Dirty Dancing: Critic Reviews

Dirty Dancing works best when it's most direct and unpretentious.

The purest spirit of the 1980s is distilled in this amiable film.

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.

The movie plays like one long, sad, compromise; it places packaging ahead of ambition.

While the music on the soundtrack is predictably overloud, the period detail is refreshingly soft-pedaled.

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

A hip-shaking guilty pleasure.

Guilty pleasure: Fluffy, schmaltzy and predicatble, this coming of age tale, set at a turing point of American culture, is extremely enjoyable due to erotic dancing and Oscar-winning tunes (just disregard the stereotypes and cliches).

Teenage titillation for girls, circa 1963.

Against all odds on the night of the Event, she steps up and shows the world that Baby can dance and only pictures this awful gross that much money.

An animated rendering of its characters is virtually the only thing preventing the formulaic Dirty Dancing from being another one of Disney's crappy romances.

Endlessly quotable, strangely fascinating and immensely charming.

The film's easy charm, infectious soundtrack and tidy choreography should still win over new fans as well as old.

Trend setting musical with Swayze and Grey at their peaks.

Abysmal pre-teen trash

Grey validates all the soap opera theatrics that revolve around her

Creatively covers one girl's coming of age and has more foot tappin' fervor since any flick since "Saturday Night Fever."