Are you a dancer or interested in dancing and want to watch some movies 2024 that focus on dance styles, dance numbers, and dance form from some great tap dancers? I have collected this list of some of the best tap dancing films just for those purposes and for those who just love to watch some of the greatest tap dancers in history. Check out this list of the 20 best tap dancing movies 2024 to tap stars of the past decade.
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Best Tap Dancing Movies 2024
Swing Time (1936)
Plot: Dexterous and risk-taking Lucky Garnett pursues dancing and gambling with equal verve. Engaged to the pretty Margaret Watson, Lucky gets pre-wedding nerves, which leads to the ceremony being called off. Margaret’s father decides that Lucky can have a second chance at marrying her if he can make $25,000, so he heads to New York City to seek his fortune. When Lucky meets the beautiful dance teacher Penny Carroll, however, his priorities soon change. Score by Jerome Kern.
Star Cast: Fred Astaire, Betty Furness, Ginger Rogers, Debbie Reynolds
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Plot: In New York City, the dance team of Johnny Brett and King Shaw are at the bottom of the heap, and barely scraping by in dance halls. When a producer, Bob Casey, catches sight of Brett’s moves, he wants to cast him as the dance partner of the Broadway star Clare Bennett. However, after some misdirection and confusion, Shaw becomes Bennett’s partner instead, but Brett still has some dancing to do when Shaw fails to perform.
Star Cast: Fred Astaire, George Murphy, Frank Morgan, Eleanor Powell
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Plot: When the transition is being made from silent films to `talkies’, everyone has trouble adapting. Don and Lina have been cast repeatedly as a romantic couple, but when their latest film is remade into a musical, only Don has the voice for the new singing part. After a lot of practise with a diction coach, Lina still sounds terrible, and Kathy, a bright young aspiring actress, is hired to record over her voice.
Star Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Plot: Brought to the White House to receive a Congressional Gold Medal from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Broadway legend George M. Cohan reflects on his life. Flashbacks trace Cohan’s rise, from a childhood performing in his family’s vaudeville act to his early days as a struggling Tin Pan Alley songwriter to his overwhelming success as an actor, writer, director and producer known for patriotic songs like “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Over There.”
Star Cast: James Cagney, Jeanne Cagney, Walter Huston
For Me and My Gal (1942)
Plot: Jo Hayden and Harry Palmer are a struggling vaudeville act with hopes of making it big. When success seems right around the corner, Palmer is drafted into the army at the advent of World War I. Thinking quickly, Palmer injures his hand to avoid being called to duty, but Hayden — whose brother died in the war — finds his action cowardly and breaks up the duo. Now, Palmer must figure out a way to bring them back together, even if it means going to war.
Star Cast: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, George Murphy
An American in Paris (1951)
Plot: Jerry Mulligan is an American ex-GI who stays in post-war Paris to become a painter, and falls for the gamine charms of Lise Bouvier. However, his paintings come to the attention of Milo Roberts, a rich American heiress, who is interested in more than just art.
Star Cast: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant
Tap (1989)
Plot: An ex-con just released from jail, Max Washington, is a veteran burglar, but he’s also a talented tap dancer. Reuniting with his girlfriend, Amy, Max is approached by her father, Little Mo, about a new dance production. Max’s criminal past, in the form of his old buddy, Nicky, also comes knocking, however, and he must decide between embracing dance and lapsing into his delinquent ways.
Star Cast: Gregory Hines, Suzzanne Douglas, Sammy Davis Jr., Joe Morton, Bunny Briggs, Jimmy Slyde, Harold Nicholas (one of the Nicholas Brothers)
White Nights (1985)
Plot: When his plane makes an emergency landing in Siberia, ballet dancer Nikolai Rodchenko is recognized as a defector and brought into custody. Returned to Leningrad and reunited with his former love, aging prima ballerina Galina Ivanova, Nikolai meets American dancer Raymond Greenwood, who defected to the Soviet Union during the Vietnam War but has secretly grown disenchanted. Together, they plot an escape to the American consulate and freedom.
Star Cast: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Helen Mirren, Gregory Hines
The Little Colonel (1935)
Plot: In 1870s Kentucky, stubborn Col. Lloyd becomes estranged from his daughter, Elizabeth, when she elopes with Northerner Jack Sherman. Six years later, when Jack goes prospecting, Elizabeth comes back with her spirited daughter, Lloyd. The colonel and Lloyd have a tumultuous meeting but gradually become friends. When Jack returns and the family’s future is threatened, Lloyd’s spunk and the colonel’s obstinacy are put to the test.
