Step Up: Year of the DanceMovies like Step Up: Year of the Dance
- Key Features:
- Dance competition, Youth, Social class, Teamwork, Family, Friendship, Self-discovery, Cultural exchange, Beijing, Musical, Street dance
- Tone:
- earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Dance enthusiasts, Young adults, Fans of the Step Up franchise, Viewers interested in stories about overcoming social barriers
- Emotional Arc:
- Inspiration → Struggle → Triumph
Step Up: Year of the Dance

Youth from different social classes in Beijing come together to form China's best dance crew and learn what it really means to be family.
Step Up: Year of the Dance
A tight-knit group of New York City street dancers, including Luke and Natalie, team up with NYU freshman Moose, and find themselves pitted against the world's best hip hop dancers in a high-stakes showdown that will change their lives forever.

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.

All-stars from the previous Step Up installments come together in glittering Las Vegas, battling for a victory that could define their dreams and their careers.

When rebellious street dancer Andie 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 schools hottest dancer, Chase, to form a crew of classmate outcasts to compete in Baltimore s underground dance battle The Streets.

A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.

Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.

After suffering humiliation by the crew Invincible, street dancer Ash looks to gather the best dancers from around the world for a rematch.

Three dance crews – one Latin American, one European and one Canadian – prepare to battle at the International Beat the World competition in Detroit. Along the way, they struggle with gambling debt, bad break-ups and their own egos. In the final showdown to become world champions they find that their lifelong hopes, dreams and even lives, are at stake.

In order to win the Street Dance Championships, a dance crew is forced to work with ballet dancers from the Royal Dance School in exchange for rehearsal space.

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 an up and coming dancer, Nora.

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.

Two cross-town rival dance teams go head to head for the National Nationals Championship.

Jamilah has her whole life figured out. She's the president of her black sorority, captain of their champion step dance crew, is student liaison to the college dean, and her next move is on to Harvard Law School. She's got it all, right? But when the hard-partying white girls from Sigma Beta Beta embarrass the school, Jamilah is ordered to come to the rescue. Her mission is to not only teach the rhythmically-challenged girls how to step dance, but to win the Steptacular, the most competitive of dance competitions. With the SBBs reputations and charter on the line, and Jamilah's dream of attending Harvard in jeopardy, these outcast screw-ups and their unlikely teacher stumble through one hilarious misstep after another. Cultures clash, romance blossoms, and sisterhood prevails as everyone steps out of their comfort zones.

This 2017 movie follows the original dance academy TV show and tracks where the characters are in their lives now.

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.

After the death of his younger brother, a troubled 19-year-old street dancer from Los Angeles is able to bypass juvenile hall by enrolling in the historically black, Truth University in Atlanta, Georgia. But his efforts to get an education and woo the girl he likes are sidelined when he is courted by the top two campus fraternities, both of which want and need his fierce street-style dance moves to win the highly coveted national step show competition.

Embarking on a journey to fulfill her dreams as a dancer, a young girl discovers a new style of dance that will prove to be the source of both conflict and self-discovery.

A brilliant but clumsy high school senior vows to get into her late father's alma mater by transforming herself and a misfit squad into dance champions.

Brave new steps put Scott's career in jeopardy. With a new partner and determination, can he still succeed?

A struggling young dancer joins forces with two breakdancers and together they become a street sensation.

A pair of star-crossed dancers in New York find themselves at the center of a bitter rivalry between their brothers' underground dance clubs.

Katya is a young, outstanding and upcoming ballet dancer. In just a few weeks she is due to have a major audition for the New York Ballet Academy and Katya has good chances of getting a scholarship. But when she meets a group of street-dancers the girl dives into a completely new world.

Amalie is the girl who has everything, good looks, money, a boyfriend and a big talent of dancing. One day, her world falls apart and she moves from everything she knows. Then enter Mikael. He is dancing in the streets and Amalie joins him in dancing on the streets, dancing Battles.

A gifted young dancer arrives in New York City and joins the downtown contemporary dance world. With talent to burn, he soon must choose between his responsibility to his broken family in the Midwest, and forging a life and career for himself.

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

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.

After failing to make it on Broadway, April returns to her hometown and reluctantly begins training a misfit group of young dancers for a competition.

After a brush with the law, Maria has returned to her gritty Bronx roots to rebuild her life with nothing but a talent for street dance and a burning ambition to prove herself.

An aspiring DJ, from the South Bronx, and his best friend, a promoter, try to get into show business by exposing people to hip-hop music and culture.

