20 Reasons Why Moulin Rouge is the Best Movie Musical

Image courtesy of Fox Studios

Dancing

The dancing in Moulin Rouge is incredible when it happens. For a movie musical, there is quite a bit of movie where no dancing happens at all. Mainly the sections where Christian and Satine are starting to fall in love.

Whether that was because the stars didn’t know how to dance or what, it still somehow works. Maybe because the introduction scene to the Moulin Rouge itself is so full of can can dancing that we are content for the little bit of dancing we get throughout the rest of the film.

The “Roxanne” scene is pretty beautiful with its tango number but again, it is maybe the second biggest dance number out of three. If you could call Satine’s swing dancing a dance number then there is about four dance numbers.

But it fits for the movie. You have a writer and a courtesan falling in love. Neither are going to be particularly into dancing around all the time and they don’t. The dancing mainly comes from the dances in Montmartre so it fits within their characterizations.

Honestly, Moulin Rouge is one of the first movie musicals to not have random dance breaks that feel out of place and it is remarkable. Especially since a lot of this movie is pretty out there.