Dirty Dancing Emile Ardolino

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 72% based on reviews from 74 critics and a rating average of 6.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Like its winsome characters, Dirty Dancing uses impressive choreography and the power of song to surmount a series of formidable obstacles."[45] Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[46] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[47]

The New York Times described the film as "a metaphor for America in the summer of 1963— orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions, a sort of Yiddish-inflected Camelot."[48] Other reviews were more mixed: Gene Siskel gave the film a "marginal Thumbs Up" as he liked Jennifer Grey's acting and development of her character, while Roger Ebert gave it "Thumbs Down" due to its "idiot plot",[49] calling it a "tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds."[50] Time magazine was lukewarm, saying, "If the ending of Eleanor Bergstein's script is too neat and inspirational, the rough energy of the film's song and dance does carry one along, past the whispered doubts of better judgment."[51] In a retrospective review, Jezebel's Irin Carmon called the film "the greatest movie of all time" as "a great, brave movie for women" with "some subtle, retrospectively sharp-eyed critiques of class and gender."[52]

Abortion rights advocates have called the film the "gold standard" for cinematic portrayals of abortion,[53] which author Yannis Tzioumakis described as offering a "compassionate depiction of abortion in which the woman seeking an abortion was not demonized with the primary concerns being her health and preserving her capacity to bear children at a future time rather than the ethical dilemma that might or might not inform her decision, a portrayal that is not necessarily available in current films."[54]

The film drew adult audiences instead of the expected teens, with viewers rating the film highly.[30] Many filmgoers, after seeing the film once, went back into the theater to watch it a second time.[30] Word-of-mouth promotion took the film to the number one position in the United States, and in 10 days it had broken the $10 million mark. By November, it was also achieving international fame. Within seven months of release, it had brought in $63 million in the US and boosted attendance in dance classes across America.[55] It was one of the highest-grossing films of 1987, earning $170 million worldwide.[56][57]

The film's popularity continued to grow after its initial release. It was the number one video rental of 1988[58] and became the first film to sell a million copies on video.[59] When the film was re-released in 1997, ten years after its original release, Swayze received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,[12] and videos were still selling at the rate of over 40,000 per month.[12] As of 2005, it was selling a million DVDs per year,[60] with over ten million copies sold as of 2007.[61]

A May 2007 survey by Britain's Sky Movies listed Dirty Dancing as number one on "Women's most-watched films", above the Star Wars trilogy, Grease, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman.[62] The film's popularity has also caused it to be called "the Star Wars for girls."[6][63][64]

The film's music has also had considerable impact. The closing song, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", has been listed as the "third most popular song played at funerals" in the UK.[6]

In October 2021, amid a dispute over abortion in Texas, magazine The Hollywood Reporter recommended the film as one to revisit on abortion in the cinema industry. Angie Han, writing for the magazine, highlighted Eleanor Bergstein's writing of the film.[65]

Accolades

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – #93[71]
• 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" – #86[72]
• 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • Johnny Castle: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." – #98[73]