10 Best Musical Numbers In Film

While it did rather ruthlessly take the knife to many of Sondheim's subplots, the Tim Burton-helmed adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street may be one of the most successful modern musical adaptations. Burton's love of Grand Guignol horror and campy violence makes both the dark comedy and melodrama of the stage musical gel in a way that few other directors could have achieved.

Burton gets a lot of credit for the dramatic numbers - particularly the back to back 'Epiphany' and 'Pretty Women' songs, which are as suspenseful, visceral, and powerful as any song ever put to screen - but there is one song in particular that shows he isn't a one-trick pony.

This number is 'By the Sea'. The visuals of this sequence whimsically break the grey-blue aesthetic for a poppy fantasy that proves Tim Burton is a talented comedic director when he really wants to be.

And though this number still abides by the deadpan tone the rest of the film rides on, the vignettes of Todd & Mrs. Lovett by the sea are side-splittingly hilarious, but also prove a central point of this musical: Sweeney Todd is destined to always be unhappy in this film's lifeless version of London town. The happy ending just wouldn't suit him.