“Sleepy Hollow” was a hit when it premiered in theaters on November 19, 1999, earning praise for its spooky vibes even though it was released weeks after the Halloween season was over. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, the movie coasted to $200-plus million at the global box office, easily earning back its budget even before you consider DVD sales (which were quite meaningful back in the early 2000s).
“Sleepy Hollow” hasn’t stuck around in the popular consciousness to the same degree as Tim Burton’s best-known films to datebut in 2025, it’s suddenly enjoying a return to the spotlight. It broke into the Paramount+ streaming service’s top 10 films in the U.S. on October 10, 2025 (via FlixPatrol), and it’s been performing strongly on Pluto TV over the past week as well.
The movie’s also making its way back into theaters for a brief period this month. If there’s a Regal Cinemas near you, you’ll likely have the option of watching “Sleepy Hollows” for a brief window on October 12. The theater chain is hosting an October-specific “Screams” film series, where all sorts of famous horror movies (like “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Ring”) will be playing for a day or two at a time.
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Sleepy Hollow is a good watch for any Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, or Christina Ricci fans
Masbath, Katrina, and Ichabod looking up in alarm in Sleepy Hollow – Paramount Pictures
Although Depp was already an established name by the time he worked on “Sleepy Hollow,” he shot the film shortly before becoming a worldwide sensation thanks to 2003’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” This helps to make his performance feels special to younger viewers, many of whom are not used to seeing Depp when he was still something of a rising star rather than a bonafide A-lister resting on his laurels.
“Johnny Depp is an actor able to disappear into characters,” as Roger Ebert wrote in his review, “never more readily than in one of Burton’s films.” This was the actor and director’s third collaboration together (the first two were “Edward Scissorhands” and “Ed Wood”), and it wouldn’t be their last; in the 2000s, the pair also teamed up on Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Corpse Bride,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” and “Alice in Wonderland.” I’d argue that “Sleepy Hollow” remains Depp’s most creatively successful Burton movie. At the very least, it was the film that made it clear: This actor-director team was here to stay.
“Sleepy Hollow” also makes for a fun look back at early-career Ricci, who, in 1999, was transitioning from family-oriented movies like “Casper” to adult projects. Ricci once described her character here as “a princess-y character, very one-sided, no emotional depth,” though that wasn’t intended as an insult. As she told CNN, “I hate sitting around and talking about the emotional background of a character. She is a storybook character, she’s not real. That means you have so much more freedom, in that you don’t have to make anything she does believable or make people believe her choices in the story.”
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
