Trama

Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) is a kind, loving boy who lives in poverty with his mother (Helena Bonham Carter), father (Noah Taylor), and four bedridden grandparents Grandma Georgina (Liz Smith), Grandma Josephine (Eileen Essell), Grandpa Joe and Grandpa George (David Morris). The family barely has enough to survive as they live in a wind-swept home.

Directly across the street from their house is a world-famous chocolate factory, the owner of which, Willy Wonka (Jhonny Depp), has long since closed access to the factory due to problems concerning industrial espionage that ultimately led him to fire all his employees, among them Charlie's Grandpa Joe (David Kelly). Wonka's factory is now completely automated, and no one is allowed inside the factory gates.

Joe says that Wonka began with a single store on Cherry Street, but the whole world wanted his candy. Wonka was a genius who created a new way of making chocolate ice cream so that it would remain cold for hours without a refrigerator. In time, Wonka built a chocolate factory, the biggest in the world, and 50 times larger than its closest competitor. Prince Pondicherry (Nitin Ganatra) invited Wonka to come to India to build him a palace entirely out of chocolate.

Charlie's father works at a toothpaste factory and brings discarded pieces back home, using which Charlie creates a scale model of the Wonka factory. Wonka warns Pondicherry that the palace would not last long as the searing India summer heat would simply melt it completely. Other chocolate makers grew jealous of Wonka and sent in spies to learn his secrets. Soon, the market was flooded with replica ice-creams that would never melt, chewing gum that would never lose its flavor, and candy balloons that can be blown up to incredible sizes. The thievery reached such proportions that one day Wonka fired all of his workers and closed the factory. After a long time, people saw smoke coming out of the chimney and the factory was back in business, but the doors to the factory remained closed. Wonka makes no public appearances himself.

One day, Wonka announces a contest in which five Golden Tickets have been placed in five random Wonka Bars worldwide, and the winners will be given a full tour of the factory, as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate. One ticket-holder will be given a special prize at the end of the tour.

Wonka's sales subsequently skyrocket. The first four tickets are found by Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz), a greedy, gluttonous eater from Dusseldorf. Veruca Salt (Julia Winter), a spoiled, rotten brat from Buckinghamshire whose father bought thousands of Wonka bars (and has his own factory staff remove the wrappers) to ensure that his daughter gets the Golden ticket. Violet Beauregarde (AnnaSophia Robb), a boastful, competitive gum chewer from Atlanta and Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry), an arrogant, aggressive video-game addict from Denver.

Charlie only gets one Wonka bar a year, and that too as his birthday present. But Mr and Mrs Bucket get him a Wonka bar as an early present, which turns out to not have the Golden ticket. Later, Joe gives Charlie the little money he had saved to buy another Wonka bar, but even that did not have the ticket.

Two of Charlie's attempts to find a ticket ended in failure. With one ticket remaining, and his father laid off from his job at a toothpaste factory, replaced by a robot, Charlie's hopes are then broken when rumors spread that the last ticket has been found by a rich boy in Russia resulting in the end of the Golden Ticket search. Charlie then finds a dollar bill on the street and buys another Wonka Bar with it, hoping it will cheer him up. At the same time news spread that the rich boy's ticket was a fake, Charlie opens up the bar and finds, with much shock and joy, the last Golden Ticket.

Charlie receives monetary offers for the ticket, but the cashier warns him not to trade it regardless, and Charlie runs back home. Charlie was offered $500 for the ticket, and he knew that it could go for a lot more. At home, Charlie initially wants to trade the ticket for money for his family's betterment, but after a pep talk from Grandpa George (who says that the world has more than enough money, but only 5 Golden Tickets), he decides to keep it, and brings Grandpa Joe to accompany him on the tour.

Chaperoned by Grandpa Joe and one of their respective parents, Charlie and the other ticket holders are greeted by Wonka, who leads the group through the facility. Inside the factory is a whole jungle made entirely of chocolate and containing all sorts of tasty treats.

Wonka's factory is managed and run by Oompa-Loompas, who Wonka claims were imported from Loompaland. Wonka says that he visited Loompaland to find new flavors for his candy but found the Ooma-Loompas instead. They lived in tree-houses to escape the fierce creatures who lived below and only ate green caterpillars. The Oompa-Loompas loved cocoa beans and Wonka made a deal for them to work at his factory in exchange for cocoa beans.

During the tour, each of the bad children disobeys Mr. Wonka's orders after being tempted by something related to their individual character flaws.

They suffer various consequences as a result: Augustus falls into a chocolate river from which he was drinking and is sucked up a chocolate-extraction pipe. Violet chews an experimental gum and swells up into an oversized blueberry. Veruca is pushed into a garbage chute by worker squirrels after trying to take one of them as a pet, and Mike is shrunk by a Teleporter that he uses on himself.

Each misfortune is accompanied by a song of morality sung by Mr. Wonka's employees, the Oompa-Loompas (Deep Roy). The children later leave the factory, each with an exaggerated characteristic relating to their demise: Augustus covered in chocolate, Violet being juiced and becoming blue and flexible, Veruca and her father covered in garbage, and Mike being stretched by a taffy puller into a thin shape.

With Charlie the last remaining child on the tour, Mr. Wonka offers him the tour's secret prize: a chance to live in the factory and work with him, revealing that the purpose of the contest was to make the least rotten child heir to the factory so he can have someone carry on his legacy when he dies. The only condition, however, is that Charlie must leave his family behind.

As detailed by a series of flashbacks, Mr. Wonka ran away from his own father, a dentist (Christopher Lee), who fitted him with oppressive orthodontic headgear and forbade him from eating candy. After sneaking a piece of candy, Wonka instantly became hooked and ran away from home to follow his dreams. When he returned, however, both his father and their house were gone. Mr. Wonka believes that Charlie's parents will similarly restrain Charlie's creativity as a candy-maker. Charlie refuses Mr. Wonka's offer, considering his family to be the most important thing in his life.

From that moment on, Charlie and his family begin living contently, with his father being rehired at the toothpaste factory to do maintenance on the robot that replaced him, though Mr. Wonka becomes depressed. After he returns to Charlie to seek advice, Charlie helps Wonka reunite with his estranged father and repair their relationship. During the reunion, Charlie notices newspaper clippings of Wonka's success which Wilbur collected, while Wonka realizes the value of family as he and Wilbur finally reconcile.

Afterwards, Charlie accepts inheritance of the factory and moves his whole family into the facility, becoming good friends and business partners with Mr. Wonka.