The Great Dance Based Films of Bollywood

The very first movie fully Choreographed was Kalpana (1948) produced and directed by the renowned dancer Uday Shankar. In the same year, another film released was S S Vasan's Chandrakanta choreographed by Tarun Chopra, the disciple of Uday Shankar ji. With the success of both these films, the era of dance began in Hindi Cinema. Before that, a film Roti (1942) became hit because of Sitara Devi's Dance.
The story of Kalpana revolves around a young dancer’s dream of setting up a dance academy, It is a disguised autobiography of Uday Shankar. He presented dance in a captivating manner, and with a message that he wants India to be saved from the west and its bad influences.

V Shantaram was the earliest filmmaker who made films on dances and dancers of India. His film Jhanak Jhanak Baje Payal(1955) was one of the first Hindi films that revolved entirely around dance. Filmmaker-actor V Shantaram directed wife Sandhya and dancer Gopi Krishna in this classic. A young 17-year old Shivkumar Sharma too was heard playing santoor in this National award-winning film. This was also the first time santoor was used in Indian cinema. Magnificently shot in Technicolor, the film is considered a classic with hit songs such as Jhanak Jhanak Baaje Re More Palaliya, Jo Tum Todo Piya, and Murli Manohar. This too remains one of Ganesh Acharya's favourite dance films.

He made another film Navrang(1959), this film was heavily concentrated on the dance sequences, a few of these dances are immortal. Diwakar(Mahipal) is a poet and loves his wife Jamuna (Sandhya)more than anything. But Jamuna feels that Diwakar lives in a fantasy world and is irresponsible in the real world. Diwakar creates a muse from his imagination, who looks exactly like his wife and whom he calls Mohini.
Nartaki (1963) The story was about a dancing girl (Nanda) brought up in the Tawaif (courtesan) milieu, who wants to better herself with an education. She is helped amidst great societal clash, by a newly arrived Professor (Sunil Dutt).

Guide(1965) was a film based on a novel by R.K Narayan, Guide stars the legendary Dev Anand as Raju, a tourist guide who takes Indian and foreign visitors to historic locations and tells them stories about these magnificent places. Raju meets Rosy (Waheeda Rehman), the wife of his client whose passion is pursuing old caves. Rosie’s passion is dance. Raju helping Rosy find her feet as a dancer.  Rosy achieves stardom with the help of Raju. The film was known for its Kalbeliya dance sequence as also the song 'Piya tose naina lage re', which showed different folk dances from across India as also celebration of different festivals.

Jal Bin Machhli Nritya Bin Bijli (1971) is another V Shantaram's dance film. The heroine is madly in love with dance and refuses to marry the groom her father has chosen for her. She runs away and joins a dance troupe and there she finds a like-minded soul who is equally in love with dance.

.Pakeezah (1972) is another film based on a courtesan. The heroine is a courtesan, this was played by Meena Kumari. Though it’s said Meena Kumari was unwell to dance herself and hence Padma Khanna was used as a body double for songs requiring rigorous footwork.

Disco Dancer(1982) is a dance film but not on Indian classical dances but about disco songs and dances. Anil (Mithun Chakraborty) is an artist who earns his livelihood by performing on the streets. He was noticed by a Dance trainer and took him from the street and introduce him on the stage as Jimmy. Jimmy starts gaining popularity in Goa, so David arranges for a show in Mumbai. Mithun styled himself on John Travolta in the film and the plot points of the film too were kind of inspired by Saturday Night Fever.

Naache Mayuri is a 1986 dance biographical Hindi film directed by T. Rama Rao. It is a real story of Bharatanatyam dancer Sudha Chandran, who lost her leg in an accident on her way to Trichy to Chennai on June 1981. The story depicts how she received an artificial Jaipur Foot and eventually learned to dance again, triumphing over her fate, and ultimately becoming very successful in her life. 

Ilzaam is a 1986 film starring Govinda in his film debut He plays a criminal,  who sings and dances on the streets, distracting people, while his colleagues break into apartments and rob the residents. It was a box-office hit.

Dil To Pagal Hai(1997) The film follows the love lives of the members of a musical troupe, in which two dancers played by Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor compete for the love of a choreographer played by Shah Rukh Khan 

Taal (1999) is a story of Mansi(Aishwarya Rai) daughter of a poor spiritual singer named Tara Babu (Alok Nath). meets Vikrant Kapoor (Anil Kapoor), a successful and famous music producer/director, who happens to be a fan of Tara Babu's work. With the encouragement of her uncle Prabha, she signs a three-year contract with Vikrant, and Mansi performs dance numbers and remixes of Tara Babu's songs as well as some of Vikrant's productions. She wins awards and becomes a sensation in India. In the meantime, Vikrant starts to fall in love with Mansi.

Taal (1999), music and dance played such an important part in the movie.  The story of the film had a very common plot point which includes, poor girl and the rich guy falling love and the family disapproving of the relationship. But, what makes this movie so incredible, is exquisite dances. Costumes, art direction and music 

Aaja Nachle (2007), the movie is about a woman named Dia who tries everything to make sure the academy in which she learnt dance continues to survive. She takes it upon herself to come back to her village and save the dance institute. The film revolved around a dance drama, which Madhuri Dixit is conducting and the dance sequences in songs such as Aaja nachle is superb.Aaja Nachle was Madhuri’s comeback film in Bollywood.

ABCD: Anybody Can Dance (2013) is a film directed by Remo D Souza, a celebrity choreographer. Prabhu Deva and Remo D’Souza come together for a movie one thing you can expect for sure is amazing choreography and ABCD gave us just that. Prabhu in the movie was seen as a choreographer who is sacked from the academy he is working at. He then ends up creating his own dance group with the aim of beating his former employer in a prestigious dance competition.

In 2015, Remo directed the second instalment of ABCD Franchise, titled Disney's ABCD 2, It stars Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhu Deva, Raghav Juyal, Lauren Gottlieb, Dharmesh Yelande and Punit Pathak, the film explores the career journey of Suresh and Vernon of the "fictitious dance crew" Kings United India, who went on to win the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in San Diego.