The film was directed by Mike Newell, with the adapted screenplay by David Nicholls, and stars Jeremy Irvine, Helena Bonham Carter, Holliday Grainger, Ralph Fiennes and Robbie Coltrane.

[15] Mike Newell was looking to develop Dickens' Dombey and Son for the screen, but after it didn't go ahead, he was told about Nicholls' script.

[3] The production also shot many scenes in Kent including St Thomas a Becket Church in Fairfield, Swale Nature Reserve Shellness, Oare and Elmley Marshes, Stangate Creek, The Historic Dockyard in Chatham and Thames and Medway Canal.

[17] The European premiere was the closing night gala of the 2012 BFI London Film Festival which took place at the Odeon Leicester Square on 21 October 2012.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Not the best version of the oft-filmed Dickens classic but far from the worst, Mike Newell's Great Expectations breathes just enough life into the source material to justify yet another adaptation.