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1938 version with Reginald Owen. Many people are going to disagree with this, but I still think is the definitive version with very few changes from the book.
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Scrooge. The 1935 version. I’d love it more if I could get a decent print. This is the one in the public domain, showing up in cheap DVD bargains and independent TV stations.
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1984 version of A Christmas Carol with George C Scott. The best modern version.
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1999 version with Patrick Stewart. Not a bad edition. Stewart suffers a bit from the Capt. Picard stereotype.
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1970 musical version Scrooge. This story doesn’t lend itself as much to a musical.
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Scrooged. The 1998 film with Bill Murray. Nice as a change of pace.
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Alastair Sims 1951 version. Way too bloated. I have no idea why this film gets the love it does.
I’m sorry, the Alastair Sim version will always be #1 in my heart. I think Sim gives just about the best portrayal of Scrooge possible. I’ve watched this movie for 30 years, and I still cry at the end.
I also like the George C. Scott version.
Actually, the Muppet Christmas Carol was a very good version. Some catchy tunes, too. 
This is an emotional issue. Sim.
Definitely Alistair Sim. I want to know when it’s going to be on! I’d plan my week around it if I knew.
Another vote for Alistair Sim here in the top spot.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. I think that I saw it when it first aired. (I just looked it up, and was surprised and pleased to see that the music was by Jule Stine.) This persuaded me to read the story when I was fairly young which in turn led me to read more by Dickens.
Alastair Sim is always number one, primarily because he’s the best Scrooge. His bad Scrooge is completely blackhearted, and the good Scrooge is totally joyous. Even more importantly, he makes the change seem perfectly naturual.
None of the others is all that impressive. If pressed, I’d put Michael Caine as #2 for A Muppet Christmas Carol.
Alastair Sim is always number one, primarily because he’s the best Scrooge. His bad Scrooge is completely blackhearted, and the good Scrooge is totally joyous. Even more importantly, he makes the change seem perfectly natural.
None of the others is all that impressive. If pressed, I’d put Michael Caine as #2 for A Muppet Christmas Carol.
I was going to vote for that as #1. Everything is better with Muppets!
I loved the George C. Scott version, and I give Scott extra points for several reasons.
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I had already seen a hundred different versions of “A Christmas Carol” before I saw Scott’s, so I was inclined to think there was nothing new or interesting an actor could still do with the part or that a director could still do with the story. I was very pleasantly surprised on both counts.
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Other actors playing Scrooge are often too quick to assume that Scrooge is a miserable lonely man. Scott was different. His Scrooge engaged in give-and-take with the spirits. He was PROUD of what he’d accomplished in rising from poverty to wealth, and wasn’t about to have his accomplishments denigrated.
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Other Scrooge’s have rarely shown a sense of humor. Scott was different. Scott’s Scrooge seems to enjoy give-and-take with his nephew Fred. When Scott says that every Christmas-loving idiot should be boiled in his pudding and buried with holly through his heart, why, he’s PLEASED with himself! He’s laughing, and thinks he’s made quite a clever remark. You get the feeling that he was a very funny guy, once, and can understand how he could have charmed Belle long ago.
The 1951 version with Alistair Sim. Come on now! Sim’s Scrooge is without flaw. Acerbic, bitter, and curt to start with; then frightened and dubious when the spirits arrive; then boyishly happy & playful when he realizes he’s not missed Christmas; then finally genuinely remorseful and shy when he tries to make amends with the people he realizes he cares about. None of the others I’ve seen have shown me so many facets of the man.
However, I don’t choose this version just because Sim is the ne plus ultra of Scrooges, but because the entire production is brilliant. Black humor, creepy otherworldly atmosphere (helps that the film’s from 1951 but seems twenty years older), excellent music, and actors who seem like truly Dickensian creatures come to life (especially Mervyn Johns and Hermione Baddeley as Mr. & Mrs. Cratchit, Jack Warner as Mr. Jorkin – who’s actually not in the book --, Michael Hornden as Jacob Marley, Kathleen Harrison as Scrooge’s maid and above all Ernest Thesiger as the hilariously grim undertaker).
Anyone who isn’t a bit teary when a tentative Scrooge walks into his nephew’s home* and overhears “Barbara Allen” is missing a soul.
My second favorite is the Patrick Stewart one-man-show version, which I saw on Broadway way back when. The man’s amazing.
