Production notes

The film was announced via Variety in December 2012. Bobin was first approached about the project while doing post-production work on Disney's Muppets Most Wanted. Of being asked, Bobin has said that "I just couldn't pass it up", as he has a passion for the works of Lewis Carroll as well as history in general. On January 21, 2014, the film was again retitled to Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass.

In July 2013, it was announced that Johnny Depp would return as the Hatter, with Mia Wasikowska's return confirmed the following November. In January 2014, Sacha Baron Cohen joined the cast to play Time. In May 2014, Rhys Ifans joined the cast to play Zanik Hightopp, the Mad Hatter's father. In developing the character of "Time", Bobin sought to avoid creating a "straight-up bad guy", noting that it would be "a bit dull", and also that the role in that universe already existed in the form of the Red Queen. Instead, Bobin sought to make Time a "twit", further explaining that "there's no one better at playing the confident idiot trope than Sacha Baron Cohen", and adding that "it was very much with Sacha in mind". Additionally, Toby Jones and John Sessions were originally announced to voice Wilkins and Humpty Dumpty in the film; the roles were eventually given to Matt Vogel and Wally Wingert.

Principal photography began on August 4, 2014, at Shepperton Studios. In August 2014, filming took place in Gloucester Docks, which included the use of at least four historic ships: Kathleen and May, Irene, Excelsior, and the Earl of Pembroke, the last of which was renamed The Wonder for filming. Principal photography ended on October 31, 2014.

Rotten Tomatoes reports that 29% of 260 reviews are positive, and the average rating is 4.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Alice Through the Looking Glass is just as visually impressive as its predecessor, but that isn't enough to cover for an underwhelming story that fails to live up to its classic characters." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 34 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. However, audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, the same grade earned by its predecessor, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 79% and a "definite recommend" of 51%. Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote in his review, "What does all this have to do with Lewis Carroll? Hardly anything" and that overall, "It's just an excuse on which to hang two trite overbearing fables and one amusing one". Ty Burr of The Boston Globe gave the movie 1.5 out of 4 stars and called the film, "gaudy, loud, complacent, and vulgar." Stephen Whitty of New York Daily News called the film "hugely expensive and extravagantly stupid" and that, overall, the movie "is just one more silly Hollywood mashup, an innocent fantasy morphed into a noisy would-be blockbuster". Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com was deeply critical of Alice Through the Looking Glass, calling it "junk rehashed from a movie that was itself a rehash of Lewis Carroll" and describing it as "the most offensive kind of film" due to its blockbuster tropes, lack of magic and wonder, and perceived sole purpose of financial gain. Matthew Lickona of San Diego Reader said that while he found the visual effects to be "stupidly expensive" and the story familiar, he called it "a solid kids' movie in the old style".