The film stars Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, Kristin Chenoweth, and Jahzir Bruno, with narration by Chris Rock.

The grandmother says that witches never leave once they find a child and they make plans to hide in a fancy hotel where her cousin Eston was the executive chef.

While there, his grandmother teaches the boy how to tell a witch from an ordinary woman: real witches have claws instead of fingernails, which they hide by wearing gloves; are bald, which they hide by wearing wigs that give them rashes; have square feet with no toes, have mouths that can open nearly to their ears, and have a powerful sense of smell aided by extendable nostrils, which they use to sniff out children.

The boy hides under the stage and overhears her planning to give the world's children a potion, mixed into confectionery products, that will transform them all into mice.

The Grand High Witch waits for Bruno to arrive, to whom she earlier gave a Swiss chocolate bar laced with the potion.

After he arrives, he turns into a mouse; the witches all try to stomp on him but Daisy runs the gauntlet and leads him safely to the vent where she and the boy are now hiding.

Daisy reveals that she was once an orphaned girl named Mary before she was turned into a mouse, and the trio make their way to the hotel room where the boy and his grandmother are staying.

Before they leave the room, the grandmother takes the Grand High Witch's trunk full of money and releases her cat Hades from its cage.

Talks of a new adaptation of Dahl's novel began in December 2008, when Guillermo del Toro expressed interest in making a stop motion film.

[10] No further developments on the potential project emerged until 10 years later in June 2018, when Robert Zemeckis was hired to direct and write the script.

[16] Principal photography began on May 8, 2019, with filming locations including Alabama and Georgia in the US, and at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden in Hertfordshire, and Virginia Water Lake in Surrey, both in England.

[17][15][18] On June 19, crew member Darren Langford was stabbed in the neck with a Stanley knife on the Warner Bros. Studios set in Leavesden.

The website's critics consensus reads: "The Witches misses a few spells, but Anne Hathaway's game performance might be enough to bewitch fans of this Roald Dahl tale.

[39] In his two out of four star review, Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the special effects and the performances, but found the film to be "far too disturbing for young children and not edgy enough to captivate adults.

"[41] Numerous disability advocates, including British Paralympic swimmer Amy Marren, accused the film of perpetuating bias against individuals with ectrodactyly and other limb differences.

[42] Lauren Appelbaum, a spokesperson for advocacy group RespectAbility, said the film portrays limb differences as "hideous or something to be afraid of."