Is there a difference in dynamic range between film and digital?

Typically, film has a greater dynamic range than digital.

It depends on the type of film. The typical negative color film will have a greater dynamic range than most digital cameras. A typical digital camera has roughly the same dynamic range as a slide film, as I recall it.

Another point is that film's sensitivity is logarithmic when reaching saturation. Digital is linear, and has a hard saturation point, leading to easily clipped highlights.

Many cameras simulate this by underexposing and applying a tone curve.

The comparison is not as simple as it seems on the surface. Different films have different dynamic range, so do different digital cameras. More importantly, often the limitation is not the recording media but the display media. A high quality LCD tends to have a higher dynamic range than photo paper. A traditional dark room B&W paper can have a higher dynamic range than the ink jet paper etc.

Another generalization is that the new digital sensors are generally on par with the negatives, but superior to the slide film.

It's not really that simple. W/ film, you can badly overexpose (or just have a scene w/ a long exposure range) and everything will be happy. Not so w/ digital, the highlights just disappear. On the other hand, digital handles gross underexposure better than film. It's safe to say that the usable dynamic range of film is superior to digital if we're talking 35mm B&W film. When you get to the larger formats like 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 or 4 x 5 the difference is even more striking. Most tests that you see on the internet compare digital to 35mm film, a format that film photographers refer to as a miniature film.

The two mediums look different no matter what you do. Digital will have lots of acutance (sharpness on the edges) but will leave out vast amounts of shadow detail, so for portraits digital is usually not your friend. All of this begs the question, which film? Film types are plentiful, and they all have a different dynamic range, look and use. Different developers and different methods of developing film will also greatly change how a film looks too. Then there's a scanned image of film negatives vs a printed one, and a scanner will not always have the dynamic range that the film actually has available in the negative.

The last thing to consider is the printing. Many digital shooters never even print their images, they just download them into their computer and look at them, upload them to websites, or email them to friends. Most film shooters print their images, and when it comes to darkroom printing, there are a large amount of considerations that will change the image. Use RC paper or fiber? Enlarge w/ a filter, or no? Pre flash the paper? Traditional prints or carbon prints? The list goes on and on.

To properly master film, one ties the film type, in-camera exposure, choice of developer, manner of development, type of print paper, and manner of print all together to get the look that is wanted. The results of all this, assuming that one knows what they're doing, cannot ever be approached by digital because there is no, ahem, negative/developer/darkroom print, etc.