--- title: "Corpse Bride" year: 2005 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/corpse-bride" fi1m_score: 72 critics_score: 66 critics_reviews: 16 published: "2026-09-17T06:41:25.877026+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T06:41:26.239254+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Corpse Bride (2005) Directed by Tim Burton, Mike Johnson · 1h 17m · MPA PG · Romance, Fantasy, Animation **Fi1m score: 72** · Critics 66 from 16 reviews *In a sentence:* The groom botches his vows, marries a corpse by accident, and his evening improves considerably > Tim Burton and Mike Johnson’s stop-motion fairy tale is small, handsome and over in 77 minutes. Helena Bonham Carter’s dead bride is the best thing in it; the songs are thinner than they should be. We were fonder of it than we expected. ## Synopsis A grey Victorian town. Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), shy son of fish merchants Nell and William (Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse), is to marry Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), daughter of the titled, penniless Maudeline and Finis (Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney). The children have never met. At the rehearsal Victor drops the ring, sets a dress alight and is thrown out by Pastor Galswells (Christopher Lee). Practising his vows alone in the wood, he slips the ring on to what he takes for a twig. It is the finger of the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), who rises, says yes and takes him below ground, while a stranger, Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant), settles in upstairs. ## Review *Corpse Bride* says more plainly than anything else Tim Burton has made that the dead are better company than the living. Burton directs with Mike Johnson, from a screenplay by Pamela Pettler, Caroline Thompson and John August, and it is over in 77 minutes. It is a small film, handsomely built and kindly meant, and we liked it more than its title suggests we should. It is also thinner than it looks, and the songs are the reason. The town of the living has hardly any colour. Pete Kozachik shoots it in greys and browns so drained that the puppets’ faces are the brightest things in the frame, and Alex McDowell builds it out of leaning houses, barred windows and a church whose spire looks like something pulled from a jaw. Below ground everything changes. The Land of the Dead is lit in greens and purples, the bar is full, a skeleton band is playing, and the corpses are far more relaxed than anyone upstairs. The puppets are the achievement. Their faces move by degrees, an eyebrow here, a corner of the mouth there, and Victor’s hands do most of his talking. Helena Bonham Carter’s Corpse Bride, Emily, has blue skin, a wedding dress gone to rags, one leg reduced to bone and an eye that drops out of its socket so that a maggot (Enn Reitel) can advise her. She should be a gag. Instead there is a scene at a piano where she sits down beside Victor and joins in, and her hand comes off and carries on playing, and it moved us more than a puppet with an exposed shin bone has any right to. The reason is Bonham Carter’s voice, which never asks for pity: a woman delighted to have a guest, trying not to show how long she has waited for one. Johnny Depp gives Victor a stammer and a permanent apology, and the design helps him, all elbows and enormous eyes. Emily Watson’s Victoria, the living bride, is quiet and sensible and the only adult in her house. Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney play the Everglots as a titled couple who speak of their empty accounts as if the servants had done it, and Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse play the Van Dorts as fish merchants who want a coat of arms to go with the smell. Christopher Lee thunders as Pastor Galswells, Michael Gough plays Elder Gutknecht as a dusty underworld wizard, and Richard E. Grant’s Barkis Bittern is the guest nobody invited. Danny Elfman writes the songs as well as the score, and the songs are where the film runs short. The skeleton band’s number is the best, fast, rude and staged like a floor show; the opening ensemble lays out the two families; Emily’s lament, sung to a spider (Jane Horrocks) and the maggot, has the sharpest lyric. None of them stays in the head the way the songs in [*The Nightmare Before Christmas*](https://film.one/film/the-nightmare-before-christmas) did, and the film keeps stopping for them. The story is short, and the middle, with Victor going up and down between the worlds, is where you feel it stretched. Chris Lebenzon, Claire Dodgson and Jonathan Lucas share the editing credit and keep the pace up, but pace is not the same as incident. Set it beside Burton’s other stop-motion work and this is the tender one. *The Nightmare Before Christmas* (1993), which Burton produced and Henry Selick directed, had more energy, more tunes and no love story. *Corpse Bride* is closer to [*Edward Scissorhands*](https://film.one/film/edward-scissorhands) (1990), which Caroline Thompson also wrote: a gentle oddity, a town full of fools, and a girl who sees the point of him. It is less funny than *Nightmare*, but it has a heart, and the heart is under the ground. Take it, a 77-minute fairy