





This just in: Harry Styles’s first live concert for his forthcoming new album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally., is headed straight to your living room when it streams on Netflix on March 8. That’s your cue to clear a little floor space and start stretching now — it’s (almost) time to get your dancing shoes on.
What better way to warm up for the main event than by stealing a few moves from the movies? These 13 films are filled with people dancing their troubles away, whether they’re trying to get into prestigious universities or chasing their Broadway dreams. All of those stories and more can be found in the vast and varied array of dance movies available to watch right now.
Some are concert documentaries about hard-working stars, some are tales of ballerinas learning hip-hop, but they all have one thing in common: They’re waiting for you to press play, no matter how many left feet you have.





Academic overachiever and Duke University hopeful Quinn (Sabrina Carpenter) is stunned to discover that, according to quirky admissions officer Veronica (Michelle Buteau), she needs more passion in her extracurriculars. This leads to Quinn starting her own dance troupe to compete with her school’s award-winning but exclusive team, and she recruits former classmate Jake (Jordan Fisher) to help choreograph. Quinn can’t really dance, but sparks start flying as high as the kicks, and she learns that there are things that are more important than getting into Duke. Fisher is as charming as ever in this role, and Carpenter does a great job of pretending like she’s not actually a bona fide pop star. Liza Koshy also adds great comic relief as Quinn’s best friend, a dancer who’s head over heels for a hot guy who works in a mattress store, and Buteau is, as always, a hilarious addition to the cast. The whole thing ends with a lively dance competition that’ll make you want to bust some moves of your own.

Ivy + Bean is the perfect dance dramedy for the grade-school crowd. There’s a whole series of movies about these two best friends (based on a series of books by Annie Barrows), but in this particular installment, Ivy and Bean decide that they want to level up their make-believe by learning how to do real ballet. Their stuffy dance teacher (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) won’t let them sword-fight or dress as an evil duke, but Bean’s parents won’t allow her to quit, so the girls have to accept their fate that they are “doomed to dance.” They put up with it until they’re cast as squid in a dance festival — they’re determined not to become the laughingstocks of their whole school. For any kid with an imagination or any adult who misses the days of playing pretend, Ivy + Bean: Doomed to Dance is a joyful way to spend an hour.

Sofia Carson plays April, an aspiring Broadway dancer who ruins her burgeoning career by first stealing a cab from an old lady who turns out to be a very rich theater investor and then by knocking the same older lady off the stage (she’d come to observe the auditions). After getting evicted, April reluctantly moves back to her quaint hometown and gets roped into helping her former dance teacher (Donna Lynne Champlin) prepare her students for a big competition. April begins the journey believing she’s far above these little girls, but when she realizes a Broadway producer will be at the event and that teachers are allowed to dance too, she changes her tune. Feel the Beat gives Carson the chance to show off her various skills as a dancer, dramatic actor, and comedian as she whips the girls into shape, learns a little humility and rekindles things with her ex-boyfriend. Whether you’re already a Carson fan or a newcomer to her talents, there’s a lot to love here.

Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance might just go down as one of the best live performances in history, and the whole thing is available to behold in this chill-inducing documentary film. If her tableau of bleachers filled with dancers and musicians isn’t already burned into your brain, it will be after you watch. Backed by dozens of steppers and framed by a gorgeous mane of windblown hair, Beyoncé performs a medley of new and old hits that barely allow her to take a breath. The film combines footage from both Coachella weekends, resulting in a trippy color-changing effect and a completely unmatched viewing experience, and that’s just a portion of the film. The rest of the two hours are spent exploring the journey to Coachella as Queen Bey works to bring her vision of “limitless swag” to life by exploring her own culture and auditioning Black dancers from all over the country. She’s clearly having the time of her life, which makes it easy for viewers to do the same.

This film adaptation of the award-winning stage musical (which is itself adapted from Roald Dahl’s beloved novel) isn’t technically about dancing, but it’s certainly filled with impressive, colorful performances that took TikTok by storm when the film was released in 2022 — if you didn’t have the lyrics to the song “Revolting Children” stuck in your head, your algorithm may need an adjustment. Eleven-year-old Irish stage veteran Alisha Weir stars as Matilda, a young girl with terrible parents, who gets sent to a school run by the terrifying Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson). Luckily, Matilda has magical powers that allow her to lead a revolution, and Trunchbull’s reign of terror may soon come to an end. The school may be run by someone who clearly hates children, but the movie is full of life, color, and incredibly satisfying choreography.

With just days until an important audition and under immense pressure from her ballet legend father, a young German ballerina named Katya (Alexandra Pfeifer) suddenly discovers a love for hip-hop. She has to decide between the thing she’s spent her whole life studying –– or her new passion. Plus, the hip-hop comes with a cute guy named Marlon (Yalany Marschner) and a heck of a lot of chemistry. The pair spend the whole movie dancing all over the city, from subways to rooftops, but one of the most memorable moments happens when Marlon and Katya sneak onto a large boat, only to be caught on the deck. While Marlon is ready to fight, Katya just goes for it… with dance. Her moves are so slick that the big, grumpy security guys become too stunned to speak, or apprehend. Behold, the power of dance!