When a 17-year old aspiring dancer is uprooted in her high school senior year, she finds herself divided between two boys, and she will have one last shot at making her dream a reality.

Amalie and Mikael lead their street dance team to the finals in France but tough competition and personal distractions threaten to ruin their dreams.

After his crew breaks up, a gifted but insecure hip-hop dancer teaches at a top ballet school in Paris, where he falls for an aspiring ballerina.

The dance crew from "Breakin'" bands together to save a community center from a greedy developer bent on building a shopping center in its place.

Alfred “Boogie” Chin is a basketball phenom living in Queens, New York, who dreams of one day playing in the NBA. While his parents pressure him to focus on earning a scholarship to an elite college, Boogie must find a way to navigate a new girlfriend, high school, on-court rivals and the burden of expectation.

Chance Harris looks to find a balance between his school, work, relationships and opportunity to perform at the nationally televised step competition during homecoming weekend at Truth University.

Zoey is a talented dancer whose organized life is rudely disrupted when she moves in with her new step-dad and three step-brothers, until she discovers a dog-training app that can get boys to obey her every command. But she soon learns that it isn't the cure-all she had hoped for.

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

Childhood friends Suresh and Vinnie want to become successful dancers. To fulfill their dreams, they form a dance group with their friends and compete in a hip-hop contest in Las Vegas.

When Gabriel, a 7-year-old Chinese kid who loves ballet, becomes friends with Rob, another Chinese kid from school, Rob’s dad gets suspicious about Gabriel's feminine behavior and decides to intervene.

High schooler Jason has found his dream girl—the gorgeous Anastacia. There’s just one problem: she doesn’t know he exists. If he can win a spot on the school’s hottest dance crew, Jason might have a shot. But before he does, he’ll have to overcome his battle-ax of a mother, survive Anastacia’s gangsta brother, and pass the crew’s initiation—in this fresh, sexy, and outrageously funny comedy.

Six would-be thieves enter a prestigious dance competition as a cover for their larger goal of pulling off a major heist.

When her mother falls for a wealthy man, Lina Cruz must move in with her new stepfather and transfer from an urban East Los Angeles public high school to an exclusive prep school in Malibu, where she struggles to fit in with her affluent new peers. After snooty cheerleading captain Avery blocks Lina from varsity, Lina recruits her best friends from her old school to help her whip the pathetic junior varsity cheerleading squad -- the Sea Lions -- into fighting shape.

When the University of Oklahoma Sooners lose their star gymnast, Brenna Dowell, the rest of the team have to find a way to believe in themselves in order to win their second National Gymnastics Championship. With the help of Riley, a local breakdancing phenomenon, Chayse and her OU teammates learn to incorporate intricate breakdance techniques into their gymnastics routines in order to find a competitive edge. At the end of it all, they realize what matters most is finding the confidence to believe in yourself.

A Serbian ballroom dancer experiences an unexpected and intense 24-hour romance with a friend's older brother.

Fatherless barrio Puerto Rican Rico is a menial car mechanic by day, but lives for the nights, when he dances and dates hot dancing girls, cockily convinced the title of Salsa king in fancy nightclub La Luna's upcoming contest is to be his. He encourages his best friend, courteous gentleman Ken, to date his sister Margarita so he gets a free hand with her flirtatious classmate Lola. The reigning salsa queen Luna's interest in Rico as dance-partner threatens his on-off relationship with Vicki. More jealous trouble follows when Ken and Margarita fall in true love.

At Mr. Rad's Warehouse, the best hip-hop crews in Los Angeles compete for money and respect. But when a suburban crew crashes the party, stealing their dancers — and their moves — two warring friends have to pull together to represent the street.

Street dancer, Thomas Uncles is from the wrong side of the tracks, but his bond with the beautiful Megan White might help the duo realize their dreams as they enter in the mother of all dance battles.

When four best friends try and move forward in their work and personal life, they realize that trying to live their life's dream is more difficult than they imagine -- especially in the high fashion world of Shanghai.

A nursing student forced to quit school for family reasons winds up taking a job as a doorman in an elite apartment building in New York City, where he sparks to one of his residents.

Luna is a vibrant young Chinese-American girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. From the day she witnesses a rocket launching into space on TV, Luna is driven to reach for the stars. In the big city, Luna lives with her loving father Chu, who supports her with a humble shoe repair business he runs out of his garage. As Luna grows up, she enters college, facing adversity of all kinds in pursuit of her dreams.

Alex Owens, a young woman juggling between two odd jobs, aspires to become a successful ballet dancer. Nick, who is her boss and lover, supports and encourages her to fulfil her dream.

By a fortunate coincidence, Gyun is inspired and encouraged by a girl with the same name. Therefore, he decides to form a lion dance troupe with his friends, Kat and Doggie, to break the constraints of reality and fight for themselves for once.

When Casey, a dancer who is discovered on YouTube, gets thrust into the modern world of internet celebrity and culture, she must find a way to balance her true identity with her online persona, or risk losing everything she cares about.

Rebellious Ki-soo from North Korea is mesmerized by tap dance in prison camps. Ki-soo joins as a team member of a dance team named 'Swing Kids'. Yet suddenly, their dreams about dancing in prison camps are put in danger.

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.

A talented street drummer from Harlem enrolls in a Southern university, expecting to lead its marching band's drumline to victory. He initially flounders in his new world, before realizing that it takes more than talent to reach the top.

Five young hoodlums sing karaoke, murder, joke around, get beaten up, win and lose women, and learn the value of blind loyalty.

A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.

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.

The story of Dylan Pettersson, a 23-year-old girl from a small island in the Swedish archipelago with big dancing aspirations.

Their love of dance, and their friendship, is challenged for two high school girls when one is diagnosed with cancer.

While training at the gym, 11-year-old tomboy Toni becomes entranced with a dance troupe. As she struggles to fit in, she finds herself caught up in danger as the group begins to suffer from fainting spells and other violent fits.

After an accidental drug overdose, a talented teenage DJ goes to live with his estranged father in a small Army town, where he gets to the bottom of his own pain and learns empathy for others.

Beijing, 1970s. The Cultural Revolution has driven most adults to the provinces leaving 14-year-old Monkey and his pals have free reign over the city. They hang around, get up to no good, and discover that unsolvable mystery known as "girls."

Streetwise swaggering Christopher "C-Dub" Wang is a suburban guy who waxes political on all things Asian American and clings to pro basketball pipe dreams. But when misfortune strikes his family, C-dub must overcome living at home, working a dead-end job and his worldly older brother, to run his Mom's ping pong classes and defend the family's athletic dynasty.

A youth inspirational film, about how a group of high school students try to revive Chinese orchestra ensemble. They face many challenges along the way to compete nationally, including a rivalry with the more popular Western orchestra club.

Lila, grows up in the high-rises of the Marolles in Brussels. Along with her sister and her friends, she dreams of becoming a dancer and revolutionising the world of hip-hop. While her friends stay in Brussels, Lila leaves everything - comfort, family - behind to go to Paris, where she is certain her persistence will pay off. Except that life in Paris quickly takes an unexpected turn. The woman who dreamed of being a choreographer ends up as a lap dancer in a rap video, and that’s only the beginning of her disillusionment. After a chance meeting with a drama teacher, she bears her heart and soul on stage and begins doing stand-up. This time, her unusual dedication leads her to find her calling. However, she still has to fight one final battle: convincing her father that she has made the right choice.

China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.

Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity—upsetting her mother and her values in the process.

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.

Honey Daniels dreams of making a name for herself as a hip-hop choreographer. When she's not busy hitting downtown clubs with her friends, she teaches dance classes at a nearby community center in Harlem, N.Y., as a way to keep kids off the streets. Honey thinks she's hit the jackpot when she meets a hotshot director casts her in one of his music videos. But, when he starts demanding sexual favors from her, Honey makes a decision that will change her life.

When Destiny, captain of three-time national champions "The Rebels," is challenged to a global cheer showdown by an edgy new team called "The Truth," the Cheer Goddess organizes a virtual battle for squads from all around the world. It seems like the whole world wants to take down Destiny and her team, and they just might succeed, unless Destiny can rise to the challenge, set her ego aside and figure out who her real friends are.

Chang, a 16-year-old, Asian American, bets the high school basketball star that he can dunk by Homecoming. The bet leads 5' 8" Chang on a quest to learn to dunk—not only to impress his crush, Kristy, but to gain the respect of his high school peers too. But before he can rise up and truly throw one down, he'll have to reexamine everything he knows about himself, his friendships and his family.

Dallas, a burdened but headstrong dancer, is determined to get into the best dance school in the country—her late mother’s alma mater. However, that dream is suddenly derailed when the cheeky yet secretly grieving football star, Drayton, crashes into her life with a unique story of his own. Will the two of them be able to grow into their dreams together, or will their dreams be sidelined?

