Movies Like Dancer (2016)

Dancer is a 2016 documentary film from Steven Cantor with a MovieMagicScore of 7.3/10. Here are 20 similar films, ranked by real viewer ratings — starting with The Red Shoes and Little Tickles.

Documentary

The Red Shoes

1948

In this classic drama, Vicky Page is an aspiring ballerina torn between her dedication to dance and her desire to love. While her imperious instructor, Boris Lermontov, urges to her to forget anything but ballet, Vicky begins to fall for the charming young composer Julian Craster. Eventually Vicky, under great emotional stress, must choose to pursue either her art or her romance, a decision that carries serious consequences.

8.0

MagicScore

Little Tickles

2018

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.

7.4

MagicScore

Center Stage

2000

A group of 12 teenagers from various backgrounds enroll at the American Ballet Academy in New York to make it as ballet dancers and each one deals with the problems and stress of training and getting ahead in the world of dance.

6.9

MagicScore

The American

2023

American ballet dancer Joy Womack is accepted into Moscow's infamously tough Bolshoi Ballet Academy, with the dream of becoming a great ballerina.

6.8

MagicScore

Mao’s Last Dancer

2009

At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.

6.6

MagicScore

Center Stage: On Pointe

2016

Jonathan Reeves is tasked with infusing more contemporary styles and modernism into the American Ballet Academy, and enlists his top choreographers Charlie, Cooper and Tommy to recruit dancers to compete at a camp where the winners will be selected to join the Academy. Bella Parker, who has always lived in the shadow of her hugely successful sister Kate, finally gets her chance to step into the limelight as one of the dancers recruited for the camp.

6.4

MagicScore

Pacarrete

2019

Russas, a small town in northeastern Brazil, is the home of Pacarrete, a grumpy retired dance teacher who dreams of getting a big shot and starring at a dance spectacle for the whole town to see. She's close to fulfilling that dream, but not without overcoming a few impediments along the way.

7.8

MagicScore

Black Swan

2010

The story of a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life is completely consumed with dance. Nina lives with her retired ballerina mother who zealously supports her daughter's professional ambition. When the artistic director decides to replace the prima ballerina for the opening production of their new season, Nina is his first choice.

7.7

MagicScore

Yeh Ballet

2020

Discovered by an eccentric ballet master, two gifted but underprivileged Mumbai teens face bigotry and disapproval as they pursue their dancing dreams.

7.6

MagicScore

#10

Billy Elliot

2000

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.

7.6

MagicScore

#11

Summer Interlude

1951

During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.

7.4

MagicScore

#12

Russian Dolls

2005

Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.

6.6

MagicScore

#13

The White Crow

2018

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.

6.6

MagicScore

#14

Save 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.

6.5

MagicScore

#15

The Dying Swan

1917

After being betrayed by her playboy lover, a heartbroken mute young woman joins a ballet company; during a performance of “The Dying Swan,” she enraptures a painter obsessed with portraying death genuinely.

6.4

MagicScore

#16

A Nutcracker Christmas

2016

When her niece is cast in The Philadelphia Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, a jaded ex-ballerina is forced to come to terms with the life and love she left behind.

6.4

MagicScore

#17

The Bolshoi

2016

Young and extremely talented dancer Yulya Olshanskaya from a small mining town draws a “happy ticket”: she is noticed by a former ballet dancer Pototsky and he promises her a future of great ballerina, worthy of the main stage of the country. However, in order to become a diamond, anyone, even the most outstanding brilliant, needs to be cut, and the way to the legendary stage of The Bolshoi Theatre for Yulya lies through the walls of the ballet school, where the more capricious teacher Galina Mikhailovna Beletskaya takes custody of the rebellious provincial. Turning into a prima will require incredible self-denial, and Yulya herself will have to make sure that the big ballet is not only the whiteness of the packs, the gold of the boxes and the slip of silk ribbons. But no obstacles will stop the one who has the big dream.

6.2

MagicScore

#18

Neneh Superstar

2023

Born to dance, Neneh is a 12-year-old black girl who dreams of entering the Paris Opera Ballet School. Despite her enthusiasm, she will have to redouble her efforts to escape from her condition and be accepted by the director of the school, Marianne Bellage, the guarantor of traditions and the bearer of a secret that links her to the little ballerina.

5.8

MagicScore

#19

The Company

2003

Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.

5.2

MagicScore

#20

Grand Jete

2022

Dance teacher and mother Nadja left her son Mario with her own mother when he was little. Now she has reappeared on his doorstep, seeking a closeness that knows fewer and fewer boundaries. An uncompromising film about family relationships.

4.9

MagicScore

Frequently asked

What are the best movies like Dancer?

The top films similar to Dancer by MovieMagicScore are The Red Shoes (8.0), Little Tickles (7.4), Center Stage (6.9). Each shares documentary themes and is ranked by real viewer ratings, not critics or studios.

Is Dancer worth watching?

Dancer holds a MovieMagicScore of 7.3/10 from 70 viewer ratings, putting it among the better-reviewed titles in its genre.

What kind of movie is Dancer?

Dancer (2016) is a documentary film directed by Steven Cantor, starring Sergei Polunin, Jade Hale-Christofi, Galyna Polunina.

Where can I find more recommendations like Dancer?

Browse the full ranked list above, or explore more documentary recommendations on MovieMagicScore, where every list is ordered by genuine viewer ratings.

Keep exploring

Movies like The Red Shoes Movies like Little Tickles Movies like Center Stage Movies like The American Movies like Mao’s Last Dancer Movies like Center Stage: On Pointe

About movies like Dancer

This ranked list pairs Dancer (2016), a documentary film from Steven Cantor, with similar titles by genre, theme and cast overlap (fans of Sergei Polunin take note). Unlike critic-driven sites, every position here is ordered by MovieMagicScore — a rating built only from real viewers, with no studio marketing or paid placement. Scores update as more people rate, so the list stays current.

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