Is ‘Wicked’ the Best Oz Adaptation Since ‘The Wizard of Oz’?
L. Frank Baum had been an actor, theater manager, frontier store owner, newspaperman, traveling salesman, and editor of a magazine about shop-window decorations before publishing a collection of stories based on Mother Goose rhymes at age 41 in 1897. It sold pretty well, as did his follow-ups, but it took a few more years before Baum wrote the book that made his name. Published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz quickly became a best seller and realized Baum’s aim of giving America a fairy tale to call its own.
Baum’s subsequent Oz books furthered that aim but, almost from the start, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz took on a second life via adaptations into other media, most notably a long-running theatrical musical launched in 1902. While Baum’s books would certainly still be remembered as landmarks of children’s literature, it is film — and one film in particular — that has made Oz immortal.
Released in 1939, The Wizard of Oz both re-created Baum’s magical kingdom in stunning Technicolor and filled it with unforgettable songs and memorable performances. It’s a pinnacle of golden-age movie magic, an extraordinary mix of production design, songcraft, and openhearted performances, none more achingly sincere than Judy Garland’s work as Dorothy. Its influence is vast, extending well beyond musicals and kids’ films. And, appropriate for a movie set in a magical kingdom, it feels genuinely transporting no matter how many times you’ve seen it.
Yet, while by far the best known, and undeniably best, The Wizard of Oz isn’t the only adaptation of Baum’s Oz work. It’s not even the first. No matter how good any subsequent Oz films might be, it’s hard to imagine any topping MGM’s masterpiece. Below, you’ll find a ranking of the many other Oz movies that have tried, up to and including the latest, Wicked.
A quick note: This list only considers theatrically released films directly adapted from or inspired by Baum’s Oz books. That means no TV series, miniseries, direct-to-video cartoons, made-for-TV movies, or tangentially connected works. (Apologies in advance to fans of Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz, The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, and Zardoz.)
The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969)
He may not have made very good movies but someone should make a movie about director Barry Mahon. A WWII hero who enlisted in the RAF before the United States joined the fighting and did time in a POW camp, Mahon later became Errol Flynn’s private pilot and then his late-career manager and the director of Flynn’s final film, the pro-Castro Cuban Rebel Girls. After Flynn’s death, Mahon segued into low-budget movies like the Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite Rocket Attack U.S.A., before moving even further down the cinematic food chain as the auteur behind nudie films with such titles as The Adventures of Busty Brown and Run Swinger Run! In the late 1960s, Mahon branched out, turning his attention to movies for children, starting with this adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s second book in the Oz series. Though the film mostly stays true to the book, its indescribably cheap sets and costumes and amateurish acting fail to summon up visions of a land over the rainbow, to say the least. How cheap is it? Not only does the actor playing Jack Pumpkinhead wear an expressionless mask that resembles the plastic jack-o’-lantern buckets used by trick-or-treaters (and might actually be one), his dialogue is muffled and echoey, as if Mahon ran out of time to overdub it with a clearer recording or, more likely, never intended to in the first place.
Journey Back to Oz (1972)
From the 1960s through the ’80s, the animation studio Filmation helped fill the airwaves with cheaply produced (but often winning) cartoon series like The Archie Show, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and Fat Albert. Journey Back to Oz has its origins in the studio’s earliest days in 1962 but remained unfinished until years later. By casting Judy Garland’s daughter Liza Minnelli; Garland’s frequent co-star Mickey Rooney as the Scarecrow; and Wicked Witch Margaret Hamilton, this time as the voice of Auntie Em, Journey Back to Oz invites comparisons to the MGM film that quickly prove unflattering due to the cheap, often motionless animation and obvious corner cutting. (Be prepared to hear the same trumpeting elephant sound effect over and over again.) It’s also, for much of its running time, pretty dispiriting, following Dorothy as she reunites with her Oz pals only to have them turn their back on her, one by one, as she takes a stand against the evil Mombi (Ethel Merman). The film has its high points, like Paul Lynde’s performance as Jack Pumpkinhead, and the songs by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen aren’t bad. But be prepared for a long, dull walk down this particular yellow brick road.
Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return (2014)
A contemporary descendant of Journey Back to Oz, this computer-animated sequel features a cast filled with recognizable names like Lea Michele, Dan Aykroyd, Kelsey Grammer, and Martin Short and a handful of original songs. And it looks like every possible shortcut was taken during its production. Based on a book written by L. Frank Baum’s great-grandson Roger S. Baum, it plays like a dull DreamWorks reject and became one of the biggest animated flops of the 21st century, though the story behind its shady financing is pretty interesting.
The Wizard of Oz (1982)
The Wizard of Oz has proven itself flexible enough to work in many different styles and seems like a natural fit for anime. But the idea of a Japanese take on Oz proves more intriguing than the reality in this 1982 version of the story. That’s at least partly due to the dull character design, which has more in common with the low-budget Western animation of the era than the animation that was being produced in Japan. Though not actively awful, it’s pretty bland and poky, the sort of movie you put on if you want the kids to nap.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) / His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914) / The Magic Cloak of Oz (1914)
Baum’s skill with creating fantastic stories for children might have been matched only by his inability to hold onto his money. Despite the success of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum frequently found himself in debt and looking for ways to climb out of it. Shortly after moving to Hollywood in 1911, he helped bring Oz to the big screen via three films that adapted later entries in the Oz books. (Baum had sold the rights to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to one of his creditors.) He threw himself into the films, supervising every aspect of their production and drawing on his theatrical experience and enthusiasm for photography. The results are in many ways fascinating, filled with innovative special effects, early examples of stop-motion animation, and elaborate, sometimes grotesque costumes. Once seen, the rotund, threatening Roly-Rogues of The Magic Cloak of Oz are not soon forgotten. But as films, they’re also something of a slog thanks to murky storytelling and dreary pacing. Despite earning strong reviews, they failed to catch on with moviegoers, and Baum found himself out of the film business by 1915.
The Wizard of Oz (1925)
Famous in his day but now overshadowed by his contemporaries, Larry Semon starred in and directed dozens of silent-era sight-gag-filled comedy shorts, so it’s probably no surprise he chose to rework The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a fast-paced comedy filled with pratfalls and acrobatic feats, some performed by Semon playing the role of the Scarecrow. As such, it’s mostly fun — if, and it’s a big if, you can get past the addition of a stereotypical Black character named Snowball — and worth watching for the well-executed tornado sequence alone. But it’s also not great and often bears only the faintest resemblance to the source material. A flop in its day, its failure helped contribute to Semon’s rapid decline in fortune and health. He died a few years later at age 39.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910)
Baum’s adaptations weren’t the first attempts to bring Oz to the big screen. In 1908, he mounted an ill-fated production titled The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, a mixture of film footage and live theater featuring Baum and actors playing his creations. It proved to be as elaborate as it was short-lived, but this did not dissuade Selig Polyscope Company, the Chicago-based film studio behind the film segments, from attempting its own film adaptation a few years later. Though not as technically innovative as Baum’s versions, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is lively and strange, surrounding Dorothy (Bebe Daniels) with actors wearing animal costumes, sending her to an Oz filled with strange creatures, and packing a lot of the novel’s narrative into its 13-minute running time. Sadly, a pair of sequels, Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz and The Land of Oz are now lost.
The Wiz (1978)
On the one hand, this adaptation of the hit 1974 Broadway musical that transposes the action of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to a fantastic version of contemporary New York is filled with big stars, memorable songs, bold (sometimes grotesque) sets, striking Stan Winston makeup effects, and no-expenses-spared musical numbers. On the other hand, it’s also a lumbering mess. What went wrong? Star Diana Ross drew a lot of criticism at the time, and while it’s true she was a bit old to play Dorothy, reimagined here as a 24-year-old kindergarten teacher who’s “never been south of 125th Street,” she’s not bad in the lead role, and she certainly has the voice for it. Bigger problems include Sidney Lumet’s failure to make the film feel cinematic even while shooting on location at several New York landmarks, and Joel Schumacher’s screenplay, which he filled with bits of wisdom borrowed from the est movement, the self-help seminars/endurance tests that became trendy in the ’70s. Still, as an overblown curiosity, there’s nothing else quite like it.
