Amidst all the understandable uncertainty and doom mongering in the film industry right now, you have to suspect that Wicked: For Good is as close to a dead cert as it gets.
When this follow-up to Wicked rolls into cinemas on the 21st of November, it’ll have a running start. The original set the box office slight when it arrived in 2024, becoming the tenth highest-grossing musical of all time.
Interestingly, it’s also the highest-grossing stage musical adaptation of all time, placing it at the very top of an exclusive list.
It’s an interesting exercise to ponder how many of your favourite musicals – that is, movies in which songs are woven into the narrative – actually began life as a live show, and which were developed specifically with the cinema in mind.
In honour of Wicked: For Good, we’re here to discuss the former. These are the best musical movie adaptations of all time.
10. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Johnny Depp the musical star? Under the direction of Tim Burton, why not. Based on Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 1979 Tony-winning theatre production of the same name, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street recounts the story of the famous (and thankfully fictional) Victorian English barber, who also happens to be a serial killer.
If the manner of his murders isn’t sufficiently gruesome, wait until you see what our vengeful anti-hero and his accomplice (played by Helena Bonham Carter) does with the bodies. Our recommendation: eat before you watch.
9. Oklahoma!
This 1955 classic has almost become synonymous with Hollywood’s late golden age, but it began life in 1943 as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s broadway debut. In fact, movie was an adaptation of an adaption, as the broadway show was based on a 1931 Lynn Riggs play, Green Grow the Lilacs.
The film won a pair of Oscars for its scoring and sound recording, but its influence on the wider musical genre was arguably even more important. This was the first musical to transcend the format’s hitherto lightweight themes and attempt to tell a real dramatic story.
8. Les Misérables
As mentioned in the intro, the original Wicked is the top grossing stage musical adaptation of all time, and by some margin. Next on the list? That would be Tom Hooper’s cinematic transplant of Claude-Michel Schönberg’s 1980 stage show, itself adapted from Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel.
Featuring an absolutely stacked cast list (Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway among them) offering heartfelt live renditions of the musical’s sung-through lines, this is just about as ambitious as mainstream musical cinema gets. If ever there was a film to convert musical non-believers, it would be ‘Les Mis’.
7. Fiddler on the Roof
Norman Jewison’s faithful treatment of Joseph Stein’s stage original (unsurprisingly, the playwright also handled the screenplay) depicts the precarious existence of Jews in Imperial Russia during the early 20th century.
All of which sounds vaguely harrowing, but a focus on familial drama and some genuinely joyful musical numbers helps keep the tone sufficiently light. Another noteworthy point includes a score by a certain John Williams, who would win his first Oscar for his work some years before his more famous scores for Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Superman and Harry Potter.
6. My Fair Lady
Audrey Hepburn stepped into the shoes of Julie Andrews for this 1961 musical adaptation, playing the role of poor flower-seller Eliza Doolittle with considerable charm.
It’s a good job, really, given her somewhat dubious cockney accent and ill-suited singing voice (in the event, her vocal numbers were mostly dubbed over by Marni Nixon). That didn’t stop this rags-to-riches tale from sweeping up at the Academy Awards, winning eight of the 12 Oscars for which it was nominated.
5. Oliver!
![OLIVER! [1968] - Official Trailer (HD) - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/U1-Q3nyMelc/maxresdefault.jpg)
For several generations of Brits, Oliver! became an established part of the Christmas TV roster throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s easy to see why. This 1968 adaptation of Lionel Bart’s musical, which was based on the famous Charles Dickens novel, features some of the most memorable numbers in musical history.
It also has some of the genre’s most enduring characters, including cheeky scamp the Artful Dodger, somehow sympathetic ringleader Fagin, and brutal burglar Bill Sykes. Its affecting story of a young orphan surviving on the streets of a grim and grimy Victorian England is the very definition of timeless.
4. Grease
Arguably the hippest musical of all time, and undoubtedly the coolest musical of the ‘70s (sorry, Fiddler on the Roof), Grease took Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s 1972 stage production and made a cinematic event out of it.
The story is inconsequential ‘50s high school fluff, but the tunes are killer, and in John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John John the film gives us a charismatic pair of leads who seemed born for their roles.
3. Chicago
Here’s another film based on a stage musical based on a play, and the only wonder is that they didn’t complete the hat-trick sooner. Chicago had been knocking around on Broadway since 1975, but this 2002 adaptation really brings its vivid sense of jazz age energy to life.
So much so, in fact, that the film won the Best Picture Oscar in 2003 – the first musical to do so since Oliver! in 1968.
2. The Sound of Music
It might be based on a popular Rodgers and Hammerstein production, but it’s clear where Robert Wise’s ambitions lie from The Sound of Music’s opening sweep of the Austrian Alps. Cinema simply doesn’t get bigger or more, well, cinematic than The Sound of Music.
With its roots in the 1949 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, it’s a heart-warming romance and an ode to the power of music and art, with some welcome anti-Nazi messaging thrown in for good measure.
1. West Side Story
You know a movie is special when you question whether Steven Spielberg has the necessary skills to attempt a remake. He may well have had them, but his 2021 adaptation was still wholly unnecessary, as Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s 1961 original is pretty much perfect.
From its stunning opening aerial shot across Manhattan, through its vibrant modern take on Romeo and Juliet, and on to its heartbreaking denouement – with some of the strongest musical numbers ever written scattered throughout – West Side Story takes you on a journey like no other.
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