Spirited

"Start your holidays on a high note."

2022 2h 7m EN

👍

6.8

SOLID

🍅

70%

FRESH

😬

METACRITIC

⭐

6.6

IMDB

★6.8TMDB · 815🍅70%Rotten Tomatoes●55Metacritic★6.6IMDB · 55,989

Comedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge. Clint Briggs turns the tables on his ghostly host until Present finds himself reexamining his own past, present and future.

“Start your holidays on a high note.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Will Ferrell
Present
Ryan Reynolds
Clint Briggs
Octavia Spencer
Kimberly
Patrick Page
Marley
Sunita Mani
Past
Loren G. Woods
Yet-To-Come
Tracy Morgan
Yet-To-Come (voice)
Joe Tippett
Owen

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Sean Anders
Writers: Sean Anders, John Morris, Heiko von Drengenberg
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Mid-budget at $75M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 4 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Sean Anders, shot by Kramer Morgenthau. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Dominic Lewis. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Brad Wilhite shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Start your holidays on a high note.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt10999120 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Sean Anders directs. Kramer Morgenthau behind the camera. Dominic Lewis scores. Brad Wilhite cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Mid-budget at $75M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.
2Released 4 years ago.
3Directed by Sean Anders, shot by Kramer Morgenthau. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Dominic Lewis. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Brad Wilhite shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "Start your holidays on a high note.".
8IMDB entry: tt10999120 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 18 themes, including "depression", "sibling relationship", "based on novel or book", "holiday".

The technical file

Cinematography: Kramer Morgenthau
Original score: Dominic Lewis
Editing: Brad Wilhite
Production design: Clayton Hartley
Makeup / hair: Melinda Abreu
Runtime: 127 min · 2h 7m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $75,000,000
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Spirited (2022)
Rotten Tomatoes: 70% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 55/100
IMDB rating: 6.6/10 · 55,989 votes
MPAA: PG-13

Awards

8 nominations total

Also by

Sean Anders

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2022-11-23
★ 6/10
Wow, but this is all over the place. Based very loosely on the Dickens' character from his "A Christmas Carol" story, Will Ferrell is the Ghost of Christmas Present who now works for "Jacob Marley" (Patrick Page) trying to save irredeemable souls from purgatory. This is where Ryan Reynolds comes in. He is "Clint" - a successful influencer who is about as ruthless for his clients as it possible to be. "Present" concludes that if he can save him, then he can make a real difference to the future (despite the fact that he appears, already, to have rescued Dolly Parton!). Anyway, this is where the story gets a little more interesting. Rather than cowering in fear at his apparitions, "Clint" decides to turn the tables a bit and before we know it, he is challenging his protagonist to justify what he is doing and why. Unfortunately, though - and despite the presence of the usually reliable Octavia Spencer - the whole thing just peters out all too quickly with some predictably slapstick humour and a few rather dull piano/guitar ballads from an out-of-sorts Messrs. Pasek and Paul that have some potent lyrics now and again, but those are largely overwhelmed by the fact that Reynolds cannot sing and Ferrell fares only slightly better on that front too. It also has no idea how to end, so it has three or four goes by which time I was a bit bored by it all. It's been quite a while since I noticed people leaving a cinema screening, but quite a few abandoned this. Nothing beats the Albert Finney/Leslie Bricusse "Scrooge" (1970) for me, and though this iteration of the timeless story might work better on stage - much of it is very theatrically stylised in nature (especially the dance numbers) - I am just going to stick with that.
Manuel São Bento2022-12-27
★ 6/10
MORE SPOILER-FREE MINI-REVIEWS @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/mini-reviews-2022-edition/ "Spirited efficiently applies a Christmas formula. Harnessing the undeniable, palpable chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, along with original holiday tunes filled with the typical humor from the actors, Sean Anders delivers a musical entertaining enough to entertain the average spectator. Not all the songs succeed, nor their timing in the story is always the right one, and the generic narrative doesn't exactly help with the surprise factor. Still, I'm happy enough with the essential message that people can, in fact, change for the better." Rating: B-
Missy2025-12-22
★ 10/10
I can’t believe it took me three years to finally complete the intent of watching this! 😆🥹😝🤧😄🤩😍🥰😊 I’m [1] so glad I did and [2] kicking myself for taking so long! Then again, it might actually seem like starting in 2022 December and finishing in 2025 December is exactly the minimal temporal shift necessary (in this timeline 😉) to really appreciate the ‘miraculously’ [i.e., talent, hard work, heart, love, care, heartbreak, hope, persistence, living, appreciation, generosity, … etc. ad infinitum] truly-human storied-narrative that even the divine would approve as one of the many things to finally define the best of humanity — something all the universe would want for us (as well as any sentient intelligence that seeks the nature of immersing within all that is light’s brilliance). Perhaps, just in time to … ?