The best dance movies you should queue up now
Is there anything more uplifting than watching an iconic dance film? Even the darkest dance film – Hustlers, Black Swan – can’t help but force you to stand up and whirl around the room.
Of course, the benefits of dancing are well documented – and even intuitive, non-choreographed forms of dance have been shown to increase your wellbeing. But you don’t actually have to dance to reap the benefits of this ancient form of expression: research shows that just Watch out Dancing can really promote emotional and physical healing. Like Patrick Swayze’s character Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing: “It’s not the mambo. It’s a feeling; a heartbeat.”
Not that you need to know all of that to enjoy the dance movies below. Dancing is also just plain fun – whether you’re tap dancing, doing pirouettes, shimmying, moonwalking, or just watching someone do it from the comfort of your couch.
The red shoes (1948)
This Technicolor drama from Powell and Pressburger is a classic for good reason. Starring Marius Goring and Scottish ballet dancer Moira Shearer, it loosely follows the plot of Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century fable of the same name about a pair of red shoes that can make a girl dance until she dies. (A phantasmagoric ballet adapted from the same story is the film’s centerpiece.) It is the Archers’ tenth collaboration. The red shoes has long been considered her greatest achievement, won Oscars for the film music (by Brian Easdale) and the art direction (Hein Heckroth) and inspired Kate Bush to record an album in 1993.
