Movies like Dirty Dancing (1987)
The best movies like Dirty Dancing (1987) are Footloose (2011), Center Stage: Turn It Up (2008) and Staying Alive (1983). If Dirty Dancing hooked you with its drama and music, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Man in the Moon (1991)7.4/10 from 400 votes
- NewestGirls Like Girls (2026)Released 2026
Footloose (2011)
Ren MacCormack is transplanted from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont where loud music and dancing are prohibited. Not one to bow to the status quo, Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister’s troubled daughter Ariel in the process.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCenter Stage: Turn It Up (2008)
All self-taught dancer Kate Parker has ever wanted to do was perform with the American Academy of Ballet. But when she doesnt make it after auditioning, she learns that it takes more than precision and perfection to succeed in the dance world.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStaying Alive (1983)
Five years later, Tony Manero's Saturday Night Fever still burns. Now he's struts toward his biggest challenger yet - making it as a dancer on the Broadway stage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
SnoozefestMovies like thisSave the Last Dance (2001)
After the death of her mother, Sara moves to the South Side of Chicago to live with her father and gets transferred to a majority-black school. Her life takes a turn for the better when befriends Chenille and her brother Derek, who helps her with her dancing skills.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStep Up (2006)
Delinquent Tyler Gage receives the opportunity of a lifetime after vandalizing a performing arts school, gaining him the chance to earn a scholarship and dance with up-and-coming dancer Nora.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHoney 3: Dare to Dance (2016)
While attending college in Cape Town, Melea Martin feels constrained by the school's strict policies, and decides to set out on her own. Searching for a way to use her talents as a dancer and inspire the community around her, Melea rents a failing theater in order to put on a Hip-Hop Romeo and Juliet performance. But much like the Capulets and Montagues, conflicts between cast members threaten to bring the whole performance to a halt...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRuth & Boaz (2025)
A talented singer leaves the Atlanta music scene and starts over in small-town Tennessee, where she finds love and new purpose but can't escape the past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStep Up Revolution (2012)
Emily arrives in Miami with aspirations to become a professional dancer. She sparks with Sean, the leader of a dance crew whose neighborhood is threatened by Emily's father's development plans.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPure Country 2: The Gift (2010)
Three angels bestow the gift of song to a young girl, who must follow a series of rules in order hold on to it during her rise to fame and fortune.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWest Side Story (2021)
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFootloose (1984)
When teenager Ren and his family move from big-city Chicago to a small town in the West, he's in for a real case of culture shock after discovering he's living in a place where music and dancing are illegal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEndless Love (2014)
A privileged girl and a charismatic boy's instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Man in the Moon (1991)
Maureen Trant and her younger sibling Dani share a strong connection, but local boy Court Foster threatens to throw their bond off balance. Dani and Court meet first and have a flirtatious rapport -- but when he meets Maureen, he falls hard and they begin a passionate affair. The new couple try to keep their love hidden from Dani, but she soon learns the truth, disavowing her sister. But a heartbreaking accident later reunites the girls.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTeen Spirit (2019)
A shy teenager living on the Isle of Wight dreams of pop stardom. With the help of an unlikely mentor, she enters a singing competition that will test her integrity, talent, and ambition.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNot Easily Broken (2009)
A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGirls Like Girls (2026)
After her mother's passing, 17-year-old Coley navigates new feelings of intimacy with Sonya in rural Oregon, where both girls must overcome their mutual uncertainties and self-doubt to embrace their connection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both romance & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLadies in Lavender (2004)
Andrea, a gifted young Polish violinist from Krakow, is bound for America when he is swept overboard by a storm. When the Widdington sisters discover the handsome stranger on the beach below their house, they nurse him back to health. However, the presence of the musically talented young man disrupts the peaceful lives of Ursula and Janet and the community in which they live.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThat Night (1992)
A coming-of-age story about an eleven-year-old girl who idolizes her troubled sixteen-year-old neighbor.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy Summer of Love (2005)
In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tamsin. To seal their friendship, Mona introduces Tamsin to her born-again Christian brother and helps her spy on her adulterous father. Bound together by their secrets, the two girls see their friendship deepen and enter into dangerous waters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCharlie St. Cloud (2010)
Accomplished sailor Charlie St. Cloud has the adoration of his mother Claire and his little brother Sam, as well as a college scholarship that will lead him far from his sleepy Pacific Northwest hometown. But his bright future is cut short when tragedy strikes and takes his dreams with it. After high school classmate Tess returns home unexpectedly, Charlie grows torn between honoring a promise he made four years earlier and moving forward with newfound love. As he finds the courage to let go of the past for good, Charlie discovers the soul most worth saving is his own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGrease 2 (1982)
It's 1961, two years after the original Grease gang graduated, and there's a new crop of seniors and new members of the coolest cliques on campus, the Pink Ladies and T-Birds. Michael Carrington is the new kid in school - but he's been branded a brainiac. Can he fix up an old motorcycle, don a leather jacket, avoid a rumble with the leader of the T-Birds, and win the heart of Pink Lady Stephanie?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music & romance
SnoozefestMovies like thisAbout You I Don't Know (2022)
One day, college student Keiko, who is looking for a job, learns that the person she had feelings for has committed suicide. Keiko wonders if she was the cause of this. Classmate Mami, through her boyfriend Takuya, tries to introduce Keiko to Kazuo, a member of Takuya's theater company. However, Keiko, who met Takuya, has a special feeling for him. Miyata, a young man who seems to be hiding in the darkness of everyday life, meets Keiko one day.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Love Story (1970)
Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both romance & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe American President (1995)
Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shepherd, one of the world's most powerful men, can have anything he wants -- and what he covets most is Sydney Ellen Wade, a Washington lobbyist. But Shepherd's attempts at courting her spark wild rumors and decimate his approval ratings.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Four Feathers (2002)
A young British officer resigns his post when he learns of his regiment's plan to ship out to the Sudan for the conflict with the Mahdi. His friends and fiancée send him four white feathers as symbols of what they view as his cowardice. To redeem his honor, he disguises himself as an Arab and secretly saves their lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wedding Banquet (1993)
A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSee You (2024)
After his suicide, a teen ghost contacts his classmate through sign language, revealing the queer love and pain they were never allowed to voice.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Beautiful Girls (1996)
During a snowy winter in the small fictional town of Knight's Ridge, Massachusetts, a group of lifelong buddies hang out, drink and struggle to connect with the women who affect their decisions, dreams and desires.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & romance
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOne Deadly Summer (1983)
Shortly after Elle Wieck moves to a small French village, she begins dating Pin-Pon, a quiet young mechanic who has grown obsessed with the beautiful newcomer. But Elle has her own reason for the relationship...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmen. (2002)
Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is appalled to discover that a poison gas he helped discover is being used to kill Jews. Driven by his conscience to alert the rest of the world, Gerstein teams up with a young Jesuit priest, Riccardo Fontana, but their protestations fall on deaf ears in the Vatican.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Dirty Dancing?
The closest matches to Dirty Dancing are Footloose (2011), Center Stage: Turn It Up (2008) and Staying Alive (1983). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Dirty Dancing?
Start with Footloose (2011), the closest match to Dirty Dancing.
What is the highest-rated movie like Dirty Dancing?
The Man in the Moon (1991), rated 7.4/10 by 400 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Dirty Dancing?
Girls Like Girls (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Dirty Dancing?
Yes: Footloose (2011), Center Stage: Turn It Up (2008) and Staying Alive (1983).
How are movies similar to Dirty Dancing chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Dirty Dancing, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.