Directed by John Huston and written by Carol Sobieski, the cast includes Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, Ann Reinking, Tim Curry, Geoffrey Holder, Edward Herrmann, and introducing Aileen Quinn in her film debut as the titular character.

Set during the Great Depression in 1933, the film tells the story of Annie, an orphan from New York City who is taken in by America's richest billionaire, Oliver Warbucks.

In 1933 during the Great Depression, a young orphan named Annie is living in the Hudson Street Orphanage in New York City.

With half of a locket as her only possession, Annie remains optimistic that her parents, who left her on the doorstep as a baby, will return for her.

To escape the madness, Warbucks flies Annie to the White House in Washington, D.C., introducing her to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor.

Roosevelt informs them of his plan to introduce a social welfare program to help America's impoverished and asks Warbucks to head it; Annie encourages him to help.

Hannigan is visited by her con artist brother Rooster and his girlfriend, Lily St. Regis; they plot to pose as Annie's parents to gain the reward.

The trio searches the orphans' belongings and Hannigan reveals that Annie's real parents were killed in a fire; she possesses the other half of the locket.

She is kidnapped minutes after they leave the mansion, but her friends ultimately reach Warbucks and tell him the truth; shocked and stunned, he informs the police, beginning a city-wide search.

In the stage musical, it is Christmas when Miss Hannigan, Rooster and Lily are caught at the Warbucks mansion by the United States Secret Service thus foiling their plan to kidnap Annie, while in the film (due to summertime shooting) Annie is kidnapped and on the eve of the Fourth of July, leading to Warbucks organizing a citywide search and a climactic ending on the Former Erie Railroad Bridge.

Charnin said that Huston, who had never directed a musical before, and producer Ray Stark made major changes in the film that destroyed the essence of Annie.

The scene was replaced with a version shot indoors in a style that mimicked the ambience portrayed in the original stage musical.

All lyrics are written by Martin Charnin; all music is composed by Charles StrouseAnnie opened theatrically on May 21, 1982, in 14 theatres, including in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Toronto.

The site's critical consensus reads, "John Huston proves an odd choice to direct, miring Annie in a sluggish, stagebound mess of an adaptation, but the kids are cute and the songs are memorable.

I enjoyed the energy that was visible on the screen, and the sumptuousness of the production numbers, and the good humor of several of the performances -- especially those by Albert Finney, as Daddy Warbucks, and Carol Burnett, as the wicked orphanage supervisor, Miss Hannigan.

"[17] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "'Annie' is far from a great film but, like the Music Hall in the good old days, it is immaculately maintained and almost knocks itself out trying to give the audience its money's worth.

"[18] Variety wrote, "Whatever indefinable charm the stage show has is completely lost in this lumbering and largely uninteresting and uninvolving exercise, where the obvious waste reaches almost Pentagonian proportions.

"[19] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "a bit of a letdown", writing that Quinn "often comes across as one of those self-conscious stage kids" and that the four new songs "are not the least bit memorable", but Finney gives the best performance in the film as "he steadily turns into a quite wonderful father figure".

[20] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film "staggers under monstrous production numbers, orphans doing gymnastic flips, dancing maids and butlers and the Radio City Music Hall complete with Rockettes ...

What she deserves is an atmosphere of innocence, warmth and inventiveness, to let the film generate the joy that must have enveloped theater audiences over the past five years.

"[21] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post panned the film as "Overproduced and underinspired," with Burnett's performance "the closest thing to a saving grace".

[22] Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker that the story "cries out for a cockeyed fairy-tale tone" but instead "has the feel of a manufactured romp ... Every sequence seems to be trying too hard to be upbeat and irresistible, and it's all ungainly.

Reviewing the disc for DVD Talk, Glenn Erickson, while praising the film overall, called the pan and scan transfer an "abomination that's grainy and lacking in color."

However, the kids get mixed up in the scheme of an evil noblewoman (Collins) to blow up Buckingham Palace while all the heirs to the throne are present for Warbucks's knighting, thus making her queen.

A made-for-TV movie version was broadcast on ABC on November 7, 1999, starring Kathy Bates as Miss Hannigan, Victor Garber as Daddy Warbucks, Alan Cumming as Rooster, Audra McDonald as Grace, Kristin Chenoweth as Lily, and newcomer Alicia Morton as Annie.

Produced by The Walt Disney Company in association with Columbia TriStar Television, it received generally positive reviews and high ratings.