- By the way, my family has been debating for decades whether the uncredited actress playing maid who greets him is an extremely young Audrey Hepburn. There’s a definite resemblence! And Hepburn was in another film with Sim and Eleanor Summerfield, who plays Flora here. But I doubt there are any Hepburn films we don’t know about at this late date.
1.) I vote for Sim in first place, too. He manages to handle botyh the serious and omic elements of the role. The rest of the production is well managed, and they do a great job of filling in the backstory – not “bloated”, IMHO, but full.
2.) I have to agree that George C. Scott’s version is great. I’ve only seen it omnce or twice, but Scott is an impressive and, I think, an underappreciated actor. He played too many roles that weren’t up to his capabilitues (probably to pay the bills), and toio many people are familiar with these and not with his great ones. Scott really does handle Scrooge perfectly, and makes the transition between curmudgeon and The Man Who Finally Appreciates Christmas believable and fresh – which is a helluva accomplishment.
3.) Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. I saw this every year as a kid, beginning with its first broadcast in 1962 (I’d never ever HEARD of “A Christmas Carol” before. I thought it was going to be a cartoon of Mr. Magoo just singing). There are a lot of neat touches in the flick, from its framing story of Magoo as a Broadway actor (with appropriately=placed tableaus that remind you it’s a play) to the worked problems on the school blackboard of Scrooge’s youth in pounds shilling and pence, to the wonderful score, and Paul Frees’ voice work.
4.) A Mupper Christmas Carol – nowhere bnear as good as the others, but the Muppets are a delight. I like Michael Caine, and he’s got to be given credit for putting up with this weird treatment of Scrooge, but his performance isn’t in a class with Sim and Scott (although it might well be because of the venue – performing an overtly comic version with felt-faced co-stars doesn’t lend itself to really serious acting)
I haven’t seen the Patrick Stewart version, or (and I’d dearly love to see this) the Chuck Jones-produced animated version that used the original illustrations and a performance by Alistair Sim (Not, I think , simply a dub from his 1951 film).
Nor the 1935 version
Some that are good, but I don’t rate them highly:
Mickey’s Christmas Carol. – Pretty cute, with clever re-use of Disney characters. And, of course, Uncle Scrooge as Scrooge. But not really inspired.
Reginald Owen’s 1938 version. I think THIS one is bloated, myself. The scene of Bob Cratchit starting to laugh because of the sight of a swibnging goose head after he’s been fired (!!) by Scrooge, and sliding on the ice with the kids is so saccharine I can’t stand it. And the Ghost of Christmas Past looks stupid.
Rankin-Bass’ version with Walter Matthau as Scrooge. There’s a reason I refer to these guys as Rank and Base. And Matthau isn’t really a Christmas-hating curmudgeon. He’s just grouchy.
I’ve seen several live stage versions of ACC. The one they put on here north of Boston at the North Shore Music Fair is pretty cute, with a neat twist that I’ll spoiler:
The narrator of the show turns out to be Tiny Tim
I highly recommend reading Dickens’ original book, by the way. I did so as a kid, and was blown away. If you can find it, The Annotated Christmas Carol (which was recently reprinted) is really worthwhile.
(I was inspired to read Dickens’ other Christmas books because I like ACC so much. He wrote five more. They don’t even come close to the level of ACC, and most of them are awful. I had to really slog through them, hoping for better.)
The TV musical with Kelsey Grammar is forever at the bottem of any list. It was a disgusting black hole that sucked up two hours of my life.
Agreed. I love the Muppet version, and I can NEVER find it on TV.
I was so happy to hear that Jesse L. Martin was in another musical I stayed home one night three years ago to hear him sing. And what did I get? That! le sigh
I haven’t seen many versions, but I thought the Patrick Stewart suffered from an overreliance on CGI, while the rest of the production looked rather cheap. I found listening to his one-man recitation on CD much more fun.
I agree with astorian, especially point #3. That’s the best delivery of that line ever. Scott’s Scrooge had more depth than the others.
I heard Charles Dickens’ great-great-grandson read the story a couple of years ago. He does this every year, in Galveston TX, and does a fine job of it.
Nothing is close to as terrible as A Six Million Dollar Christmas, the “very special episode” of the Six Million Dollar Man where Steve Austin (a man barely alive) uses his bionic powers to play the parts of the Christmas ghosts for some godawful reason. Man, that was a heaping pile of suck.
- Sim
- Scott
- Owen
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1,096,452. Lucci
I loved Albert Finney in Scrooge 1970. As this was the one I grew up watching. The icon I have in my head of scrooge will always be Albert Finney!