Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has five screen versions here, and they include animation, live television and two cinema features: Disney’s 1951 animation, Jonathan Miller’s 1966 television play, a 1972 musical, a 1999 television film and Tim Burton’s 2010 feature.
The book is about 27,000 words, roughly 90 minutes of reading, and every version here is longer than that. Their densities run from 2.7 to 4.8 minutes of screen per thousand words, which makes this the least compressed page in the collection: the films add rather than cut.
Every screen version at a glance
5 versions are listed here: 3 made for cinemas and 2 for television, released between 1951 and 2010. Runtimes are the length of the version as released, taken from the Wikipedia article for each title and checked against its IMDb entry.
| Year | Version | Director | Length | Leads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Alice in Wonderland — film | Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske | 75 min | Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway |
| 1966 | Alice in Wonderland — television film | Jonathan Miller | 72 min | John Gielgud, Peter Cook, Leo McKern |
| 1972 | Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — film | William Sterling | 101 min | Hywel Bennett, Michael Crawford, Robert Helpmann |
| 1999 | Alice in Wonderland — television film | Nick Willing | 129 min | Robbie Coltrane, Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Kingsley |
| 2010 | Alice in Wonderland — film | Tim Burton | 108 min | Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter |
How the versions differ
Disney’s 1951 animation runs 75 minutes and follows Tenniel’s illustrations closely, while inventing scenes and characters of its own between the book’s episodes.
Jonathan Miller’s 1966 television play runs 72 minutes and is the shortest here, with John Gielgud, Peter Cook and Leo McKern. The 1972 musical runs 101 minutes and keeps more of the book’s verse.
The 1999 television film runs 129 minutes, the longest, with Robbie Coltrane, Whoopi Goldberg and Ben Kingsley. Burton’s 2010 feature runs 108 minutes with Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter, and it uses a plot that the book does not have.
Reading time against screen time
The novel runs to about 27000 words, which is roughly 2 hours at the 300 words a minute the rest of this site uses. Every screen version fits its own reading of the story into the times below.
| Screen version | Format | Running time |
|---|---|---|
| 1951 · Alice in Wonderland | film | 75 min |
| 1966 · Alice in Wonderland | television film | 72 min |
| 1972 · Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | film | 101 min |
| 1999 · Alice in Wonderland | television film | 129 min |
| 2010 · Alice in Wonderland | film | 108 min |
| The novel (1865) | 27000 words | ~2 h to read |
For the book’s own sequence of episodes, the 1999 television film has the most time at 129 minutes. For the version most viewers meet first, Disney’s 75 minutes remain the shortest and the least faithful to the book’s structure.
Questions readers ask
Which Alice in Wonderland film is closest to the book?
By length, the 1999 television film at 129 minutes, about 4.8 minutes of screen per thousand words of the 27,000-word book. Disney’s 1951 animation runs 75 minutes and borrows from the sequel.
Is Tim Burton’s Alice a faithful adaptation?
No. The 2010 film, 108 minutes, uses a new plot in which a grown Alice returns to Wonderland, rather than adapting the book’s sequence of scenes.
How long is the book?
About 27,000 words, roughly 90 minutes of reading at 300 words a minute — shorter than any of the five screen versions.
The novel itself is on editions.ink as a free ebook: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, with EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB downloads. The full list of filmed classics covers 13 books, and the rest of the catalogue sits under classic fiction.
Other books on screen
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on screen — 4 versions from 1920 to 1968
- Little Women on screen — 4 versions from 1933 to 2019
- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus on screen — 4 versions from 1931 to 1994