"Like all the best and most beloved family films, there's plenty in this film for adults to appreciate as well as kids."
— Cindy White, IGN
"Adapted (with some changes) by Roald Dahl from his famous children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka creates a marvelous world as close to heaven as any kid can imagine and never talks down to its young audience."
— Staff, TV Guide
"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is probably the best film of its sort since The Wizard of Oz. It is everything that family movies usually claim to be, but aren't: Delightful, funny, scary, exciting, and, most of all, a genuine work of imagination. Willy Wonka is such a surely and wonderfully spun fantasy that it works on all kinds of minds, and it is fascinating because, like all classic fantasy, it is fascinated with itself."
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times