🏷 Discover The Best Ballet Movies & TV Shows To Watch Today

23 titles with this tag

Dive into the enchanting world of ballet through the lens of cinema and television. From timeless classics to modern masterpieces, discover the best movies and TV shows that capture the grace, discipline, and drama of ballet. Whether you're a seasoned enthusiast or a curious newcomer, these films and series offer a mesmerizing blend of artistry and storytelling. Explore our curated selection to find your next favorite performance on screen.

Cast

Park In-hwan

Song Kang

Na Moon-hee

Hong Seung-hee

Navillera (2021) TV Show

8.6 205 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: South Korea

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 12

Story: A 70-year-old with a dream and a 23-year-old with a gift lift each other out of harsh realities and rise to the challenge of becoming ballerinos.

Style: inspiring

Plot: dreams, married couple, friendship, family relationships, ballet, second chance, heartfelt, based on webcomic or webtoon

Cast

Shin Hae-sun

Lee Dong-gun

Kim Bo-mi

Angel's Last Mission: Love (2019) TV Show

8.1 250 votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: South Korea

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 32

Audience: TV-14

Story: As a punishment for meddling in human affairs, an angel faces the impossible task of finding a soulmate for a cold-hearted ballerina.

Plot: love triangle, angel, ballet dancer, supernatural, romance, ballet, tearjerker, childhood friends, ...

Cast

Anton Walbrook

Marius Goring

Moira Shearer

Robert Helpmann

The Red Shoes (1948)

8.0 753 votes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: United Kingdom

Duration: 133 min.

Audience: NR

Story: A fledgling ballerina falls in love with a brilliant composer, but the jealous head of the ballet company plots to drive them apart.

Plot: dance, new love, london, england, dance performance, composer, ballet dancer, ballet, ...

Cast

Natalie Portman

Mila Kunis

Vincent Cassel

Barbara Hershey

Black Swan (2010)

7.7 15.7K votes

Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller

Country: United States of America

Duration: 108 min.

Audience: R

Story: A committed dancer struggles to maintain her sanity after winning the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."

Plot: new york city, dance, nightmare, obsession, insanity, paranoia, hallucination, ballet dancer, ...

Cast

Kelly Sheridan

Catherine O'Hara

Christopher Gaze

Nicole Oliver

Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses (2006)

7.6 1.3K votes

Genre: Animation, Family

Country: Canada, United States of America

Duration: 83 min.

Audience: G

Story: King Randolph sends for his cousin, Duchess Rowena, to help turn his daughters, Princess Genevieve and her eleven sisters, into royal material. But the Duchess strips the sisters of their fun, including their favorite pastime: dancing. When all hope may be lost, the sisters discover a secret passageway to a magical land where they can dance the night away.

Plot: princess, dance, sibling relationship, magic, ballet, based on toy, female protagonist, sister sister relationship, ...

Cast

Jamie Bell

Gary Lewis

Julie Walters

Jean Heywood

Billy Elliot (2000)

7.6 4.1K votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music

Country: France, United Kingdom

Duration: 111 min.

Audience: R

Story: County Durham, England, 1984. The miners' strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green, starting a class war with the lower classes suffering. Caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot, who, after leaving his boxing club for the day, stumbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs. Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne for the royal Ballet school in London.

Plot: dancing, friendship, dreams, dancing class, northern england, workers' quarter, strike, homophobia, ...

Time: 1980s

Cast

Jessica Harper

Stefania Casini

Flavio Bucci

Miguel Bosu00e9

Suspiria (1977)

7.5 3.2K votes

Genre: Horror

Country: Italy

Duration: 99 min.

Audience: R

Story: An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.

Plot: witch, dancing, dance, boarding school, ballet, whodunit, young woman, gothic, ...

Place: germany

Cast

Andru00e9a Bescond

Karin Viard

Clovis Cornillac

Pierre Deladonchamps

Little Tickles (2018)

7.4 383 votes

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country: France

Duration: 103 min.

Story: Odette is a 8-yr-old girl who loves to dance and draw. Once she has become an adult, Odette realizes she was abused, and immerses herself body and soul in her career as a dancer while trying to deal with her past.

Plot: pedophilia, dance, child abuse, rape, dancer, therapist, ballet dancer, childhood trauma, ...

Cast

Steve Carell

Jason Segel

Russell Brand

Julie Andrews

Despicable Me (2010)

7.3 16.1K votes

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Crime

Country: United States of America

Duration: 95 min.

