Top 5: Dance Sequences in Movies

For some unknown reason they just released a remake of Footloose. Who decided that was a good idea? Why are we reinventing the wheel? Wasn't Kevin Bacon good enough for you? I just don't understand. Anyway, all this talk of musicals got me thinking about my favorite dance scenes in movies. Avoiding typical and cliche segments like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, the lift in Dirty Dancing, and the rival gang dance off in West Side Story, I came up with 5 great dance scenes. What's your favorite?


5. Olive's dance at the talent show in Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

 

This is one of those so-awkard-you-have-to-love-it moments. Olive is so innocent, she has no idea that what she's doing is vastly inappropriate.  She's just having an awesome time dancing like she did with her grandpa. You know, before he died and they drove him around in their van.

4. Napoleon's talent for Pedro's campaign in Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

 

Apparently the early 2000s were the epitome of so-awkard-you-have-to-love-it moments, because this movie was basically an hour and a half of them strung together. Somehow it became the biggest cult hit of the year, inspiring kids everywhere to wear Vote for Pedro shirts and complain about Tina being a fat lard. And re-enact this dance at their high school talent show (at least that's what we did in my hometown...)

3.  The Barn Raising Dance in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

 Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is one of my all-time favorite musicals. It's about a set of brothers living in the mountians that decide they need wives, so they do the only logical thing - go to town and kidnap some. They find the girls they like and bring them home just before an avalanche closes the pass for the winter, keeping all of them on one side and all the angry fathers with shotguns on the other. Doesn't sound like a happy movie, but it's fantastic. Also, if I am remembering Robert Osborne from TCM correctly, this scene was shot in one really long take. Beat that, new Footloose.
 

2. Jon Cryer's Otis Redding lipsync in Pretty In Pink (1986)

 

This is one of the best scenes of this movie. Duckie is one of the greatest John Hughes characters and it always made me sad that he didn't end up with Andie at the end - apparently the original ending brings them together, but test audience's didn't like it so she ends up with Blane. Lame, if you ask me. "His name is Blane? Oh! That's a major appliance, that's not a name"

 

1. Gene Kelly with Tom & Jerry in Anchors Aweigh (1944)
 

 

 My grandma has a big collection of musicals and this is one I loved watching as a kid. I don't really remember what else went on in the film, but at one point Gene Kelly dances with cartoon characters. Tom and Jerry, right there on screen with him! It's like they're in the same room, but one is real and one is animated...it blew my 8-year-old mind. And considering it was released in 1944, it's still pretty cool. Family Guy parodied it a while back. When a prime-time cartoon with the coveted 18-40 demographic references a musical from the 40s and people still get it, you know that it's a legendary dance scene. (Sorry about the German subtitles!)