Charlie and the Chocolate Factory recap

Charlie Bucket is a poor, kind boy who lives in near-starvation with his parents and four grandparents beside Willy Wonka's famous, secretive chocolate factory. Wonka hides five Golden Tickets in his chocolate bars, each admitting one child to a tour of the factory. Four are found by badly behaved children: greedy Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, gum-obsessed Violet Beauregarde, and television-addicted Mike Teavee. Charlie finds the last ticket by luck and takes Grandpa Joe. Inside, Wonka leads them through his wondrous inventions, worked by tiny Oompa-Loompas. One by one the greedy children fall to their own faults and are removed, each with a song about the lesson. Only Charlie remains, well-behaved throughout, and Wonka reveals the whole tour was a search for an honest child to inherit the factory. He gives it to Charlie and brings the whole family to live there.

Charlie Bucket is a poor boy who lives in a small, crowded house with his parents and his four grandparents, all four of whom stay in the same bed. The family is very hungry, and Charlie loves chocolate but can afford only one bar a year, on his birthday. Their house stands near the enormous, world-famous chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, whose gates have been shut for years and whose secret workers no one has ever seen. Grandpa Joe tells Charlie stories about Wonka's genius and his mysterious closed factory. Then comes astonishing news: Willy Wonka will admit five children to tour the factory, one for each of five Golden Tickets he has hidden inside ordinary chocolate bars sold around the world. The lucky finders will also receive a lifetime supply of sweets, and children everywhere begin buying chocolate in a frenzy.

The Golden Tickets are found one by one, each by a badly behaved child: the enormously greedy Augustus Gloop, the spoiled and demanding Veruca Salt, the boastful gum-chewer Violet Beauregarde, and the television-obsessed Mike Teavee. With only one ticket left, Charlie's family sinks deeper into poverty as winter comes and his father loses his job, leaving them close to starvation. Charlie finds a coin buried in the snow and buys a chocolate bar on the way home; inside is the fifth and final Golden Ticket. The family is overjoyed, and Charlie chooses to take Grandpa Joe, who springs out of bed for the first time in years, along with him to the factory.

On the great day the five children and their parents gather at the factory gates, and Willy Wonka himself, small and quick and full of odd energy, comes out to greet them and lead them inside. He shows them a marvelous Chocolate Room, a whole edible valley with a flowing river of real chocolate, growing plants and trees made of sweets, and a great waterfall that mixes the chocolate. There the visitors finally meet the factory's secret workers: the Oompa-Loompas, tiny people Wonka brought from a distant land to run the factory, who work happily among the machines. The wonder of the place is matched only by Wonka's warnings that the children must be careful and do as they are told.

The tour turns into a series of lessons as the greedy children ignore Wonka's warnings and fall victim to their own faults. Augustus Gloop, gulping chocolate straight from the river, tumbles in and is sucked up a great glass pipe, to be carried off through the works. Later, in the Inventing Room, Violet Beauregarde snatches a stick of experimental meal-in-gum that is not ready, and despite Wonka's protest she chews it and swells up into an enormous blueberry, to be rolled away and squeezed. After each mishap the Oompa-Loompas gather to sing a rhyming song about the child's bad habit and its fitting result, and the group, now smaller, moves on.

The remaining children continue to come to grief through their own behavior. In a room where trained squirrels sort nuts, spoiled Veruca Salt demands a squirrel of her own and climbs in to grab one; the squirrels judge her a bad nut and drop her down a rubbish chute, her parents falling after her. Then Mike Teavee, obsessed with television, insists on being the first person sent by Wonka's device that transports chocolate through the air like a broadcast; he arrives shrunk to only a few inches tall and must be stretched back out. Each time, the Oompa-Loompas sing a song about the lesson. Now only Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe are left with Wonka.

With only the well-behaved Charlie remaining, Willy Wonka is overjoyed and reveals the true purpose of the day: the whole tour was a search for a good, honest child to whom he could one day leave his entire factory, since he has no heir and does not want it run by a greedy grown-up. He has chosen Charlie. Wonka takes Charlie and Grandpa Joe up in the Great Glass Elevator, which flies out through the roof and over the town, and explains that Charlie and his whole family will move into the factory to live. They swoop down to collect the rest of the Buckets, ending the family's hunger and poverty for good, with Charlie set to inherit the greatest chocolate factory in the world.

As the tour goes on, each ill-behaved child is undone by the very fault that defines them, and the Oompa-Loompas sing a rhyme about each one. Augustus Gloop is sucked up a pipe after drinking from the chocolate river; Violet Beauregarde swells into a giant blueberry after chewing an experimental gum; Veruca Salt is judged a bad nut and dropped down a rubbish chute by trained squirrels; and Mike Teavee is shrunk to a few inches after sending himself through a television device. Only Charlie is left. Wonka joyfully reveals that the entire tour was a test to find a good child worthy to run the factory one day, and he has chosen Charlie. He takes Charlie and Grandpa Joe up in the Great Glass Elevator, crashes it through the roof, and flies over the town to collect the rest of Charlie's family. Wonka gives the whole factory to Charlie and invites the entire Bucket household, hungry no longer, to come and live there with him.