10 Great Dance Sequences in Movies

Asking dancers to pick favourite dances is like asking musicians to pick their favourite songs! An impossible task – however we have deliberated and chosen a good cross section of movies that have some great dances in them – are any of these your favourites?

1. Saturday Night Fever

Who can forget John Travolta at his stylish best on the dance floor dancing to impress the crowd to the Bee Gees. The white suit is also a classic, and his moves are imitated on dance floors (often at weddings) across the country!

2. Top Hat

Featuring the dancing duo of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers in full floating costume dancing cheek to cheek in effortless style and fantastic feathers for a very romantic and charismatic dance.

3. Strictly Ballroom

A classic plot of boy meets girl and then we follow their journey as they try to break the dancing mould by choosing to perform unconventional steps at a national dance competition – and they are in it to win it! This is a beautiful movie by acclaimed director Baz Lurhman and it has some great dance portions but our favourite has to be when Scott is introduced to Flamenco and told to ‘Dance from the heart!’

4. Singing in the Rain

There are a lot of great singing and dancing numbers in this classic musical, not least the dream ballet sequence featuring the incredibly talented Cyd Charrise, or when Donald O’Connor does a series of vertical back flips in ‘Make em Laugh’ before crashing through the wall to finish! But our favourite has to be the tap number in the Moses Supposes Routine. The synchronicity between Gene and Donald is something that shows incredible skill, speed and technical ability along with just a little bit of dancing magic!

5. Footloose

Another 80’s classic with Kevin Bacon, with a group of teens expressing themselves through music. Kevin Bacons freestyle dance mixing gymnastics is truly beautiful to watch but the best bit is at the end when the whole town gets footloose on the dancefloor.

6. Grease

Imagine if everyone in your school knew how to do the hand jive! From the classic Greased Lightning, to the school dance off, there are some amazing bop along moves in this well-loved musical and we couldn't pick a favourite dance!

7. The Rocky Horror Show

While not a technical dance, The Time Warp is a universally acceptable dance pretty much anywhere, everyone knows the steps and can join in at a moment’s notice! The costumes in this offbeat musical are also fantastic!

8. Flashdance

Leotards and Legwarmers at the ready in this dance classic! Dancing like she has never danced before, the welder by day, stripper by night star of the show has an iconic movie dance moment at the final audition of the movie dancing to the theme tune of the film and it has become a classic!

9. The Blues Brothers

You will be forgiven for getting up and joining into the well-loved ‘Shake a tail Feather’ song and dance in the great blues brother’s movie.

1. Dirty Dancing

This has to be one of the best romantic feel good movie dances of all time. From Baby learning the steps to practicing the lift in the water to finally pulling it off in the finale dance we are with her every step of the way – and the outfits are pretty cool too!

While there are so many more to mention, these are just the tip of the on screen dance numbers that we love to watch again and again!