Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was a British novelist best-known for being one of the world's most popular 20th Century children's authors. During much of his lifetime he was best known for writing dark, horror short stories - many of which were adapted into his horror television series Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected (1979-88) - yet today this has been eclipsed and he is remembered almost exclusively for his children's fiction novels. In 2017 he was voted in an online poll organised by imaging company Canon as 'the greatest storyteller of all time' - much to the delight of his publishing company who have since celebrated that in large letters on the covers of all his books. His work has been translated into 65 different languages and are among the world's best-selling books of all time.

Between 1980 and 1990 Roald Dahl cemented his reputation as an author of children's fiction, publishing many of his best-known novels:

• The Twits (1980)
• George's Marvellous Medicine (1981)
• The BFG (1982)
• The Witches (1983)
• Matilda (1988)
• Esio Trot (1990)

It was towards the end of the 1980s, and shortly before Dahl's death, that film adaptations of his work began to increase in frequency, although initially only on television. 1989 saw three television movie adaptations of his work, including Breaking Point, an American adaptation of his 1944 short story 'Beware of the Dog', while in the UK Thames Television were involved in two adaptations of his children's stories. This was despite Dahl's notorious and extremely vocal dislike of most adaptations of his novels, particularly any that made any changes to his work whatsoever.

Despite being acknowledged as the most popular children's author, films based on his novels have consistently failed to make money. All the film adaptions of his work released in the 1980s and 1990s flopped or bombed¹.

Also mentioned is whether the films pass the Bechdel Test. This can be summarised as whether the film involves two or more female characters who have a conversation together that does not focus on men in general or a specific male character or man.

Danny, the Champion of the World (1989)

A fairly close retelling of Dahl's simple tale which, of all his children's novels, is by far the most autobiographical, with Captain Lancaster based on his own sadistic teacher. The novel's setting has been changed from the 1970s to the 1950s for this film. It has the charm of a family story as Isle of Wight actor Jeremy Irons' son Samuel plays his character's son Danny, and Doc Spencer is played by Samuel's maternal grandfather Cyril Cusack.

Other story changes were made, with the pheasants now intended to be rescued and released by Danny and his father rather than eaten. The novel also has the pheasants hidden beneath a baby in the vicar's wife's modified perambulator. The vicar's wife plays almost no role in this film and is not seen with a baby. The pheasant shoot is now merely a step in Hazel's plans to build a new town rather than Hazell's chief hobby. The film has far more of the town rallying round Danny's scheme to steal Hazell's birds, with the whole community angered and alienated by the upstart intruder. In this film Lancaster quits as a teacher at the end but receives no punishment in the novel.

Filmed in Oxfordshire by Thames Television, it looks gloriously period, with genuine 1950s vehicles used throughout. The film was pre-sold internationally to WonderWorks, a company co-owned by Disney Television and PBS. Lionel Jeffries had previously played Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), a film whose script had been written by Roald Dahl.

The BFG (1989)

This was Cosgrove Hall's only cel-animated feature film. It was made for a then-unprecedented £3 million, making it the most expensive British animated film made for television yet². Cosgrove Hall was a Thames Television company so The BFG was broadcast on ITV on Christmas Day 1989 as their big Christmas family film. The character of Sophie had originally been conceived as a more stereotypically 'pretty' girl with long blonde hair, but when Brian Cosgrove spoke to Roald Dahl and learned that the character of Sophie was based on Dahl's granddaughter Sophie, the character was redesigned to be 'plainer', with short hair and John Lennon-type spectacles. Sophie Dahl went on to become a highly successful fashion model. In another Cosgrove Hall cameo, a boy has a Danger Mouse poster in his room, Danger Mouse being a Cosgrove Hall cartoon character originally voiced by David Jason.

Unusually, Roald Dahl actually liked this adaptation of his story. It does stick fairly closely to the original story, with only minor changes. A cute animal in Giant Country is introduced, the capture of the giants is slightly different, the eating of people from around the world is downplayed, and at the end the BFG isn't given his own palace to live in but instead returns to his home. There is also a song all about breaking wind: Whizzpopping!'

The Witches (1990)

Jim Henson felt that adapting Roald Dahl's story would be the perfect showcase for his creature shop's puppetry and prosthetic expertise and collaborated with media production company Lorimar Productions' film department. The Witches was made in 1989 on location in both Norway and (principally) in Newquay. Unfortunately, as the film was being finished, Lorimar was bought by Warner Communications at a time when it was merging with Time Inc to form Time Warner, and The Witches was left in limbo for a year. Finally released in May 1990 in the UK, where it did reasonably well, it was distributed in the United States with little promotion in late 1990, where it made little impact at the box office.

This film, described as 'a horror film for children', is by far the most critically-acclaimed adaptation of Dahl's story. Curiously Rowan Atkinson's hotel manager character dresses identically to his Mr Bean persona, though Atkinson has said he was inspired by John Cleese's Basil Fawlty. The Witches was filmed before Mr Bean's creation, but released after.

Unlike the 2020 adaptation this is set in both Norway and England like the novel, though the heroic boy, unnamed in the novel, in this version is named Luke and is American. The witches use magic other than poisoning children and unlike the story the poison takes an hour to take effect rather than at a set time the following day. Many of the actors playing witches at the conference are actually men wearing dresses.

