Dancing never goes out of style, but apparently dance movies do. The 40th anniversary of Footloose has us thinking about all the dance movies we’ve loved through the years, and the scarcity of those kinds of films these days. If you look at social media, especially TikTok, dance is more popular than ever. Dancing With The Stars just wrapped up its 32nd season and So You Think You Can Dance returns for its 18th season next month.
The disco-powered spectacles of the 1970s like Saturday Night Fever, Thank God It’s Friday, and Roller Boogie paved the way for the gritty edginess of movies like Fame and Flashdance in the 1980s. There were also attempts to capitalize on the popularity of break dancing, which in 1984 was just emerging as a new form of dance, in films like Breakin’ and its sequel, Breaking’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, released just a few months later.