Dirty Dancing 1987

Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune: This is a shapely film, considered and concise. And if its rhetorical slickness eventually covers up its emotional core, that slickness has a pleasure of its own. Read more

Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times: Smart and funny, touching and unabashedly sensual. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: Although the plot is sometimes implausible, the movie's music, dancing and romantic spirit carry a lot of it. In addition, Dirty Dancing has the virtues of a female main character (a bit unusual in a coming-of-age movie) and an interesting setting. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: Dirty Dancing works best when it's most direct and unpretentious. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: While the music on the soundtrack is predictably overloud, the period detail is refreshingly soft-pedaled. Read more

Pauline Kael, New Yorker: The dancing here brings out the sensual dreaminess of the songs. Dirty Dancing -- what a great title! -- is such a bubbleheaded, retro vision of growing up in the sixties (or any other time) that you go out of the theatre giggling happily. Read more

Chris Chase, New York Daily News: I loved this movie. It seems to dream itself, as it tells the story of a young girl who comes alive in the summer of 1963. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie plays like one long, sad, compromise; it places packaging ahead of ambition. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: 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. Read more

Anna Smith, Time Out: The film's easy charm, infectious soundtrack and tidy choreography should still win over new fans as well as old. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Good production values, some nice dance sequences and a likable performance by Grey make the film more than watchable. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: The dance finale between Gray and Swayze, although an obvious crowd-pleaser, is performed to a contemporary song clearly intended for the charts, which blows the period feel right off the dance floor. Read more