Director Nicholas Roeg shot two endings for the film, one matching Dahl's and another, happier ending. Test audiences overwhelmingly preferred the new ending; Dahl, however, was appalled and threatened to remove his name from the film. He then stipulated in his will that any further film adaptations of his work should stick closer to his novels.

Both Jim Henson and Roald Dahl passed away in 1990 soon after this film's release.

Four Rooms (1995)

Most Roald Dahl films are for children. This unusual film certainly is not and cannot truly be said to be a Roald Dahl adaptation. In fact this portmanteau or anthology horror film is made up of four different stories, each created by a different writer/director. The fourth - 'The Man From Hollywood' directed by Quentin Tarantino - is the section with the Roald Dahl connection. One of Dahl's most famous dark and horrific short stories was 'Man from the South', first published in 1948. This story involves one character betting another that his cigarette lighter will light ten times in a row - if it does he will win a car, if it doesn't his little finger will be cut off. This story has been adapted for television three times, including as the first episode of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected (1979), and in 1960 as part of Alfred Hitchcock Presents starring Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre, with Marc Cavell playing the bellhop. The 1960 adaptation is drunkenly discussed by the characters in Four Rooms and they decide to recreate the bet, with Ted the bellhop paid to be the one to potentially bury the hatchet and make the final cut.

At this stage in Tarantino's career he was perhaps most notorious for Reservoir Dogs' scene in which one character's ear is sliced off (offscreen), which may well explain his choice for loosely using Dahl's story as a background for his contribution to this collaborative film. Bruce Willis was so keen to work with Tarantino again after Pulp Fiction that he appeared in this film for free, which violated Screen Actors Guild regulations and meant his name was not allowed to appear in the credits. The film contains numerous references to other films by Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, such as Big Kahuna Burger drinking cups and snippets from other films they directed appearing on the television screens. The opening credits were inspired by the credits for The Pink Panther film series. Madonna won the 'Worst Supporting Actress' Golden Raspberry Award ('Razzie') for the first time for her role in this film, also winning it for Die Another Day (2002). She had previously won 'Worst Actress' three times as well. Unsurprisingly perhaps, members of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation chose Madonna for their 'Worst Actress of the [21st] Century'.

Less than a sum of its parts, this film flopped on original release and remains largely a footnote in the careers of those involved in its making.

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

A stop-motion film by the team behind Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, but not as successful. Failing to recoup its production cost, it bombed at the cinema and Skellington Productions was closed by its owners, Walt Disney Pictures. The film had been a co-production with Allied Filmmakers, a division of Pathé, who distributed the film outside the US.

The opening and closing segments are live action, while the voyage across the Atlantic was filmed in stop-motion, with both a stop-motion and live action James. The insects remain stop-motion characters in the New York sequences.

There are a few changes from the novel. For instance, the insect characters are slightly different, with the silkworm omitted, the Centipede different to how he is portrayed in the novel, gaining a cigar and now being from Brooklyn for no readily apparent reason, and the Spider now French. The peach has a row of fencing embedded in it in a spiral, allowing the characters to travel up and down the side of the fruit. Sponge and Spiker are not completely squished in the film and instead drive underwater to New York, arriving shortly after James and the peach. Instead of encountering a school of sharks that try to eat the peach, a shark-shaped submarine tries to devour them all instead, turning a school of fish into fish-head pies just as Sponge and Spiker make. Whether the shark submarine is related to them, or if not, what its significance is, is never explained. The rhinoceros also has a much larger role, seemingly haunting and following James throughout. The film has had its setting changed from the 1960s to 1949, which gives the story a more timeless quality, and contrasts rationing in England with New York's plenty. Also instead of encountering Cloud-Men who make weather, the peach is trapped in a frozen wasteland with pirate skeletons, one of which is Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

There is plenty to look out for in this film, with references to numerous other films, particularly King Kong. There is even a post-credits sequence. Randy Newman was hired to compose the songs for this film following his success with Toy Story (1995). This film was executively produced by Tim Burton, who in 2005 would direct an adaptation of Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Matilda (1996)

A fairly faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1988 novel, only set in a busy town in the United States instead of a quiet village in England because, inexplicably, in the 20th Century, film studios believed that American audiences would not watch a fantasy film about a British schoolchild with magical powers⁵. Despite this, Miss Trunchbull, the villain, is played by a British actress.

That said, some of the changes made for the film improve and streamline the story, with Wormwood using glue to attach car bumpers, leading naturally to his hat being covered in glue, rather than superglue being introduced for no apparent reason. A greater emphasis is placed on why Matilda starts punishing adults in the film, with this being a result of what her father tells her in the film rather than being something Matilda decides to do for herself in the novel. Also, two sequences set in Miss Trunchbull's house work well. Miss Honey's home is a far more picturesque cottage, one that the National Trust would use to sell tea towels, rather than the hovel the novel describes.

When making the film, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman were married, although they have since separated. They provided much support for young actress Mara Wilson when her mother Suzie died from breast cancer during the film's production. Matilda is dedicated to the memory of Suzie Wilson. The picture of Miss Honey's father above the fireplace is a picture of Roald Dahl himself while her toy, Liccy Doll, is named after Roald Dahl's second wife Felicity 'Liccy' Dahl.

Despite being well-regarded, Matilda flopped on original release.