# Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer vs. Christmas Scrooges

> Which 21st-century movie star Scrooge best honors Charles Dickens’ spirit?
- Title: Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer vs. Christmas Scrooges · Decider
- Summary: Which 21st-century movie star Scrooge best honors Charles Dickens’ spirit? Jim Carrey’s 2009 A Christmas Carol best balances villainy, comedy, and pathos for…
- Keywords: christmas, disney, paramountplus, a christmas carol, ebenezer, jim carrey, ryan reynolds, bill murray, spirited, scrooge, Decider
- Source: Decider — https://decider.com/2026/11/14/johnny-depp-ebenezer-vs-other-movie-star-scrooges
- Published: 2026-11-14T14:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: christmas, disney, paramountplus, a christmas carol, ebenezer, jim carrey, ryan reynolds, bill murray, spirited, scrooge, entertainment, culture
## Scrooged (1988)
Bill Murray’s Scrooge was a clunky Christmas Carol riff that didn’t live up to its potential.

> Scrooged has since become a holiday perennial, and it has a lot of very funny material in it; it also feels like an instructive ’80s time capsule in a way that it couldn’t at the time.
## A Christmas Carol (2009)
Jim Carrey’s motion-captured Scrooge balances villainy, comedy, and pathos with minimal overblown chintz.

> With the help of the animation team, Carrey is especially convincing at inhabiting the gnarled, knotted aspects of Scrooge that reflect the character’s withered soul.
## Spirited (2022)
Ryan Reynolds plays a media consultant Scrooge haunted by ghosts to change for the better.

> Reynolds is the potentially "unredeemable" Scrooge figure, targeted by a network of ghosts who select one person annually to haunt and change for the better.
## Ebenezer (2026)
Johnny Depp’s Scrooge is a garden-variety version with minimal impact on the story’s spirit.

> Depp, though, is doing a pretty garden-variety version of Scrooge, with a pinch of his funny-voice antics and plenty of uninspired line readings.
## Version Control Verdict
Jim Carrey’s 2009 A Christmas Carol best mixes villainy, comedy, and pathos for classic Scrooge.

> The Version Control Verdict: Jim Carrey
## Key takeaway

Jim Carrey’s 2009 A Christmas Carol best balances villainy, comedy, and pathos for classic Scrooge.