Roald Dahl (1916-90) was a British novelist best-known for being one of the world's most popular 20th Century children's authors. Part of his popularity seems to stem from his willingness not to hide children from horrors but instead to present tragic things as having happened, but without going into details. Having experienced loss and the deaths of his father and sister as a child¹ and, believing other children would naturally experience such losses, in his novels characters' parents often die or the heroes themselves may undergo permanent life-changing events. These include main characters being turned into an animal as well as heroic animals losing their tail.

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.

Despite the success of his books, film adaptations of his work have predominantly failed to make money. While there have been some successes, most have flopped or bombed². This might be the reason why John Cleese's script for an adaptation of The Twits has been unproduced since 2003, despite occasional interest from animation studios such as Aardman and DreamWorks Animation.

The Films

Many of Dahl's novels have shared themes, which include the heroes living in (often extreme) poverty, heroic poaching from the undeservedly wealthy, and loss. Chocolate and greed often appear, with greedy characters often but not always receiving some form of punishment, and chocolate only suggested as good in moderation. As Dahl's novels are very short, for the stories to be long enough for an entire film backstories and other narrative devices have been created to provide padding.

As well as a summary of each film 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. Some of the 'films' strictly speaking are television adaptations rather than films intended for release in the cinema yet have nevertheless been included. At time of writing (2021) many, though not all, of Roald Dahl's novels' screen rights had been bought by Netflix, with online adaptations in development.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

A typical Burtonesque take on Dahl's classic novel emphasising the dark humour, with delightful performances - particularly by Deep Roy as the Oompa-Loompas performing their songs in a variety of different styles. Depp's Wonka is more subdued and weirder than Gene Wilder's wilder performance, with a new backstory - his dentist father prevented Willy Wonka from eating sweets as a child, causing massive trauma in later life.

There are references to other films throughout the story, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Psycho. Mr Bucket works at the Smilex toothpaste factory - Smilex is a brand that featured in Burton's Batman (1989) film. The factory tour begins with a homage to the famous Disney 'It's A Small World After All' ride.

Unusually for a Roald Dahl film adaptation, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was financially successful, being the 8th highest grossing film of the year³.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

As Fantastic Mr. Fox is quite a short novella the film adds more details as well as more characters, such as Kristofferson and Agnes, while Mr Fox and Felicity's three children are combined into one son, Ash. Mr Fox's technique of drugging berries to make the guard dogs pass out is borrowed from Danny The Champion of the World. The role of Badger is largely replaced by Kylie the Opossum as the film is uncertain which side of the Atlantic it is set on. So while the town has a pub and a red post box, the cars are American station wagons⁵ and newspapers are delivered by being thrown into gardens in the American tradition rather than posted through letterboxes. Cider is also called 'Alcoholic cider' throughout - in the UK all cider is alcoholic. Typically, the heroes are voiced by American actors and the villains have British accents.

The film is incredibly well made. Notably the voice artists recorded outside the traditional sound studio to record scenes set in a forest in a forest, and scenes set in an attic in an attic. They even recorded underground for other scenes to try to get the correct background noises. The setting was inspired by Roald Dahl's hometown of Great Missenden, with the Fox family tree modelled on one in Roald Dahl's garden, and Dahl's outdoor caravan office inspired the look of Mr Fox's den and desk. Mrs Fox is named Felicity in the film after Dahl's widow. Another influence is the stop-motion animated films of Rankin-Brass of the 1960s - it features songs sung by Burl Ives, who had voiced the snowman in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964).

In 2014 Time Out Magazine listed it at 10th of the World's Top 100 Animated Films. Oscar-nominated for both Best Animated Feature and Best Score, it lost both to Pixar's Up. Costing $40 million to produce, it recouped its production cost, but with a world gross of $46 million, it was a box office disappointment, failing to get into the top ten most successful animated films of 2008⁶, yet was still at time of release the fifth most successful stop-motion animated film of all time⁷.

Esio Trot (2015)

The script for this adaptation was written by Richard Curtis. It differs slightly from Roald Dahl's final novella by introducing the character of Mr Pringle as a love rival, and the main change is the ending. In the novella Mrs Silver never learns what Hoppy has been doing and her original tortoise Alfie is adopted by a girl called Roberta Squibb. In this adaptation she is reunited with the original Alfie and Roberta is the name of the narrator's daughter, with the narrator and his family living in the flat beneath Mrs Silver.

