Singing and dancing have always played a significant role in movies, ever since Al Jolson delivered the first words ever seen on film in The Jazz Singer in 1927. Here are some of the best-known films involving dancing over the years:

John Travolta established himself as an icon in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, about a working-class Brooklynian who finds his true calling on the dance floor. Travolta’s white disco suit was later purchased by movie critic Gene Siskel, and the Bee Gees-heavy soundtrack went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time. In many of his greatest hits, including Grease and Pulp Fiction, Travolta has since become renowned for his dancing. Sylvester Stallone directed a follow-up to this movie titled Stayin’ Alive, but both critics and viewers found it lacking.

Jennifer Beals rose to fame in the 1983 film Flashdance, about a welder who vents his frustrations by moonlighting as an exotic dancer while harboring ballerina aspirations. Ironically, Beals didn’t actually dance in this movie; instead, some doubles, including a gymnast and a man, performed her most difficult moves with the help of deft editing and photography. Like Fever, this had a hit soundtrack, highlighted by the Oscar-winning “What a Feeling.”

While Kevin Bacon has since played a variety of roles and shared the screen with almost every other actor in Hollywood, for many fans, he will always be remembered for the upbeat story of a teen who finds himself in a small town where a zealous reverend (John Lithgow) has outlawed dancing. This had yet another successful soundtrack that generated two number-one singles and sold 15 million copies.

Dirty Dancing (1987): This surprise hit about a young woman (Jennifer Grey) who finds love on the dance floor with a fleet-footed dance instructor (Patrick Swayze) while on vacation also won an Oscar for best song (“I’ve Had the Time of My Life”) and became a sensation, inspiring a short-lived A live stage performance and a television series. Additionally, it was to blame for an increase in dance class enrollment across the nation. Ironically, Swayze and Grey had previously collaborated on the action movie Red Dawn, but they hated each other.

In the 2001 film Save the Last Dance, Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas play a former ballerina who discovers her love of dancing after studying the dance moves of a nearby dance club. MTV, which produced the movie, saw great success with its audience. In the end, it made almost ten times more money in the US than it had planned. alone.

Step Up (2006), about a dancer (Jenna Dewan) who falls for a street tough who is ordered to perform community service at the Maryland School of the Arts, became a surprise hit, grossing almost double its budget in its first weekend, despite receiving little advance buzz. Early in 2008, Step Up 2 the Streets, a sequel with new characters and the same setting as the original, was released. It has achieved a similar level of success thus far, which suggests that additional Step Up movies could be forthcoming.