Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 2007 gothic musical slasher film[7] directed by Tim Burton from a screenplay by John Logan, based on the stage musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, which in turn is based on the 1970 play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond.

The film retells the melodramatic Victorian tale of Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), an English barber and serial killer.

After arriving in London, Todd begins seeking revenge on Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) who wrongfully convicted and exiled him in order to steal his wife.

Sweeney Todd commits serial murders on his customers and, with the help of his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), processes their corpses into meat pies.

Recognizing Barker, Lovett tells him that once he was exiled, Turpin raped Lucy and drove her to suicide before adopting the couple's daughter, Johanna, as his ward.

Lovett is shocked but accepts Todd's justifications, having grown emotionally attached to Pirelli's downtrodden assistant Toby Ragg, whom she adopts as a son.

With both their businesses prospering, Mrs. Lovett tells an uninterested Todd of her hopes to marry him and retire while the unnamed beggar woman begins spreading rumors about the foul-smelling smoke rising from the shop chimneys.

The dying Turpin grabs at Mrs. Lovett's dress, causing her to scream and distract Todd; he allows Johanna to flee the shop and hurries to the bakehouse.

Tim Burton first saw Stephen Sondheim's 1979 stage musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as a CalArts student in London in 1980.

Logan had previously collaborated with Parkes on Gladiator, and claimed his biggest challenge in adapting the Sondheim stage play "was taking a sprawling, magnificent Broadway musical and making it cinematic, and an emotionally honest film.

"[22] Mendes left to direct the 2005 film Jarhead, and Burton took over as director after his project, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, fell apart due to its excessive budget.

[35] This macabre tone made some studios nervous, and it was not until Warner Bros. Pictures, DreamWorks and Paramount had signed up for the project that the film's $50 million budget was covered.

"[22] To create a larger, more cinematic feel, the score was re-orchestrated by the stage musical's original orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick, who increased the orchestra from 27 musicians to 78.

Beneath this Sweeney’s vacant, sullen exterior is a man consumed with a murderous rage that threatens to burst forth every time he slowly takes a breath and is poised to speak.

Michael Halberstam of the Writers' Theatre said, "By de-emphasizing the score to the extent they did in the trailer, it is possible the producers were condescending to us – a tactic which cannot ultimately end in anything but tears.

[3] In the United States, the Marcus Theaters Corporation was not initially planning to screen the film following its premiere, because it was unable to reach a pricing agreement with Paramount.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Full of pith and Grand Guignol grossness, this macabre musical is perfectly helmed and highly entertaining.

[52] Of the reviewers, Time rated it an A-minus and added, "Burton and Depp infuse the brilliant cold steel of Stephen Sondheim's score with a burning passion.

[54] In his review in Variety, Todd McCarthy called it "both sharp and fleet" and "a satisfying screen version of Stephen Sondheim's landmark 1979 theatrical musical ... things have turned out uniformly right thanks to highly focused direction by Tim Burton, expert screw-tightening by scenarist John Logan, and haunted and musically adept lead performances from Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Assembled artistic combo assures the film will reap by far the biggest audience to see a pure Sondheim musical, although just how big depends on the upscale crowd’s tolerance for buckets of blood, and the degree to which the masses stay away due to the whiff of the highbrow.

"[55] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B-plus in its Movie Reviews section and stated, "To stage a proper Sweeney Todd, necks must be slit, human flesh must be squished into pastries, and blood ought to spurt in fountains and rivers of death.

She went on to refer to the piece as "opulent, attentive ... so finely minced a mixture of Sondheim's original melodrama and Burton's signature spicing that it's difficult to think of any other filmmaker so naturally suited for the job.

"[56] In its DVD Reviews section, EW's Chris Nashawaty gave the film an A-minus, stating, "Depp's soaring voice makes you wonder what other tricks he's been hiding...

"[57] In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers awarded it 3½ out of 4 stars and added, "Sweeney Todd is a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling ... [the film] is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score.

Teaming with Depp, his long-time alter ego, Burton makes Sweeney a smoldering dark pit of fury and hate that consumes itself.

In 2018, Den of Geek included it on its list of the "Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century," with David Crow calling it "an ingenious work that Burton contemplated for decades.

Leaning into the horrific conceit of a musical that is about a vengeful barber murdering any loner who steps into his shop, and letting the landlady downstairs, Mrs. Lovett, bake them into meat pies, the film version of Sweeney Todd more closely resembles 1930s Universal horror movies or '40s Val Lewton chillers than it does traditional stagecraft."

In 2022, MovieWeb ranked it number 6 on its list of the "Best Movie Musicals of the 21st Century So Far" with Rachel Johnson writing "With many unique songs such as "No Place Like London," "Pretty Women" and "Not While I'm Around," it's no wonder audiences were hooked."

In 2023, Collider ranked it number 21 on its list of the "30 Best Musicals of All Time," with Jeremy Urquhart writing "It's incredibly morbid, but might prove to have a very dark sense of humor for those who like their comedy pitch-black.

The dark, moody look of the film pairs extremely well with all the memorable songs, and of the many collaborations between director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp, this is easily one of their best."