10 Great Movie Dances from Non-Musicals

1. Denis Lavant’s disco inferno expressing rage and self-annihilation in the emotional climax of Claire Denis’ film of Billy Budd, Beau Travail (1999). The music, Corona’s Rhythm of the Night. Sadly, it’s not on youtube, but the film is well worth a look.

2. Christopher Walken, King of New York (1990). It’s no longer a secret that America’s most intense actor is a hoofer at heart. He first showed moviegoers his heels in the underrated Hollywood version of Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven, but it was Abel Ferrara who encouraged him to bring some street surfer dance flash to this violent gangster classic. From here, of course, it was but a short hop and a jump into Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice video.

3. Anna Karina, Bande a Part (1964). Godard’s muse leads Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur in a delightfully ad hoc dance number in the middle of a busy café. It’s obviously been rehearsed, but not all that much, which makes this scene so approachable. Plus Godard keeps cutting out the music, leaving just the finger snaps to carry the beat. It helps that Karina really can dance. This was the inspiration for Travolta and Thurman dancing in Pulp Fiction, which is just too obvious, sorry – not to mention the great scene with Elina Lowensohn dancing to Sonic Youth’s Kool Thing in Simple Men.

4. Wall-e and Eve define dancing, WALL-E (2008) Two robots trip the light fantastic in the outer reaches of the cosmos. In the hands of the right artists, even machines can dance.

5. Charlie Chaplin, The Potato Dance, The Gold Rush (1925). The Little Tramp takes to boiled potatos, one on each fork, and creates a delightful little dance routine without ever leaving his seat. Genius. Chaplin fans could also point to The Great Dictator, in which Chaplin’s Hitleresque dictator duets with a gravity-defying balloon globe.

6. Tom Wilkinson et al, strutting Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff in the dole queue, The Full Monty (1997). Especially for Wilkinson’s twirl at the end.

7. John Heder, Napoleon Dynamite (2004). Will the real Napoleon Dynamite please stand up? After an hour and a half of abject hopelessness, Heder reveals his inner Tony Manero in this gob-smacking talent show routine

8. Michael Madsen, Stuck in the Middle With You, Reservoir Dogs (1992). “I got the feeling that something ain’t right/I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair…” Madsen’s moves are so relaxed and the song is such fluff – “bubblegum pop”, as the DJ calls it – that the violence that follows is twice as horrific. In a similar vein, let me recommend the Axe Gang dance in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle.

9. Harrison Ford slow dancing with Kelly McGillis, Witness (1985). Because we needed some romance in this list, right, and because Ford seems so relaxed here – it’s almost impossible to imagine him pulling off the scene today. Also Peter Weir shoots it so beautifully, the camera moves are as seductive as Nat King Cole’s Wonderful World.

10. Matthew Broderick leads the city of Chicago in the Beatles’ Twist and Shout: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). So celebratory and euphoric, it’s on a par with Jai Ho at the climax of Slumdog Millionaire.

11. Hidden Bonus Track: the movie isn’t for everyone, the cheeky American remake of Godard’s solid gold classic Breathless, with Richard Gere. But the 1983 Breathless does have one of my all-time favourite scenes, the climax, in which Gere goes to meet his destiny with the cops and channels Jerry Lee Lewis as he goes for his gun. I love the scene for its crazy romanticism, for the way composer Jack Nietzsche counterpoints Jerry Lee, and the orgasmic death-rattle cool of Gere’s solo choreography.