from Bande à part (1964)
This sequence from Jean-Luc Godard’s caper movie is at once charming, banal and enigmatic. Why are the trio dancing? Who can say. What are they thinking? Well, Godard cuts in and tells us. Arthur (Claude Brasseur) is thinking of Odile’s mouth, Odile (Anna Karina) is worrying about the movement of her breasts beneath her sweater, and Franz (Sami Frey) is wondering if the world’s a dream. The sense of detachment is heightened by Michel Legrand’s obviously dubbed-in soundtrack, and the way the actors never quite nail the steps. But can we stop watching? Could we ever be as cool? Photograph: PR
from Umrao Jaan (1981)
Mujra is a dance form originated by the courtesans of the Mughal era, and the mujra picture has long been an important genre in Indian cinema. Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan is the tale of a Lucknow dancer, hauntingly portrayed by the south Indian actress Rekha, whose heart is broken when she falls in love with a high-born nawab. In this gorgeously seductive number, voiced by Asha Bhosle, Umrao dances as her lover waits in his carriage outside. Rekha was not trained in classical dance but mesmerises us with every glance, every tilt of her chin, every sway of her hips Photograph: PR
of Do the Right Thing (1989)
Rosie Perez was 24 when she was discovered by Spike Lee and cast as Tina, the girlfriend of Mookie (Lee), in the director’s angriest and most overtly political film. In this sequence Perez dances alone on a hot, neon-lit New York night to Public Enemy’s Fight the Power. Ferocious and sensual, her combative moves prefiguring the krumping style of the following decade, Perez taking us straight to the simmering heart of 80s Brooklyn. As an intro, it couldn’t be simpler, but Perez’s moves and those rock-heavy lyrics speak volumes. You can practically smell the asphalt Photograph: PR
from Sweet Charity (1969)
For 30 years, until his death in 1987, Bob Fosse was one of the hottest names in show business, winning eight Tony awards for choreography and an Oscar for Cabaret. His style – cynical, meticulously phrased, disdainfully sexy – is instantly recognisable. Big Spender is archetypal Fosse. He builds tension through minimalist motifs such as Chita Rivera’s finger-flutters, forever promising but withholding, the sleazy blare of the coda. Fosse shows us the skull beneath the skin; look at that frieze of dead-eyed, chicken-legged hostesses, as beautifully composed as it is tawdry. In all, one of the most electric dance sequences ever filmed Photograph: RGA
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)
Directed by Max Reinhardt, this Hollywood production would win mixed reviews. But its darkly atmospheric fairy ballet, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska (sister of the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky), is exquisite. The lead fairy is performed by the Danish ballerina Nini Theilade, then 20. Theilade had been a child star and would later tour the world with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Here, Reinhardt and cinematographer Hal Mohr perfectly capture the evanescent quality of her dancing, especially in the ballet’s closing moments, as her long, pliant arms waver like a dying flame Photograph: PR
from Swing Time (1936)
Swing Time isn’t the best picture that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together, but its dance numbers are sheer perfection. In Never Gonna Dance, the pair reflect on the end of their love affair. Their emotions, inexpressible in words, are transmuted into sublime passages of dance, each musical stanza a memory. Changes of rhythm and mood occur with gathering speed, as if to emphasise that the couple’s time together is running out. Perfection came at a price; the final section, with its whirling, high-speed turns, took 40 takes, and by the end, Rogers’s feet were bleeding Photograph: PR
from Pukar (2000)
Madhuri Dixit trained as a kathak dancer, and after her career took off in the late 1980s, became one of the most adored stars of Indian cinema. A fine and charismatic actress, she is also an incandescent dancer, as this fabulous set piece from Pukar shows. The song, Kay Sera Sera, was choreographed by Prabhu Deva, who appears here as the lead male dancer. Stylistically, Deva references Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse and Michael Jackson among others, but the result is pure Hindi masala. Madhuri was 33 when she made Pukar, and as always, dances her co-stars off the screen Photograph: PR
from Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Seven-year-old Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) dreams of winning the Little Miss Sunshine pageant at Redondo Beach, California. But she’s a little on the chubby side, and her dance routine, set to Rick James’s Super Freak, and taught to her in secret by her heroin-addicted, porn-perusing grandpa (Alan Arkin), doesn’t go down too well with the pageant organisers. The film takes a satirical stab at the double standards embedded in American culture, and the innocence with which Breslin performs her eye-poppingly inappropriate routine is as touching as it’s funny Photograph: PR
from Reality Bites (1994)
There’s an art to dropping a dance number into a picture. Reality Bites is a bittersweet drama about Generation X-ers drifting in and out of love and employment, and this scene hits the mark perfectly. Watch how seamlessly Janeane Garofalo’s ditsy non sequitur about Evian water segues into her rocking out with Winona Ryder and Steve Zahn to the Knack’s My Sharona. It’s all 90s ironic-lite, from Garofalo’s goofy-cute fringe to her love of cheesy power-pop hits. Then watch how the mood and the moment fade, with that long exterior shot and the enclosing darkness Photograph: PR
from Stormy Weather (1943)
Fayard and Harold Nicholas were one of the 20th century’s most sensational dance acts. After headlining at Harlem’s Cotton Club in the early 1930s, they went on to star in the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway and appear in more than 40 Hollywood films. One of the best was Stormy Weather, and Fred Astaire told the brothers he thought this sequence, featuring their signature “flash-dancing” tap style, the greatest movie musical sequence he’d ever seen. Cab Calloway opens the number with his orchestra, then the brothers take over. According to legend, director Andrew Stone shot the whole routine in one take Photograph: Rex Features
