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You forgot the Phantom of the Opera cartoon and Phantom of Hollywood on that list.

My favorite Eriks are Charles Dance, Lon Chaney, and the cartoon.

Charles Dance because he's just so witty and fashionable. And Teri Polo as Christine is particularly cute. This may disappoint you, Alexis, but they never show his deformity. Christine unmasks him at the end of the movie, but you can't see his face because she's in front of him.

Chaney because it is one of the closest to Leroux and Chaney's a wonderful actor in general. I just wish they had kept the original ending.

The cartoon is basically Leroux Abridged. Most of the dialogue is taken directly from the book, especially at the unmasking, where they have Erik's rant word-for-word. They have a couple of wonderful opera sequences with talented dubs, and the Persian is actually there as himself. The only beef I have with that movie is that they had to super-abridge it to fit in just around an hour, so anything not essential to the plot has been cut. The other problem I have with the movie is that everyone is in TECHNICOLOR. As in, BRIGHT. Christine wears a violently pink dress, Erik wears a bright blue suit and superman-red cloak, and Raoul's hair is so shiny that he looks vaguely like Elvis. But hey, it has a wonderfully British sounding Erik saying, "When a woman has seen me as you have she belongs to me! She loves me forever. I'm a kind of Don Juan, don't you know..."

Phantom of Hollywood is pretty sucky, but it deserves an honorable mention. Basically the Erik is this old actor named Karl Vonner who was disfigured in an accident and haunts a movie set. He abducts a Christine-wannabe because she's the studio owner's daughter and uses her for blackmail so that they don't tear down his set. But maan, it has the funniest death scene EVER. xd
Vonner escapes the trap the police have set for him and is standing on top of this huuge scaffold crowing about how they shall nevah catch THE PHANTOM and generally being very dramatic when he falls. Just topples over the back of the railing and he falls for ten minutes in slow motion, intercut with freeze-frame closeups of his face.

I know they actually didn't show his face because of budgeting reasons, but I also think it can be counted as an artistic choice. Erik's face isn't the point, it's his personality. I find it a bit morbid that so many people watch a Phantom movie just to see how disfigured he is.

I got my copy of the cartoon out of the bargain bin when my local movie rental place went out of business. You can get it on amazon.com, but it's a bit expensive right now.

Well, that movie is a happy, happy fluff story. That's what it was made to be. And as long as the characters see that he's disfigured I don't see how it can be considered shallow.

I don't think it is. At least, I've only ever seen it on VHS.

Here we go:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6304847408.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

27 movies??!! I only own four sad
I think my favorite one so far is the Lon Chaney one.. Apart from the ending.
I'd really like to see the Charles Dance one though .

I was reading a VERY negative review on the ALW 2004 movie and I found a funny part. The review is total BS, as they called the music suck'o and such. The full review can be read here.

Hn. sad So much of them, and I've only been able to find five.
I'm unfortunately a book fan. Like in "touch the the story and die". My reaction to the movies I've seen was mostly deception, with some hatred from time to time (*cough*Argento stressed *cough*).

My favorite is Richardson's (1990). The opera featured in it is actually Faust, I was just so happy. This point alone managed to make me forgive... Everything about it really.

I loved the 1925 version for it's accuracy to the book, until the ending happened. It just left me to moan "why, why?" at the destruction of what would have been the best movie overall. I loved the fact that it was silent, too. I don't think I'll ever be totally satisfied by a voice given to Erik.

I want to erase every memory of Dario Argento's movie existence of my mind, too. I don't know what disturbed me more: the rats, the semi transparent thing that Christine wears in one of the first scenes, or discovering that the hottie with long hair WASN'T Raoul. And that's for the ten first minutes of the movie only.

ALW's is obviously the best visually speaking (overall, I mean). That won't change the fact that I spent most of my viewing unable to stop laughing. I'm sorry. I just found Butler's performance pitiful. His singing makes my ears bleed. I know he is an actor, not a singer, but for God's sake, if you have to portray a character described as the "angel of music" and has a voice good enough to convice an aspiring opera singer with a musical background, you pick an actor whose singing skills are good enough for the role, or have him dubbed by a professional singer. And, while I'm at it, you give him a proper diformity.
I wouldn't be so nasty with the movie if it wasn't the most well-known, as it portrays Erik as an hot not-to-aged man with some face burns that would probably take less time to fix with make-up that what some girls I know spent to do they morning beauty fix. I want a living corpse. But I certainly ask too much ^^;
I have to admit that Emmy Rossum is my favorite Christine's Voice, though. She sounds vert innocent and young, and fits the character.

I like Phantom of Paradise, too, awesome music and interresting movie overall, though it doesn't have the real "phantom vibe" to me.

Well, PotP isn't exactly supposed to be a Phantom of the Opera clone. It's kind of what I love about it, among other things. And that's why it's called Phantom of the Paradise and not regularly Phantom of the Opera.

Just here to spread the Winslow love.