Four sisters work together to raise rent money after learning they have to move to another neighborhood in this coming-of-age drama based on the series.

Elise thought she had the perfect life: an ideal boyfriend and a promising career as a ballet dancer. It all falls apart the day she catches him cheating on her with her stage backup; and after she suffers an injury on stage, it seems like she might not be able to dance ever again.

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.

Polina is a young dancer from a modest family. After years of ballet academy, she is accepted by the Bolshoi; still, she decides to try and audition of a modern dance company in France. She makes it, but her journey will not end there...

In pre-revolution Cuba, Katey Miller is about to defy everyone's expectations. Instead of a parent-approved suitor, Katey is drawn to the sexy waiter, Javier, who spends his nights dancing in Havana's nightclubs. As she secretly learns to dance with Javier, she learns the meanings of love, sensuality and independence.

Janey is new in town. She soon meets Lynne, a classmate who shares her passion for the local show 'Dance TV'. When a competition is announced to find new Dance TV performers, Janey and Lynne are determined to audition. The only problem is that Janey's father doesn't approve of that kind of thing.

When a bubbly American hip hop dancer goes to India with her family for a wedding, she is impressed by a new dance style and falls in love with the man who introduced her to it.

Mr. Chu is an elderly widower who teaches tai chi chuan in Beijing. He moves to America to live with his son's family, but finds the cultural adjustment difficult. Since his daughter-in-law is a white woman who does not speak Chinese, Mr. Chu's son, Alex, must mediate.

A young boxer, Izzy Daniels, trains to follow in his father's footsteps by winning the Golden Glove. But when his friend, Mary asks him to substitute for a team member in a Double Dutch tournament, the young man discovers a hidden passion for jump roping, all while finding love with Mary and navigating conflict with himself and his father about boxing.

When new students can't get onto their college cheerleading team, they form their own squad and prepare for a cheer off.

Four skaters follow their idol on his summer tour in an attempt to get noticed, get sponsored, and become stars themselves.

Young women in a small Japanese town look to revive their home's declining fortunes by building a Hawaiian village tourist attraction.

Deadly dance tournament is carried out in the city survived after nuclear apocalypse. Energy is extracted from the loser for the city to survive. A young guy from the street is forced to take part in the tournament and falls in love with girl who volunteered to participate in the battle. Will they survive or the arena will take their lives?

In 1986, a young breakdancer falls into a coma after hitting his head in a talent show. 20 years later, he awakens and attempts to revive his dance team's short-lived career in order to support his parents' failing yogurt shop.

In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can't teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.

Alex glides his mouse tenderly over online images of Vika. He has been smitten ever since he saw her with her friends and cannot get her out of his head. Unfortunately, Vika is beyond Alex’s reach because he's not welcome in her neighborhood. Nonetheless, Alex sneaks into a disco at her school and finds up the courage to ask her to dance. Moments are intense as Alex feels infatuation for the first time.

The son of a North Korean spy decides to follow in his father's footsteps to protect his little sister.

The story centers on the Chinese Special Police Unit, from their hard training to their first mission.

Li Mansei is a martial-arts champion turned undercover agent. When he is captured by a drug lord, his sister Li Koryu turns to his former martial-arts school, including the powerful Sonny Kawasaka, for help in the inevitable battle royale.

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

When a violin prodigy Xiaochun and his father head to Beijing seeking fame and fortune, they soon discover a fierce world of cutthroat ambition. But when Xiaochun is "adopted" by a famous music tutor, success finally seems within reach - until a shocking discovery begins to unravel his entire world, and the boy must make the most difficult choice of his life. Can he achieve the fame his father had always hoped for without losing the extraordinary passion that sets him apart?

Seventeen year old, Emma joins a high school cheerleading team when she moves to Australia with her dad who is a former Air Force Officer.

When aspiring musical superstar Sam is forced to join her cousin's struggling, underdog praise team in the lead-up to a national championship competition, she sees an opportunity to finally make her dreams come true.

A jaded mother makes a last-ditch effort to keep her family together by taking them on a trip to their teenage daughter’s pole dancing competition.

Pleasantly plump teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions to be on Baltimore's most popular dance show - The Corny Collins Show - and lands a prime spot. Through her newfound fame, she becomes determined to help her friends and end the racial segregation that has been a staple of the show.