The BFG (2016)

Made for $140 million and directed by one of the most famous filmmakers of all time, this adaption flopped. With much of the horror elements of the story toned down and a greater run time than the 1989 adaptation, this film went through a complicated gestation period with numerous drafts - purportedly including one by Monty Python star Terry Jones - written since the early 1990s, and the film rights were held by differing companies. In 2011 DreamWorks Pictures⁸ bought the rights, with a distribution deal with Disney's Touchstone Pictures division. In 2016 following substantial investment with Reliance Group and Entertainment One⁹, DreamWorks Pictures became part of Amblin Partners alongside Amblin Entertainment. In the United States The BFG was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures who also were one of the film's main investors, although Disney did not distribute this film outside the United States, where it was handled by other companies with a stake in Amblin Partners or other distributors. The last film that Disney had co-produced with co-financiers Walden Media was The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) which had also been a box office disappointment.

In this version it is made apparent that the BFG is by far the smallest giant, dwarfed by the others. The ending is slightly different with the giants marooned on a remote island with nothing but snozzcumbers to eat, rather than being imprisoned in a hole. Also, Sophie lives in the palace with Mary while the BFG returns to Giant Country and grows different fruit. This adaptation states that the BFG had befriended a child before Sophie, a boy named Danny who had been eaten by the giants. This was based on a proto-version of the BFG character appearing in Roald Dahl's 1975 novel, Danny, the Champion of the World. Many sequences were inspired by Quentin Blake's illustrations and even the 1989 Cosgrove Hall adaptation.

Revolting Rhymes (2016)

An award-winning animation that has been shown both as two half-hour shorts and as a combined hour-long film. The first half was nominated for a Best Short Film Oscar and is by the team behind numerous Julia Donaldson adaptations such as The Gruffalo. Though the rhymes in Roald Dahl's series of poems are unconnected, with the exception of Red Riding Hood also appearing in the Three Little Pigs story, this adaptation successfully intertwines five of Dahl's six rhymes¹⁰. The adaptation is very much based on Quentin Blake's original illustrations, to the extent that the major plot point of the big bad wolf reading Red Riding Hood's children a fairy story isn't actually in Dahl's anthology, but instead comes from Blake's front cover illustration.

It is appropriate that one of the voices belongs to David Walliams, the actor best known for Little Britain, who has since become an established children's author with a style often compared to that of Dahl. Rob Brydon would appear in another television adaptation of Roald Dahl's work four years later.

The Witches (2020)

A film delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this had a limited cinematic release and in the United States was initially released directly online through Warner's HBO Max online streaming service. It had taken 12 years for this film to come to the screen, with Guillermo del Toro having been involved in proposing a stop-motion adaptation back in 2008. Although this was not made, he was still credited as a writer and producer on the final film.

Instead of the novel's original setting in Norway and England, this adaptation has been transferred to take place in the United States with African-American characters rather than Norwegian. Despite this, much of the filming took place in the UK. The film is lighter in tone than the previous 1990 adaptation. It is also the first children's film made by ImageMovers since the box office disaster Mars Needs Moms (2011). Unlike many of their former family friendly films, this is live action and not Mo-Cap, although high definition video camera helmets were used to capture the facial expressions of the actors playing children turned into mice that were replicated in the computer-generated rodents.

Curiously, although the estate of Roald Dahl insisted that the film stayed true to the novel's original ending following a clause in Dahl's will in which he stated that films based on his books must stay true to his stories, in this adaptation Bruno is not reunited with his parents¹². In this adaptation the boy is poisoned by having the potion poured in his ear, which Anne Hathaway's character calls 'the Shakespeare way' in reference to Hamlet, and also because Anne Hathaway shares her name with William Shakespeare's wife.

This film attracted some criticism as it changed the witches' hands from having claws instead of fingernails to their hands only having three fingers, leading to criticisms that the film was biased against individuals with ectrodactyly¹³ and other limb differences.

Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse (2020)

A film very loosely based on real events in Roald Dahl's life. He really did meet his childhood heroine, author Beatrix Potter, aged six in 1922. However, he was three when his sister and father died in 1920. The biopic follows Dahl's autobiography, Boy. This biopic contains references to both the works of Potter and Dahl, with Dahl scrumping from Potter's garden while wearing a coat just like Peter Rabbit's. There are magical animated elements too which seem inspired by both Potter and Dahl's work.

The biopic implies that Potter created the famous nursery rhyme 'Three Blind Mice' when in fact it dates back to at least 1609. Though it is true that her publisher Fruing Warne was worried about the violent content in that nursery rhyme, much to Potter's dismay. The film also implies that Potter put more effort into creating this book than was perhaps the case, as Potter did not actually write any of the content of Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes (1922) - she instead collected existing rhymes, as well as one by a friend, Louie Choyce.

The Bona Fide Gent who appears briefly in one scene played by Bill Bailey talks in Polari slang, which is implied to be an inspiration for Dahl's love of wordplay.