The Witches

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The Witches

PG

1990

1h 31m

Kids & Family

Fantasy

Adventure

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

94%

Tomatometer

48 Reviews

70%

Popcornmeter

50,000+ Ratings

While staying at a hotel in England with his grandmother, Helga (Mai Zetterling), young Luke (Jasen Fisher) inadvertently spies on a convention of witches. The Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston) reveals a plan to turn all children into mice through a magical formula. When they find that Luke has overheard, the witches test the formula on him. Now, with the help of Helga and the hotel manager, Mr. Stringer (Rowan Atkinson), Luke the mouse must fight back against the witches.

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Critics Consensus

With a deliciously wicked performance from Angelica Huston and imaginative puppetry by Jim Henson's creature shop, Nicolas Roeg's dark and witty movie captures the spirit of Roald Dahl's writing like few other adaptations.

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Michael Upchurch

Seattle Times

Nov 25, 2013

4/4

It's not a film for small children. But for precocious first-graders with a warped sense of humor and an appetite for chills, thrills and spills, nothing could be better.

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Michael Wilmington

Los Angeles Times

Nov 25, 2013

Real darkness seethes beneath the "Once upon a time" surface, mostly due to Henson's seemingly curious selection of the brilliant and audacious Roeg to direct.

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Ada Calhoun

Austin Chronicle

Nov 25, 2013

Based on a Roald Dahl book, Nicholas Roeg's The Witches is a film surprisingly faithful to the creepiness of the original.

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Rachel Wagner

Rachel's Reviews (YouTube)

Jun 9, 2025

One of the scariest films made for kids ever but a lot of fun

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Chance Solem-Pfeifer

Willamette Week

Jan 22, 2025

The Witches (1990) is another level of beautifully demented cinema—pitched at children in theoretical genre terms but actually a fairy tale lensed so grotesquely that it would make Guillermo del Toro squirm.

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Farah Cheded

A Good Movie To Watch

Oct 28, 2023

Finds a clever balance between being nightmare-inducing and deliciously fun, a tonal blend that harks back to the twisted appeal of traditional fairy tales.

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Ivy A

@Movielover71526483 2 days ago

Pretty boring could have been a good movie but was NOT properly executed don’t recommend unless u want to be bored to death

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Alyssa D

@RT61796684 Sep 30, 2026

Wow, there's a lot I love about this movie. Slow at times but definitely worth watching even just to see the Jim Henson vibes. This is one that's on my spooky season playlist every year.

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Gunner I

@RT64755212 Sep 26, 2026

I remember watching this when I was growing up. It's actually a pretty good family movie, especially one for Halloween.

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Barbara T

@RT82709315 Sep 25, 2026

itsa good movie Angelica really did it with her performance lively and whimsical

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Robert P

@Superbad Sep 4, 2026

The Witches = a *4* star movie!

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Petros T

@PetrosTserpelis Jul 27, 2026

Dahl watched it and then died. That tells you all you need to know. Huston is fitting, Atkinson is an oasis livening up the proceedings, and the practical effects are commendable, yet the film misses its target by a lot. The depressingly realistic, wannabe artsy shooting style makes it feel cheap and ugly, while the atmosphere of the book, grounded in its surrealism, subtle in its tragedy and witty in its simplicity, is entirely lost. Unsurprisingly, they couldn't help but butcher the end too.

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Nicolas Roeg

Director

Anjelica Huston

Miss Eva Ernst

Mai Zetterling

Helga

Jasen Fisher

Luke

Rowan Atkinson

Mr. Stringer

Bill Paterson

Mr. Jenkins

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Synopsis

While staying at a hotel in England with his grandmother, Helga (Mai Zetterling), young Luke (Jasen Fisher) inadvertently spies on a convention of witches. The Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston) reveals a plan to turn all children into mice through a magical formula. When they find that Luke has overheard, the witches test the formula on him. Now, with the help of Helga and the hotel manager, Mr. Stringer (Rowan Atkinson), Luke the mouse must fight back against the witches.

Director: Nicolas Roeg
Producer: Mark Shivas
Screenwriter: Allan Scott, Roald Dahl
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Home Vídeo
Production Co: Jim Henson Productions, Lorimar Film Entertainment
Rating: PG
Genre: Kids & Family, Fantasy, Adventure
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Feb 16, 1990, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 25, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $8.7M
Runtime: 1h 31m
Sound Mix: Dolby, Surround

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