Star Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Evelyn Venable, John Lodge, Shirley Temple
42nd Street (1933)
Plot: When revered Broadway director Julian Marsh falls on hard times with both his health and his finances, he helms an ambitious musical as a final production before his retirement. His lead actress, Dorothy Brock, is torn between two loves–the show’s wealthy backer, Abner Dillon, and the earnest but penniless actor Pat Denning –while aspiring young performer Peggy Sawyer waits in the wings, hoping for her big break.
Star Cast: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Guy Kibbee, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers
More Best Tap Dancing Movies
Stormy Weather (1943)
Plot: Bill Williamson, a struggling performer, meets a beautiful vocalist named Selina Rogers. Bill promises her that they will be together after he becomes a success. However, he and Selina both skyrocket to fame and lose contact. Fortunately, Bill just might get one more chance to woo Selina at a huge musical stage show. Popular entertainers of the 1940s, including Fats Waller and Cab Calloway, perform as themselves in the film.
Star Cast: Bill Robinson, Lena Horne, Fats Waller
Billy Elliot (2000)
Plot: The life of 11-year-old Billy Elliot, a coal miner’s son in Northern England, is forever changed one day when he stumbles upon a ballet class during his weekly boxing lesson. Before long, he finds himself in dance, demonstrating the kind of raw talent seldom seen by the class’ exacting instructor, Mrs. Wilkinson. With a tart tongue and a never-ending stream of cigarettes in her hand, Mrs. Wilkinson’s zest for teaching is revived when she sees Billy’s potential.
Star Cast: Jamie Bell, Adam Cooper, Julie Walters
Happy Feet (2006)
Plot: Son of Memphis and Norma, little sweet penguin Mumble has a big problem: he can’t sing a single note. In a world where everyone needs a heart song to attract a soul mate, Mumble feels he doesn’t belong there. Our hero Mumble is the worst singer in the world, but he can tap dance brilliantly. Choreographed by Savion Glover.
Star Cast: Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman
Born to Dance (1936)
Plot: This musical follows the story of Nora Paige, a dancer, and Ted Barker, a sailor. When Ted meets Nora, he knows that he has fallen in love. But after he rescues a Pekinese dog belonging to rival dancer Lucy James, Ted is caught in a media mix-up when pictures surface of him and Lucy. If Ted wants to clear his image and win the love of his life, he must dance and sing his way back into Nora’s heart.
Star Cast: Eleanor Powell, James Stewart, Virginia Bruce
Kiss Me Kate (1953)
Plot: Divorced Broadway stars Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi agree to star in a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” alongside rising young actors Lois Lane and Bill Calhoun. Backstage complications pile up due to a romantic misunderstanding between Fred and the soon-to-be-remarried Lilli, while Bill’s gambling debts cause a pair of lunkheaded mobsters to become part of the show.
Star Cast: Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Keenan Wynn, James Whitmore
Stepping Out (1991)
Plot: A frustrated professional singer and dance instructor prepares her dance class to give a tap dance benefit; she sees this event as her great opportunity to return to the stage.
Star Cast: Liza Minnelli, Julie Walters, Shelley Winters
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
Plot: In this musical spoof of the roaring ’20s, feisty young flapper Millie plans to find a job and marry a wealthy employer. Though fond of penniless paper-clip salesman Jimmy, she’s determined to marry well-heeled company man Trevor Graydon, who loves Millie’s roommate Dorothy Brown. As all four try to find love, evil landlady Mrs. Meers schemes to sell the orphaned Dorothy into white slavery.
Star Cast: Julie Andrews, James Fox, John Gavin, Mary Tyler Moore, Beatrice Lillie
Chicago (2002)
Plot: Nightclub sensation Velma murders her philandering husband, and Chicago’s slickest lawyer, Billy Flynn, is set to defend her. But when Roxie also winds up in prison, Billy takes on her case as well — turning her into a media circus of headlines. Neither woman will be outdone in their fight against each other and the public for fame and celebrity.
Star Cast: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Renée Zellweger
The Artist (2011)
Plot: In the 1920s, actor George Valentin is a bona fide matinee idol with many adoring fans. While working on his latest film, George finds himself falling in love with an ingenue named Peppy Miller and, what’s more, it seems Peppy feels the same way. But George is reluctant to cheat on his wife with the beautiful young actress. The growing popularity of sound in movies further separates the potential lovers, as George’s career begins to fade while Peppy’s star rises. Written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius.
Star Cast: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell