The third installment of the dance franchise Step Up is being released this week. It’s one of the first dance movies in 3D ever (along with StreetDance 3D), promising to get us even closer to the dance and the beat than before.

Wish some more quality dance films had been the first to use 3D? Us too…

At Jinni, we index each title by music style and score (if relevant). So here are the 10 best dance scenes, in different styles of music, that we’d like to see in 3D:

1. R&B – The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Blues Brothers exposed many viewers to the music of R&B legends like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown. The soundtrack is considered a classic to this day, and the following clip shows what The Blues Brothers is all about: fun, humor and energy.

2. Classical – The Red Shoes (1948)

Generations of little girls dreamed of successful careers as ballerinas due to this film, with its stunning Technicolor tones, the beautiful music and the lovely Moira Shearer as lead dancer:

3. Pop – Glee (2009 - ?)

Glee is the current divine embodiment of pop music. The show pays homage to almost every successful pop star of the moment (Lady Gaga, Madonna and Beyonce are just a few examples), but also revives favorite pop hits from the past, mainly from the 80s.

4. Indian – Kama Sutra (1996)

The sensual score of this Mira Nair film goes perfectly with its themes of love and sexuality. Tara’s dance that’s featured here beautifully portrays the main character’s transition from childhood to adulthood.

5. Show Tunes – The Band Wagon (1953)

Legendary Fred Astaire and the incredibly leggy Cyd Charise show us that at least as far as dancing goes, the 50s were a great time. There were wonderful dance scenes like this in many, many movies, whereas nowadays there are hardly more than five big musicals each year…

6. Cabaret – Cabaret (1972)

Liza Minnelli, in her biggest role as Cabaret’s Sally Bowles, performs here in Bob Fosse’s distinctive choreography. The movie also won an Oscar for best scoring (1 of its 8 Oscars), and justly so.

7. Latin – West Side Story (1961)

The gang rivalry between the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks in this film has brought us this wonderful rendition of “America.” The song is not actually sung by actress Rita Moreno, but by studio singer Betty Wand.

8. Rock – Cry Baby (1990)

Before starting to serve his life sentence with Tim Burton, Johnny Depp was very good in the role of the bad boy the girls loved to love. His prime role as such character was in Cry Baby, where he played a juvenile delinquent going to prison to the sound of energetic rock music.

9. Hip Hop – Stomp the Yard (2007)

This is one of those films where exciting music and dance steps compensate for a mediocre story – in this case, enough to generate some talk in the media about the film being a phenomenon. A sequel is now underway, which hopefully will not fail on the dancing part.

10. Disco – Saturday Night Fever (1977)

And as a finale, a classic: the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever had a tremendous cultural impact in the U.S., and became the bestselling soundtrack ever (until The Bodyguard in 1992). John Travolta’s dance steps are known and referenced to this day.

What are your favorite dance scenes? Share yours in the comments!

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