tale with a PG certificate, best watched with children past being frightened by skeletons and adults who would rather be at the bar downstairs. The second half turns on the question of which bride Victor belongs with. Then it stops, and the credits are up before you have quite finished feeling it. *Fi1m score 72, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Corpse Bride, and the praise settles on the same place: the stop-motion craft. The puppetry, the expressive faces and the contrast between a grey living world and a colourful, cheerier land of the dead come up in nearly every review, and several find the film sweeter and more coherent than The Nightmare Before Christmas. Emily, the bride of the title, is singled out as an especially strong creation, and the voice work is rated highly. The reservations cluster around feeling and length. Even admirers call it slight, a sketchbook rather than a fully worked story, and Time Out finds it cold to the touch for all its finish. The spread is wide: three reviews turn firmly against it, with the Los Angeles Times saying the folk-tale premise is stretched thin and Slant Magazine finding no emotional weight beneath the dazzle. A few also think Danny Elfman’s score falls short. ### Reviews we read (16) - **The Times** (90/100, inferred): Tim Burton’s musical animation is almost perfect, with Johnny Depp voicing a 19th-century heir who proposes to a half-buried murder victim played by Helena Bonham Carter in this vivid stop-motion film. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/corpse-bride-2005-review-tim-burtons-musical-is-almost-perfect-3b2gv2dgk) - **Empire**, Kim Newman (80/100, inferred): The critic calls it Burton's miniature 2005 film, a sweet/sad Gothic fairy-tale more like Edward Scissorhands than Nightmare Before Christmas, finally affecting with a warm underworld contrasting the cold living world. He singles out the alluring, heart-filled Corpse Bride Emily as an especially strong creation. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/corpse-bride-review/) - **Radio Times**, Leslie Felperin (4/5): This is a wonderful fantasy and exquisitely crafted stop-motion animation that puts a hip spin on a Russian folk tale; it is sweeter than The Nightmare Before Christmas with a consistently funny and often lyrical script that is far better. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-8qpum2/tim-burtons-corpse-bride/) - **Screen Daily** (80/100, inferred): Corpse Bride brings Burton’s dark imagination to a hugely entertaining macabre love story with a ravishing neo-Dickensian visual style and unprecedented stop-motion facial expressions; it has more dramatic coherence than The Nightmare Before Christmas and allows sympathy for both brides. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/corpse-bride/4024240.article) - **The AV Club**, Tasha Robinson (80/100, inferred): The film is a gently charming stop-motion fairy tale with a low-key tone and eye-popping visual details in its meticulously crafted world of whimsy and ghoulishness. It lacks the intensity and manic highs of The Nightmare Before Christmas but delivers a pleasantly plaintive elegy without the usual Burton flop sweat. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/corpse-bride-1798201038) - **Evening Standard**, Derek Malcolm (75/100, inferred): The re-release review lauds the stop-motion visuals as unmistakably Burton's and calls it an inventive comedy showing the living as greater freaks than the dead, with sight gags and expressive faces. It highlights the childlike fun and European influences on the Russian folk-tale adaptation. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-ghoul-can-t-help-it-7385999.html) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (70/100, inferred): The film is a sweet and visually lovely tale of love lost rather than a macabre horror story. Burton creates contrasting palettes for the drab living world and the livelier, cheerier land of the dead, enhanced by stop-motion animation and small graceful details. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tim-burtons-corpse-bride-2005) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (70/100, inferred): The film is a stop-motion fantasy about cadavers and ghouls that feels like a compendium of Burton's style, though it appears dashed off compared to his recent work. It mixes scary and funny tones with panache in its depiction of the living and dead worlds. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/oct/21/3) - **Variety**, Justin Chang (70/100, inferred): An endearingly schizoid Frankenstein of a movie that is by turns relentlessly high-spirited and darkly poignant, more disjointed than Burton's earlier stop-motion work but good-natured and benign overall. The visually restrained Victorian milieu and the Corpse Bride character are beguiling, with strong voice work and a story that wraps on a muted, melancholy note. [Read](https://variety.com/2005/film/awards/tim-burton-s-corpse-bride-2-1200523455/) - **Total Film** (60/100, inferred): The review praises the pure Burton feel, terrific characters, and visual sketchbook style but finds the short runtime limits depth and notes Danny Elfman's score falls short. It concludes that viewers will remember the pretty look and kooky king status more than the plot. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/tim-burtons-corpse-bride-review/) - **Time Out**, BW (50/100, inferred): The film is beautifully conceived and impeccably realised in its stop-motion animation and gothic visual style, but it remains somewhat cold to the touch and lacks real animation or emotional spark despite its likeable qualities. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/tim-burtons-corpse-bride) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (30/100, inferred): Burton's stop-motion film has more warmth and appeal than its title suggests but is finally more grotesque than good-humored, with the story stretched thin from a short folk tale premise. The world wears out its charm before the end, leaving one wishing it were a short rather than a feature despite Elfman's energetic music. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-sep-16-et-corpse16-story.html) - **Slant Magazine**, Keith Uhlich (30/100, inferred): The film flattens Burton’s Victoriana and perversity obsessions into a minor-key fantasia with no emotional heft or meaning, boiling inspirations into postmodern mush. The stop-motion dazzle and Elfman songs are superficial, with shallow mortality puns and retrograde misanthropy replacing any real exploration of life, death, and love. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/corpse-bride/) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (30/100, inferred): A necrophiliac entertainment for the whole family, the film ventures into stop-motion animation with a lightly kinked romance involving a melancholic boy, his intended bride, and a bodacious cadaver. The living world is gray and somnolent while the underworld bursts with mischief, skeletons, and color, suggesting Burton has not abandoned his dark kingdom. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/movies/its-a-dead-scene-but-thats-a-good-thing.html) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (85/100, inferred): The critic declares Corpse Bride even better than The Nightmare Before Christmas, praising its masterful puppetry, inspired voicing and Burton's twisted sense of humour steeped in 19th-century romanticism. It highlights the lively underworld contrasting the cynical living world and Depp's sympathetic performance as Victor facing his dilemma. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/corpse-bride-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) - **Den of Geek**, Carley Tauchert (80/100, inferred): The critic finds it a sweet and touching gothic fairytale with the dead more vibrant than the living. Praises the precise stop-motion animation and strong vocal performances that bring depth to the characters. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/looking-back-at-tim-burtons-corpse-bride/) ## Details - **Director:** Tim Burton, Mike Johnson - **Director:** Tim Burton, Mike Johnson - **Screenplay:** John August, Caroline Thompson, Pamela Pettler - **Cinematography:** Pete Kozachik - **Editor:** Chris Lebenzon, Jonathan Lucas, Claire Dodgson - **Music:** Danny Elfman - **Production design:** Alex McDowell - **Producer:** Allison Abbate, Tim Burton - **Cast:** Johnny Depp as Victor Van Dort (voice); Helena Bonham Carter as Corpse Bride (voice); Emily Watson as Victoria Everglot (voice); Tracey Ullman as Nell Van Dort / Hildegarde (voice); Paul Whitehouse as William Van Dort / Mayhew / Paul the Head Waiter (voice); Joanna Lumley as Maudeline Everglot (voice); Albert Finney as Finis Everglot (voice); Richard E. Grant as Barkis Bittern (voice) - **Runtime:** 1h 17m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 23 September 2005 - **Genres:** Romance, Fantasy, Animation - **Budget:** $40 million - **Box office:** $118 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcrreL7Z98M ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, uhd - Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2006: Best Animated Feature (nominated) - Annie Award for Best Animated Feature 2005: Annie Award for Best Animated Feature (nominated) - Critics' Choice Awards 2005: Best Animated Feature (nominated) ## If you liked this - *The Nightmare Before Christmas* (1993), Fi1m 82: Burton’s other stop-motion world, louder and with better songs to hum on the way home — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-nightmare-before-christmas.md) - *Edward Scissorhands* (1990), Fi1m 83: The same writer, the same gentle outsider, the same town of fools; live action this time — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/edward-scissorhands.md) - *Coraline* (2009), Fi1m 85: Henry Selick’s stop-motion for children who prefer their fairy tales properly frightening — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/coraline.md) - *Mary and Max* (2009), Fi1m 80: Australian clay animation about two lonely pen pals; sadder than it looks, funnier too — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/mary-and-max.md) - *Kubo and the Two Strings* (2016), Fi1m 83: Stop-motion at its most ambitious, a Japanese folk tale with a moon king and paper birds — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/kubo-and-the-two-strings.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/corpse-bride