Oz (1976)
An extremely ’70s movie from the other Land of Oz, Oz follows Dorothy (Joy Dunstant), a teenage music fan, after she walks away from an automobile accident and into … well, she’s still in Australia, but it’s a slightly stranger version of Australia. After being given a pair of ruby-studded high-heel shoes by a vintage-clothing-store employee named Glin (Robin Ramsey), Dorothy hits the road in hopes of seeing the final show by a David Bowie–like rock star named the Wizard. On the way, she meets a brainless surfer, a short-tempered mechanic, and a tough-seeming biker who’s all bluster. The Chris Löfvén–directed feature doesn’t go particularly deep with its reimagining of the original story, but it’s clever enough to pass the time and a pretty rich time capsule of Australia in the ’70s and the different ideas of what Australian men could be.
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
An example of seemingly compatible sensibilities never quite meshing, this Wizard of Oz prequel, directed by Sam Raimi, offers only fleeting glimpses of the gonzo energy that might be expected by combining Oz weirdness with the director of the Evil Dead and Spider-Man films. James Franco stars as a con artist destined to become the Wizard of Oz — if he can survive long enough. The most lively contributions come from the non-human characters, particularly a flying monkey voiced by Zach Braff and a fragile, sentient doll voiced by Joey King. Otherwise, it plays like a standard 2010s Hollywood blockbuster dressed up in Oz trappings. It’s not bad (it’s not Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, specifically), but it’s not particularly memorable, either.
The Wizard of Oz (1933)
Baum’s oldest son, Frank Joslyn Baum, continued his father’s tradition of bringing Oz to film, earning script credit on this animated short directed by animation pioneer Ted Eshbaugh. Eshbaugh is not a well-known name in part due to bad luck directly tied to this dialogue-free animated short, a loose adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man — sorry, Cowardly Lion — all travel to the Emerald City where they meet the Wizard, who wows them with his hybrid animal creations. Unfortunately, Eshbaugh created the film using a three-strip Technicolor for which Disney claimed exclusive rights, forcing it to be released in black-and-white. Happily, Eshbaugh held onto a color copy, which has survived. The short melds Baum’s Oz with the casually surreal whimsy that dominated animation’s early days, when all a cartoon needed was a bunch of strange creatures squabbling and bouncing about to catchy tunes for eight minutes.
Return to Oz (1985)
The sole film directed by legendary editor Walter Murch, Return to Oz baffled critics and failed to win over moviegoers in 1985 but started to pick up a cult following almost from the moment it left theaters. Though released by Disney, the film offers a take on Oz more akin to dark fantasy films like The Dark Crystal, foreshadowing everything from Coraline to Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. In her film debut, Fairuza Balk stars as Dorothy who, after returning to Kansas, finds herself unable to stop thinking about Oz or even to sleep at night. Troubled by the changes in their niece, Aunt Em (Piper Laurie) and Uncle Henry (Matt Clark) bring her to a psychiatric hospital where, on the verge of being subjected to a primitive form of electroshock treatment, she’s whisked away to Oz again. Once there, she finds the place in decay, overrun by strange creatures and in thrall to unkind rulers. Drawing from later Oz books, Murch creates a perilous world in which good’s triumph over evil is not a sure thing, and often not destined to last, using innovative and sometimes disturbing effects seemingly designed to give kids nightmares. But for kids who like nightmares, it’s tough to resist.
Wicked (2024)
A lot could have gone wrong in adapting the beloved musical Wicked (created by composer Stephen Schwarz and writer Winnie Holzman, adapting the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire) as a film — and nearly did. The journey from stage to screen took over 20 years and experienced numerous delays and changes in cast and directors. But it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job than the team that eventually landed it, at least based on the first half of what will be a two-part adaptation. While working in a richly realized fantasy world, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights) makes the camera an active participant in the elaborate musical numbers, while leads Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo deliver wonderfully contrasting performances as, respectively, the sweet and superficial Galinda and the outcast Elphaba. (They’re pretty good singers, too.) It’s no spoiler that each character is headed for well-established destiny, but their complex friendship, and the moral ambiguities it exposes in the world of Oz, make Wicked compelling in ways that stretch beyond its revisionist-history take on Baum’s world.
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