabre and served to placate the fears of those who believed that “an American simply cannot understand the foibles of someone like Roald Dahl.”

Add to all this the vocal musings of people like George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray, and you have an instant classic that stands head, shoulders, and bushy tail above the rest.

For many, you can’t beat Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It is the pinnacle of Dahl adaptations, entertaining kids and adults for almost half a century. And I’d agree, in part.

It doesn’t look as good as it once did, yet it retains a timeless feel that is unlikely to diminish even 50 years from now. Attempts to bring it into the modern era have failed, even in the capable hands of an auteur like Tim Burton. Perhaps it’s the genuine vulnerability of its child star or the unforgettable performance of Gene Wilder as the titular chocolate maker.

Whatever it is, Willy Wonka remains the everlasting gobstopper of the adapted works of Roald Dahl, even if the man himself wasn’t a fan.

As much as I loved the original BFG, the Brian Cosgrove and Steven Spielberg adaptations are worlds apart – at least visually. But that’s to be expected after 27 years of technical advances. If BFG 2016 looked the same as BFG 1989, something would have to be very wrong.

In typical Spielberg fashion, this is a family-friendly interpretation of the original text, with the more frightening elements toned down so as not to give children nightmares. Can you imagine the Fleshlumpeater of old being translated into CGI?

Even now, 27 years after its initial release, The Witches gives me shudders down my spine. Ever since I read the book and encountered the line about Witches being able to smell children when they walk past a house, it has haunted me.

The film falls under the era where kids’ movies could still be terrifying because being a kid didn’t suck as much back in the day, and filmmakers actually liked to entertain children. That’s how we ended up with a film in which the lead character looks like Freddy Krueger in a frock.

Mara Wilson’s saccharine face used to be all over TV. She was the go-to child actress for just about anything of quality that Hollywood churned out with a kid in it. She was predominantly the “cute kid in the background” in films like Mrs. Doubtfire or a “sickly sweet shit bag” in stuff like Miracle on 34th Street. However, in Matilda, she is given the chance to carry the whole movie, and by gum, she embodies the role.

Of course, hers was not the standout performance in the movie. Those came from Danny DeVito and Pam Ferris, who played Matilda’s selfish father and psychotic headmistress, respectively. As good as the tiny titular tot was, you just can’t beat watching the hideous Trunchbull exert her power over a bunch of terrified infants. It makes her eventual comeuppance all the more sweet.

If you ask anyone to list their favourite Roald Dahl books, few would say Esio Trot. Perhaps the whimsical tale of love and Tortoises wasn’t bonkers enough for many younger readers. For those of us who are old enough to grow hair in places we never knew possible, though, it is a wonderful look at love from the perspective of an (even) older generation.

The TV movie version – which appeared from nowhere, with minimal fanfare but raving reviews – is a rom-com for life’s twilight years, starring Dustin Hoffman and Dame Judy Dench.

To many, Henry Selick is the forgotten hero of stop-motion movie-making. He’s been around the block a few times and was responsible for bringing The Nightmare Before Christmas to life. Yet, he is overlooked 99.9% of the time because the film carries the name Tim Burton.

In 1996, he was given the freedom to put his own name in front of the title, with a mixed media approach to the 1961 novel James and the Giant Peach. The film is set in the real world and the world of stop-motion animation and has a completely different aesthetic.

Unfortunately, the live-action sequences date the film horribly, but Selick has to be commended for his bold approach to the story of a young boy who escapes his abusive aunties in an oversized fruit.

It says a lot about today’s youth that many of them didn’t even know that almost three decades before Steven Spielberg brought The BFG to theaters across the world, Brian Cosgrove did the same—and Roald Dahl bloody loved it.

The animated movie, which embraced some of Dahl’s darker elements, hasn’t aged well, which is why it is so low on the list.

If, like me, you thought Tim Burton’s adaptation of a Roald Dahl text was the greatest idea in the history of great ideas, then you were probably incredibly disappointed when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory landed in cinemas in 2005.

It’s not the worst film ever, nor was it the worst film of 2005, not when crap like Are We There Yet? was circling the box office drain. However, there was simply no comparison to the 1971 original adaptation. Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka came off as creepy, less man-child, more child catcher, and the plot quickly gets lost in Burton’s own self-indulgent style.

Of all the Roald Dahl book-to-film adaptations, Danny the Champion of the World absolutely must fall last. It is inferior to the original text and to everything else that came before or followed on the big screen.

The original text remains very popular, but adapting it into a movie was always an odd choice. Without giant fruits, mad scientists, or fantastical worlds, it would never stand out. Sam Adams, a critic for The Wrap, described it as a “slice of white bread amid the snozzcumbers,” which sums it up perfectly.