The 12 Most Memorable Movie Dance Scenes

By: Natalie S.

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Musicals are now making a comeback with contemporary film works such as "La La Land" and "The Greatest Showman," but as much as the dance scenes in these works are impressive, there is not one that can compare with those in older films that will never be forgotten. After all, who hasn’t heard of cult films like Dirty Dancing or Grease and broken out in moves like Johnny and Baby or Danny and Sandy during the end credits. Want to reminisce and watch those unforgettable movements? Here are the 12 most memorable dance scenes from nostalgic and beloved Hollywood movies.

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1. Dirty Dancing (1987)

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Of course, a movie called "Dirty Dancing" will include many good dance numbers, but none of them compare to Johnny and Baby's final dance, where Baby finally makes the jump into Johnny's hands. The song selected for this number is Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes' "(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life", which was actually recorded as a duet between them especially for the film, and after it was released, it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song of 1987.

2. West Side Story (1961)

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50 years after the release of the film "West Side Story", it was re-released in HD, so the movies’ fans could watch the singing and dancing scenes in it today. In the next section, you’ll see the Dance at the Gym Mambo where members of the "Jets" and "Sharks" try to beat each other, only through their body movements.

3. The Blues Brothers (1980)

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Long before the invention of Flash Mobs - the videos in which a group of people surprisingly start dancing in the middle of the street - in the film Blues Brothers we saw a whole street "shaking their bottoms" to Ray Charles’, "Shake a Tail Feather". With the bouncing rhythm of this blues song, it's hard not to do so even while sitting.

4. Grease (1978)

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"You’re the One That I Want," is what Sandy and Danny are trying to say to each other in the well-known and beloved song, accompanied by "electrifying" choreography that has left its mark on us for years. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John show off their best moves in this song, and not only that, but also their pleasant voices that had us all singing with them in the movie theaters, and even brought them to the Golden Globes.

5. Scent of a Woman (1992)

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"Would you like to learn to tango darling?" Says the blind Frank Slade, played by legendary Al Pacino, to Gabriella Anwar playing Donna, who is afraid to make a mistake while dancing. But Frank encourages her and tells her that unlike in life, the tango has no mistakes, and that makes the dance especially great. They then tango to the most famous tango song, Por Una Cabeza, written in 1935.

6. Saturday Night Fever (1977)

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Anyone who remembers John Travolta from the 70s saw him show his dance skills not only in Grease but also in Saturday Night Fever, where he took over the brightly lit dance floor and danced to the sound of the Bee Gees’ "You Should Be Dancing." Disco may have died long ago, but this scene shows that there is no other dancing style to match.

7. The Big Lebowski (1988)

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The Coen brothers always had their own unique style in cinema, and for the Big Lebowski, they decided to add a somewhat surreal dance number starring Jeff Bridges, who plays the film's protagonist - Jeffrey Lebowski. Because of the nature of the scene, which seems to be a kind of "hallucination" by Lebowski, it is a dance that in certain parts seems to have reached the cinema straight from Broadway, and on the way passed through a bowling alley designed by the artist Salvador Dali.

8. Pulp Fiction (1994)

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Despite the appearance of characters dressed up as Richard Nixon and Marilyn Monroe, this is not a period scene, but the scene in which Vincent Vega (again we meet John Travolta) dances alongside Mia Wallace, played by Uma Thurman. Vincent initially refuses to dance with his boss's wife, but in the end, he gives in and together they give us the little dance steps that have become so well known among fans of the cult film, to Chuck Berry's song "You Never Can Tell."

9. Funny Face (1957)

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Jo Stockton, played by the charming Audrey Hepburn, shows her dance skills that, at that time, seemed a little strange, and to be honest, might even be considered strange today. This dance is undoubtedly unforgettable, even though it has been 60 years since its release. It was even used in Gaps’ 2007 ad called “Gap in Black.”

10. An American in Paris (1951)

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Tap dancing was entirely in style in the 1950s, and if a film did not include songs and dances, one could almost say that the piece was not complete. One of the most memorable and favorite tap scenes is Jean Kelly and Leslie Caron from the film "An American in Paris", which won the Academy Award for its choreography.

11. Footloose (1984)

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While this style of dancing isn’t something we’d see on today's dance floor, the film Footloose set the bar high for musicals that came out in the 80’s and 90’s because of it. This is the last dance scene of the film Footloose in which the actors dance to a song of the same name, which was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe Award.

12. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

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More than 65 years ago, we got to see the dance and song that starts playing in our heads at the first rain we see. In this scene, Gene Kelly, who plays Don Lockwood, jumps in step between puddles as the rain wets him to the bone. Not many people know this, but the song "Singin’ in the Rain" wasn’t written specifically for the film of the same name, but is the renewal of a song from another film called "Hollywood Review of 1929".