A Christmas Carol

Ebenezer Scrooge is a wealthy Victorian businessman in London who cares only for profit and treats his clerk, Bob Cratchit, and everyone else with cold indifference. On Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who warns him that he has one chance to avoid a grim fate, and that three spirits will come to him that night. The spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future show him the life he has led, the people he has hurt, and where his choices are leading, leaving him to decide whether he can change.

This 1999 television adaptation of Charles Dickens's story was directed by David Hugh Jones, whose earlier feature credits include 84 Charing Cross Road, Jacknife and The Trial. Peter Barnes wrote the screenplay, Dyson Lovell produced, and the large credited cast of fifty is led by Patrick Stewart as Scrooge, with Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit, Joel Grey as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Ian McNeice as Albert Fezziwig, Saskia Reeves as Mrs. Cratchit and Desmond Barrit as the Ghost of Christmas Present. It runs 97 minutes and was produced by Turner Network Television and Hallmark Entertainment for release in December 1999.

Audience response has been stronger than the critical one. The film holds a rating of 7.4 from around 12,000 votes on IMDb and 7 out of 10 from roughly 238 votes on TMDB, while the critics' rating stands at 5 out of 10 across 652 reviews. The gap suggests a well-liked small-screen version of a familiar tale whose viewers have been more favourable than reviewers.