Audience: PG

Story: Determined to prove he's the world's greatest supervillain, Gru hatches an audacious plan to steal the Moon. To pull it off, he adopts three orphaned girls—Margo, Edith, and Agnes—intending to use them as part of his scheme. But the unexpected bond they form forces him to question the life he's always known.

Plot: moon, parent child relationship, orphanage, villain, adoptive father, satire, life's dream, rivalry, ...

Cast

Elle Fanning

Dane DeHaan

Nat Wolff

Carly Rae Jepsen

Ballerina (2016)

7.2 2.0K votes

Genre: Adventure, Animation, Family

Country: Canada, France

Duration: 89 min.

Audience: PG

Story: In 1879 Paris, a young orphan dreams of becoming a ballerina and flees her rural Brittany for Paris, where she passes for someone else and accedes to the position of pupil at the Grand Opera house.

Plot: opera, dance, paris, france, flying, inventor, life's dream, ballet, ...

Time: 19th century

Cast

Keenan Kampa

Nicholas Galitzine

Sonoya Mizuno

Jane Seymour

High Strung (2016)

7.0 941 votes

Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

Country: Romania, United States of America

Duration: 96 min.

Audience: PG

Story: When a hip hop violinist busking in the New York subway encounters a classical dancer on scholarship at the Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts, sparks fly. With the help of a hip hop dance crew they must find a common ground while preparing for a competition that could change their lives forever.

Plot: dance, violin, ballet, leotard

Cast

Dakota Johnson

Tilda Swinton

Mia Goth

Angela Winkler

Suspiria (2018)

6.9 2.8K votes

Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery

Country: Italy, United States of America

Duration: 152 min.

Audience: R

Story: A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.

Style: tense

Plot: berlin, germany, dance performance, berlin wall, telepathy, fascism, paranormal phenomena, telekinesis, ...

Time: 1970s

Cast

Kelly Sheridan

Kirby Morrow

Tim Curry

Peter Kelamis

Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)

6.9 1.1K votes

Genre: Animation, Family

Country: Canada, United States of America

Duration: 77 min.

Audience: G

Story: The Mouse King casts an evil spell over Clara that causes her to shrink. Clara and the Nutcracker set out on an adventurous journey to find Sugarplum Princess, who has the power to undo the spell.

Plot: magic, mouse, musical, ballet, based on toy, female protagonist, vienna, austria, ...

Cast

Sarah Hay

Irina Dvorovenko

👤

Raychel Diane Weiner

Emily Tyra

Flesh and Bone (2015) TV Show

6.7 117 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: United States of America

Seasons: 1

Episodes: 8

Audience: TV-MA

Story: Claire, a talented but emotionally troubled dancer, joins a company in New York City, and soon finds herself immersed in the tough and often cutthroat world of professional ballet. The dark and gritty series will unflinchingly explore the dysfunction and glamour of the ballet world.

Plot: new york city, dancer, war veteran, dance, abusive father, trauma, stripper, rivalry, ...

Cast

Briana Evigan

Robert Hoffman

Will Kemp

Cassie Ventura

Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)

6.7 2.4K votes

Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

Country: United States of America

Duration: 98 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: When rebellious street dancer Andie West lands at the elite Maryland School of the Arts, she finds herself fighting to fit in while also trying to hold onto her old life. When she joins forces with the school's hottest dancer, Chase Collins, to form a crew of fellow outcasts to compete in Baltimore's underground dance battle The Streets.

Plot: underdog, hip-hop, street gang, scholarship, competition, breakdance, insurgence, heart-throb, ...

Cast

Anne Bancroft

Shirley MacLaine

Tom Skerritt

Mikhail Baryshnikov

The Turning Point (1977)

6.6 69 votes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: United States of America

Duration: 119 min.

Audience: PG

Story: As young dancers, they were best friends and fierce rivals. Deedee left the stage for marriage and motherhood, while Emma would become an international ballet icon. But when Deedee's teenage daughter is invited to join Emma's dance company and begins an affair with a young Russian star, the two women are forced to confront the choices they've made, the resentments they've hidden and the emotional truths they must face at the turning point.

Plot: infidelity, new york city, jealousy, midlife crisis, ambition, rivalry, feud, ballet, ...

Cast

Oleg Ivenko

Adu00e8le Exarchopoulos

Chulpan Khamatova

Ralph Fiennes

The White Crow (2018)

6.6 256 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: United Kingdom, Serbia

Duration: 127 min.

