Dance films have been big since the dawn of dance music in the 1970s. With each new dance craze comes a new set of fictional stories to explore in books and films. Dance films reflect our world today, speak of social commentary and promote ideas of what dancing might mean to those who enjoy it. Here is a list of ten of the most famous dance films ever to come out of Hollywood:

1. Dirty Dancing

The most famous dance movie of them all made Patrick Swayze a heartthrob for millions of woman around the world. It is primarily a ‘coming of age’ romance about a young girl meeting and falling in love with a dance instructor while on a family getaway. Jennifer Grey stars opposite Swayze in a film that realised more success than it expected. It became the first movie ever to sell over one million VHS units and the soundtrack went platinum. The title track ‘I’ve had the time of my life’ won an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

2. Flashdance

Co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, this is perhaps the second biggest dance movie of the 1980s after Dirty Dancing. Critically panned, audiences ignored them and the film became a box office smash. It is about a young girl who works in a steel mill who moonlights as an exotic dancer wishing to be a professional dancer. The theme track ‘What a feeling’ has become the signature tune to dance movies in general and it won an Academy Award. A clip from the movie appears in The Full Monty (which appears later in this list).

3. Save the Last Dance

The first of the ‘Street’ dance films of the 1990s, it is an MTV film featuring Julia Stiles as a middle class ballet dancer who gives up the art following the death of her mother. As her parents were estranged, she has to move to inner city Chicago with her father ‘ a far cry from her previous life. While there, she learns to dance hip hop and her boyfriend and peers encourage her to incorporate it into her ballet. After some reluctance she does so and resumes her career, eventually winning a place at a prestigious school.

4. Billy Elliot

A touching British drama that launched the career of Jamie Bell as a young boy wanting desperately to become a ballet dancer against the prejudice of his working class roots (first because it is for girls and secondly because it was for the upper classes). Set during the miner’s strike in the 1980s, it played on the themes of political divide and gender roles as Billy’s father wants him to learn to box. It was adapted in 2005 to a stage play for the West End and later followed on Broadway.

5. The Full Monty

This cult British comedy was cited as ‘The Next Four Weddings and a Funeral’ before it was even released (no doubt spurring people on to see it). About a group of unemployed men in recession-hit Sheffield in the 1980s, Robert Carlyle leads a group of alternative male strippers in raising money for themselves and to possibly make a new career away from the steel mills that had been their previous careers. ‘The Full Monty’ referred to the fact that the men were willing to go completely nude where the male models in the show they were emulating, were not.

6. Footloose

The film that launched the career of Kevin Bacon sees a young man moving to a small town practically ruled by a religious zealot who has banned music, dancing and many other forms of merriment. Despite the strange plot, it is actually based in part on a true story. Like most of the dance films from the 1980s, it has a memorable signature track; it also went on to spawn a Broadway musical.

7. Fame

Originally released as a film in 1980, a follow-up series between 1982 and 1987 turned it into a worldwide smash. It is about a group of performing arts students at the fictional New York High School of Performing Arts as they go from new recruits to their graduation. The songs are iconic and memorable and it remains one of the most popular dance films today. In 2009, a remake of the original movie was released meaning that people are once again singing ‘I’m gonna live forever!’

8. Saturday Night Fever

The biggest dance film before the release of Dirty Dancing (and to some still the biggest dance film ever) made John Travolta a household name. It is about a young man who is seen as the king of the dance moves at the local discotheque and his desire to win an upcoming dancing contest. Scenes from the film are parodied and imitated everywhere. It was his moves in this film that led Quentin Tarantino in part to cast him as Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction ‘ itself having a memorable dance scene.

9. Take the Lead

This 2006 biopic starred Antonio Banderas as New York dance instructor Pierre Dulaine ‘ known for his ‘Dancing Classrooms’. It co-starred a former contestant of America’s Next Top Model Yaya DaCosta. In the film, Dulaine has taken on a class full of problem kids and puts them through their paces to learn the art that made him famous ‘ this he chooses to do after witnessing one street kid vandalising his car. Initially hostile to the program, they eventually warm to him and go on to take part in a ballroom dancing competition.

10. Step Up

The modern dance film that has so far inspired several sequels (including a 3D version in 2010), this first version released in 2006 is another privileged world meets unprivileged world as a group of teenagers trash an exclusive dance school. Taking the blame for his friends, Mac is sentenced to community service at the school and while there he witnesses ballet dancing, later on mocking it before his friends. One of the girls witnesses him and realising his potential, asks him to be her partner at an upcoming audition.

Conclusion

While there is still dancing in the world and while there are people who enjoying dancing and dance films, film industries around the world will continue to make films about the art. The list above demonstrates that even within western cinema, they needn’t be copying each other’s plots. Whether it is ballet meeting urban, a young man facing prejudice or a group of men having a bit of fun, dance films can inspire children to try it for themselves.