Megalyn Echikunwoke stars as Jamilah, a college overachiever who’s president of her sorority and leader of the sorority step team. The only wrinkle in her perfect existence is that she doesn’t quite have a 4.0 GPA, so her Harvard alum mother (played by Sheryl Lee Ralph) won’t give her a legacy recommendation for law school. The dean, however, will give her a rec if she helps a messy, mostly white sorority rehab their image by learning to step. It’s a plan that does not go well until it eventually does, after a whole lot of uncoordinated clapping and embarrassing attempts at synchronization. It all comes together, as dance movies do, in a thrilling competition with lessons about learning to get along. But don’t worry about things getting too sappy, because even the most saccharine moments come with a biting joke or two.

In this Swedish film, a young dancer named Dylan (Molly Nutley) is grieving the loss of her mom and misses out on a big audition at a prestigious dance company. Not wanting to go home with her tail between her legs, she gets a job as a janitor at a struggling drag club. She befriends its ambitious choreographer, who’s having trouble getting the queens to execute his vision. After Dylan shows him her own skills, they come up with a plan. Dylan joins the cast at the club undercover as a drag queen –– while telling her father and grandparents that she’s still in the running to join the prestigious dance company. Not everyone is thrilled with the deception, but Dylan’s talent and attitude win everyone over, and the whole thing ends up being a celebration of life and love in all forms.

Yeh Ballet follows two Mumbai teens — Asif (Achintya Bose) and Nishu (Manish Chauhan) — who are extremely talented dancers trying to make their dreams come true under less than ideal circumstances. While Nishu makes it relatively far in a TV dance competition, Asif’s talent is mostly seen in street dancing, but they both catch the eye of an eccentric ballet master who helps them rise past bigotry to great dance heights. The movie is based on a documentary short of the same name, and Chauhan is actually playing a fictionalized version of himself, while fellow dancer Amiruddin Shah is represented by the fictional Asif. Chauhan was 21 and Shah was 15 when they were discovered by ballet guru Yehuda Maor, and their story was told in the documentary Yeh Ballet in 2017 by Sooni Taraporevala (who also oversaw this 2020 dramatization).

If you love to imagine romances between the partners on Dancing with the Stars, Time to Dance might just give you the thrill you’re looking for. This Bollywood film explores the closeness and the chemistry required for success in the ballroom as one new partnership falls apart and another begins to sizzle. Isabelle Kaif stars as a dancer who’s paired with a ballroom champion, only to get dumped when she falls and breaks her leg. Her place in the dance competition is rescued by charming coat check guy Rishabh (Sooraj Pancholi), and a colorful romance ensues as they train to compete against the greats on the dance floor. Time to Dance has all the Bollywood signatures fans could want, with musical numbers around every corner and soapy twists at every turn.

This 2020 documentary was produced by Shonda Rhimes and follows Fame and Grey’s Anatomy star, professional dancer, and award-winning choreographer Debbie Allen on a journey to Christmas glory, thanks to her dance school’s annual production of Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. Allen runs the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, which instructs around 200 students each year and puts on its own version of the famous ballet The Nutcracker. Allen created Hot Chocolate Nutcracker in 2008, and some students are cast throughout their entire careers at the school. Auditions are held in September and are followed by three months of intense training and rehearsal, which can be seen throughout the film alongside footage from the resulting show. The stars of Hot Chocolate Nutcracker may be kids, but they’re just as dedicated to dance as any grown-up.

For the K-pop lovers out there, this documentary provides an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the life of a girl group at the top of the charts. Just three years after being introduced, Blackpink was shattering records all over the world and performing at Coachella, and this doc explores what it takes to be as unimaginably famous as these women are, including the long months of pop star training that can sometimes start at the age of 11. The performers dive into the process of preparing for the stage, from exercising to finding outfits that can withstand the “crazy choreography” they’re known for. Each of the four Blackpink members — Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosé — gets her own spotlight in the doc, which hones in on their individual experiences while also showcasing how they work together.

This Spanish drama has a touch of Black Swan vibes, as two dancers form a complicated friendship to shield themselves from the darkness of the ballet world. When a ballerina dies by suicide and her spot in the upcoming show is made available, Irene (Money Heist and Elite star María Pedraza) is suddenly cast, which means all eyes are now on her. Some are expecting greatness, others are ready to get rid of her, but while grappling with all that pressure she also befriends a new girl named Aurora (Paula Losada). The friendship both helps and hurts, with Aurora eventually becoming dangerously obsessed with Irene. It’s juicy, dark, and the dancing is obviously top-notch, because this tale of deadly perfectionism wouldn’t work if the moves were subpar. Whatever it is about ballet that makes it such a perfect subject for tales like this, Dancing on Glass really captures it.
























































