Every Willy Wonka actor, ranked from worst to best

Anything you want to, do it. Want to change the world, Warner Bros.? There’s nothing to it. Or, y’know, you could just give us a new version of Willy Wonka, I guess. That works too.

Just like James Bond and Doctor Who, it seems the cheerful and vaguely sinister proprietor of everyone’s favorite chocolate factory is a British creation destined to be played by actor after actor forever more. The latest to wear the purple top hat is Timothée Chalamet, whose name sounds like Roald Dahl character anyway, so he was halfway there already.

After an exhaustive search to find their new Wonka, with other wannabe Willies including Donald Glover, Ezra Miller, and Ken himself, Ryan Gosling (were we robbed? Discuss), Chalamet is the one to dazzle audiences in Wonka, a prequel to the traditional tale as directed by Paddington‘s Paul King. But where does Chalamet rank among his fellow freakish chocolateers? Let’s find out.

4. J.P. Karliak (Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

Yes, you read that right. Warner Bros. is guilty of some truly cursed IP crossovers over the past decade, from resurrecting DC icons with awful CGI in The Flash to putting their back catalog into a blender in Space Jam 2, but the mere existence of Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, from its painfully lazy title to its excruciating execution, has to take the cake (or maybe the everlasting gobstopper).

Remember when they remade Psycho shot for shot? Imagine if that was animated and someone decided to stick Tom and Jerry into it and you have this demonic straight-to-DVD offering in a nutshell. The storyline, character designs, heck, even the songs, all come from the Gene Wilder film. To be fair, Wonka voice actor J.P. Karliak is given an impossible task in having to directly match up to Wilder than any other Wonka actor since, but his oddly listless performance ensures that, ironically, the Wilder character is much more animated.

3. Johnny Depp (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

To give the Jack Sparrow star credit, Johnny Depp’s approach to the part of Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s 2005 Chocolate Factory is certainly unique. Deciding to base his portrayal on wacky game show hosts that disturbed him when he was a child, Depp aimed for his reedy Wonka voice to sound like a “stoned George W. Bush.” I think we can guarantee that no one else would’ve thought to play the part in the same way.

Yes, Depp’s Wonka may have been too Michael Jackson for most people’s tastes — more “Billy Jean” than Gene Wilder, if you like — but, in his defense, he wanted to do something entirely different to his venerable forebear and he succeeded. And, for those who grew up in the mid-2000s, his Wonka ranks up there with Mike Myers’ Cat in the Hat in the category of chaotic protagonists from so-demented-they’re-actually-good family films of the era.

N.B. Crispin Glover plays a parody of Depp’s Wonka in 2007’s Epic Movie. However, as he’s only called Willy, due to copyright reasons, he’s not included in this list. Also because life is too short to revisit Epic Movie under any circumstances.

2. Timothée Chalamet (Wonka)

“Help, police, murder!” the people cried when Wonka was announced, maybe even louder when Timothée “I’m the cinephile’s Tom Holland” Chalamet was announced to be in the lead. Nobody wanted a younger, pretty-boy Willy Wonka who was obviously going to fail to match up to the immortal effervescence of Wilder’s performance.

And then we saw it. And, OK, Chalamet isn’t as good as Wilder, but holy hornswoggler, he comes the closest anyone has done in 50 years. Armed with a much-improved backstory to Depp’s version — Irish boat mom Sally Hawkins trumps Christopher Lee’s dentist dad, I’m sorry, I said it — and a surprisingly nifty singing voice, Chalamet’s Wonka is an unexpected, sweet-natured delight. Much like the chocolates he makes in the film.

Chalamet is so darn charming in the role, in fact, that there’s only one drawback I can make against him: It’s a little impossible to imagine him growing up to be the man who knocks greedy German boys into chocolate rivers for fun. But that’s OK, he’s the woke Willy Wonka for the 2020s we didn’t know we needed. Simply put, Mr. Chalamet, take a bow (and then roll over forwards and do a somersault).

1. Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)

Yes, the Burton film is certainly the most faithful adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel we’ve had to date, but there’s no debating the best. The 1971 original is simply magical, and a large part of that is due to Gene Wilder’s truly timeless performance, one that’s enchanted audiences for 50 years and counting. A mischievous and playful actor at the best of times, Wilder and Wonka were simply a perfect match.

Discarding much of Dahl’s dialog, uncredited screenwriter David Selzner’s notion to have Wonka mostly speak in famous quotes adds to the feeling he’s divorced from reality, and yet Wilder’s Wonka never feels as weird as Depp’s as the former imbues his portrayal with a sweetness and a sadness. His Wonka is a man with a child’s soul who laments the greedy, cruel world outside his chocolate factory, and so has created his own safe haven within it.

If Depp brought Wonka’s off-kilter qualities to the fore, Wilder brought out his humanity. Even if he is also a little bit terrifying at times, that only adds to the nuance of the character. As likeable as Timothee Chalamat may be, we’ll never come close to the pure imagination of Wilder’s performance again.