Audience: R

Story: The story of Rudolf Nureyev, whose escape to the West stunned the world at the height of the Cold War. With his magnetic presence, Nureyev emerged as ballet’s most famous star, a wild and beautiful dancer limited by the world of 1950s Leningrad. His flirtation with Western artists and ideas led him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the KGB.

Plot: kgb, ballet dancer, biography, ballet, male homosexuality, defection, gay history, russian ballet

Time: 1950s

Cast

Julia Stiles

Sean Patrick Thomas

Kerry Washington

Fredro Starr

Save the Last Dance (2001)

6.5 1.4K votes

Genre: Drama, Family, Music

Country: United States of America

Duration: 113 min.

Audience: PG-13

Story: 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.

Plot: ballet dancer, musical, ballet

Red Sparrow (2018)

6.5 6.4K votes

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Country: United States of America

Duration: 140 min.

Audience: R

Story: Prima ballerina Dominika Egorova faces a bleak and uncertain future after she suffers an injury that ends her career. She soon turns to Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people to use their minds and bodies as weapons. Dominika emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow after completing the sadistic training process. As she comes to terms with her new abilities, she meets a CIA agent who tries to convince her that he is the only person she can trust.

Style: suspenseful, intense

Plot: central intelligence agency (cia), sexual abuse, budapest, hungary, based on novel or book, self sacrifice, spy, patriotism, ...

Cast

Eva Henning

Birger Malmsten

Birgit Tengroth

Hasse Ekman

Thirst (1949)

6.3 71 votes

Genre: Drama

Country: Sweden

Duration: 85 min.

Story: A fractured portrait of desire and isolation, following a failing marriage and parallel stories of emotional entrapment as memories surface during a train journey through postwar Europe. Told through flashbacks and multiple narrative threads, the film signals Ingmar Bergman’s emerging mature style.

Plot: ballet, train, train travel, abortion, lesbian

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Why Ballet on Screen Captivates Audiences

Ballet on screen transcends the confines of a theater, bringing the elegance and intensity of this art form directly to viewers. Films and TV shows about ballet not only showcase breathtaking choreography but also delve into the emotional and personal journeys of dancers. The visual and auditory spectacle of ballet, combined with compelling narratives, makes these productions irresistible to a wide audience. Whether it's the raw emotion in a dancer's performance or the behind-the-scenes struggles and triumphs, ballet-themed content offers a unique and immersive experience.

Top Movies Featuring Ballet

Here are some must-watch films that beautifully depict the world of ballet:

Black Swan (2010) – Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller stars Natalie Portman as a ballerina consumed by perfectionism and paranoia, offering a gripping exploration of ambition and mental health in the ballet world.
Center Stage (2000) – A classic drama following a group of young dancers at the American Ballet Academy, blending romance, rivalry, and the challenges of pursuing a ballet career.
The Red Shoes (1948) – This Powell and Pressburger masterpiece is a visually stunning tale of obsession, sacrifice, and the magical allure of ballet.
Billy Elliot (2000) – A heartwarming story of a young boy defying societal norms to pursue his passion for ballet, set against the backdrop of a coal-mining community.

Must-Watch TV Shows About Ballet

Television has also embraced ballet, delivering compelling series that explore the art form from multiple angles:

Tiny Pretty Things (2020) – A Netflix series that delves into the cutthroat world of a prestigious ballet academy, highlighting the pressures and politics behind the scenes.
Flesh and Bone (2015) – A gripping drama that follows a young dancer’s journey through the competitive and often brutal ballet industry, featuring intense performances and complex relationships.
Dance Academy (2010-2013) – An Australian series that captures the dreams, challenges, and friendships of students at the National Academy of Dance, perfect for younger audiences.

Where to Watch and What to Look For

Finding ballet-themed content is easier than ever, with streaming services offering a wealth of options. Platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ host many of the titles mentioned above. For a more immersive experience, consider watching live ballet performances streamed from renowned companies like the Royal Ballet or American Ballet Theatre. When selecting ballet content, look for films and shows that balance authenticity with compelling storytelling. Pay attention to the choreography, character development, and the emotional depth of the narrative to ensure a rich viewing experience.

Whether you're seeking inspiration, entertainment, or a deeper understanding of ballet, these movies and TV shows provide a captivating entry point into the world of dance. Start exploring today and let the magic of ballet unfold on your screen!