A Christmas Carol on screen: where five versions stream before Ebenezer opens November 13

Paramount’s Ebenezer, with Johnny Depp as Scrooge, is dated for Friday, November 13. Five earlier screen versions of Charles Dickens’s 1843 story can be streamed in the US this season, from a 69-minute film made in 1938 to Will Ferrell’s 2022 musical. Here they are in release order, with each one’s length, rating and service. The details come from the studios’ and services’ own pages, checked on November 6, 2026. We have not watched them for this guide, so the descriptions are drawn from what those pages say.

The five, in order

Apple’s listing sums up Edwin L. Marin’s 1938 film in one sentence: on Christmas Eve, ghosts of Christmases past, present and future teach an old miser his lesson. Reginald Owen leads, with Gene and Kathleen Lockhart. HBO Max’s November list has it arriving on November 1, and it is the shortest of the five. Our holiday classics guide places it among older Christmas films.

Richard Donner’s Scrooged moves the story into television. Bill Murray plays Frank Cross, a network president who started in the mailroom, and Paramount’s page calls the result a take-off of Dickens. His visitors include a New York cab driver from his past, a fairy with a taste for pratfalls and, from the future, a headless messenger seven feet tall. Carol Kane is credited as the Ghost of Christmas Present. It joined both Paramount+ and Prime Video on November 1, according to their lists.

The Muppet Christmas Carol, directed by Brian Henson and released on December 11, 1992, gives Bob Cratchit to Kermit the Frog. Disney’s cast list begins with Michael Caine, and its genre tags include musical. Disney lists it as now streaming on Disney+ and rates it G, the only G rating among the five.

Robert Zemeckis’s Disney’s A Christmas Carol came out on November 6, 2009, with Jim Carrey starring. Disney’s summary has three ghosts taking Scrooge on a journey, and the company labels it animation. It is also on Disney+, which makes that the only service here with two of the five.

Sean Anders’s Spirited is the newest and longest. Apple’s own pitch for it starts from Dickens’s scrooge and four ghosts, then promises a funnier version with large musical numbers. Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer star. Apple names it among the festive titles on Apple TV this year.

Others we could not fully confirm

Paramount+ lists a film called Scrooge among its November 1 additions, with no year. Apple’s store has a 1970 Scrooge, a musical of 1 hour 54 minutes with Albert Finney, which it describes as Oscar nominated. We cannot tell from the list whether that is the film Paramount+ means. Prime Video’s November list includes A Christmas Carol (1999), with no cast or description, and HBO Max’s includes The Man Who Invented Christmas, also without detail.

Disney has a shorter version too. D23, its fan club, records Mickey’s Christmas Carol as a 25-minute featurette directed by Burny Mattinson, released in the US on December 16, 1983, with Uncle Scrooge as Scrooge, Mickey as Bob Cratchit and Goofy as Marley’s ghost. That entry does not say where it streams, and we could not confirm a service.

What Paramount has said about Ebenezer

Very little so far. Paramount’s film page gives the November 13 date and a short tease: “The name you know, the story you don’t.” It says the film comes from Ti West, whom the film’s official site names as director, and lists Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Arthur Conti, Ellie Bamber, Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Charlie Murphy, with Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen. Our November theatrical calendar sets it against the month’s other openings.

A marathon, by the numbers

By our arithmetic, the five films total 482 minutes, or 8 hours 2 minutes. The two Disney titles together come to 3 hours 5 minutes. On the pages we checked, no single service has all five: seeing them all takes HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV, and either Paramount+ or Prime Video. Our plan comparison has late-October prices for all of those except Paramount+.