Ebenezer (dir. Ti West)

by Jack Martin | Nov 14, 2026

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 116 mins

UK Distributor: Paramount Pictures

UK Release Date: 13 November 2026

WHO’S IN EBENEZER?

Johnny Depp, Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Tramell Tillman, Daisy Ridley, Ian McKellen, Sam Claflin, Ellie Bamber, Nicholas Day, Charlie Murphy, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Arthur Conti, Robert Strange, Freddie Lee-Grey, Michael Culkin, Rose Williams

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Ti West (director, editor), Nathaniel Halpern (writer), Emma Watts (producer), Tyler Bates (composer), Checco Varese (cinematographer), David Kashevaroff (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Ebenezer Scrooge (Depp) receives three ghostly visits on Christmas Eve…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON EBENEZER?

Of all the many, many adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that exist in our world, director Ti West’s Ebenezer is certainly one of them.

There isn’t really another way to put it, since West’s film is as faithful to the nearly 200-year-old source material as just about every single other movie, television special, stage play, audiobook, video game (yes, really!) etc that bears the name, or at least some variation of it, of arguably the most famous Christmas story ever written. So, if you’re somehow hoping that this movie will deliver something substantially different to all the others, then you’re in for a lump of coal this coming December 25th, for while West hasn’t exactly made a terrible film with Ebenezer, it is one that ultimately struggles to make a case for itself beyond all the other versions you could be watching instead.

Do I even need to get into the plot? You can surely recite it beat for beat in your sleep at this point, to where I truly believe that any spoiler warnings are off the table, because we all know exactly where it’s going as soon as it begins. Purely for posterity’s sake, though, the film is about the grumpy and cynical old miser Ebenezer Scrooge (Johnny Depp) who, one Christmas Eve, is visited by a group of spirits – specifically the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Andrea Riseborough), Present (Tramell Tillman) and Yet to Come (Robert Strange) – who effectively scare him into seeing the error of his Christmas-hating ways. I’m pretty sure you can figure out the rest from there.

To give West some credit, while he did not write this movie – scripting duties have instead fallen to Nathaniel Halpern, making his feature debut after predominantly writing episodes for TV shows like Legion and Tales from the Loop – he certainly has an authorial grasp on it. There are little touches throughout, from a slightly retro opening credit sequence to some of the rather unsettling designs of these ghosts (for instance, Riseborough’s Ghost of Christmas Past is a pale, white-eyed phantom that could easily be mistaken for something out of Silent Hill) that give the intentionally bleak atmosphere a playful personality that is unmistakably Ti West. His lean toward a more horror-centric tone is inevitable, with creepy scenes and unsettling imagery that are bound to upset some of the younger viewers but fascinate just about everyone else, though there are also some effective moments which, even if just for a brief moment, give Ebenezer a touch of uniqueness. A sequence involving people singing “Silent Night” – which one could argue is indeed the Christmas carol that the original title vaguely refers to, at least in this case – is surprisingly effective, and if West brought more scenes like this to the fold, then maybe he’d actually have something to claim beyond his own dark vision.

But beyond that, this is a film that hits every single expected mark when it comes to A Christmas Carol, from the verbatim recitation of Dickens’ classic dialogue to the jovial tonal shift in its final stretch, which it remains almost fatally faithful towards. Halpern’s script throws in a few curveballs every once in a while, including the rather grisly fate of one fondly remembered character from Scrooge’s past (which also handily explains his hatred and distrust for the poor), as well as the fact that this Ebenezer, unlike many of the others, does actually pick up pretty quickly on which disliked dead soul they’re talking about in the Christmas Yet to Come section, but it’s not enough to give this movie the distinct rhythm or tone that it needs to truly stand out. West’s efforts to lean more into the gothic angle are admirable, right down to some of the interestingly wonky production design, though since the journey is so familiar, such endeavours barely matter, as do the efforts of an otherwise game cast, including Rupert Grint who makes for a fine Bob Cratchit and Ian McKellen who puts his theatrical vocals to good use as the ghostly Jacob Marley.

And then, there’s Depp. Look, I know it’s easy to bash on the guy, given his recent legal problems and reports of alleged abuse as well as general unprofessionalism, but I would implore you to not dislike him for those reasons in this film. Instead, dislike him for the fact that his Ebenezer Scrooge often feels like a retread of his kookier character-based performances than it does an actual immersive lead turn, with quirks and vocal stims galore that almost never make you see Scrooge himself but rather someone like Depp in heavy make-up simply pretending to be this character. It always feels like you’re watching a performance, one with about as much lively theatricality as anything you’ve seen before from this actor, but unexpectedly not as over-the-top or campy as Ebenezer Scrooge has been depicted in the past, which in some cases you wish there was more of since it would have made him stand out a bit more in the long line of screen Scrooges.

In all, while there are a handful of inspired moments, Ebenezer remains a fairly mediocre version of A Christmas Carol which, not for lack of trying, ends up being less humbug and more ho-hum(bug). Seriously, just stick to The Muppet Christmas Carol, by far the greatest adaptation of this story to ever exist – though that is saying something when the version with felt puppets has more soul and humanity than most puppet-free ones, including this which has a lead who, if reports are indeed true, is a very different kind of Muppet.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Ebenezer is a mediocre new version of A Christmas Carol which, despite the odd moment of inspiration by director Ti West, succumbs to all the familiar beats as well as an all-too showy lead turn by Johnny Depp.