The following listing (in multiple parts) was an attempt to compile a collection of many of the greatest song and dance moments in film history. Though the list appears to be dominated by musicals, other genres were examined and included.

Those that are exceptional examples of the development of song/dance are marked with this symbol:

AFI's 25 Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time are marked with an icon and their ranking number (#)

Another point of reference for this kind of material may be found in the AFI's selections of 100 Years...100 Songs and in this site's genre writeup of "Musical Films".

The Love Parade (1929)

This Paramount film was director Ernst Lubitsch's first musical (adapted from the little-known Hungarian play The Prince Consort), his first talkie with the studio, and the first pairing of French cabaret star Maurice Chevalier (in his second sound feature as roguish military attache Alfred Renard) and red-headed soprano Jeanette MacDonald (in her first film as frustrated and unmarried Queen Louise of the never-never land of Sylvania); this film combined Lubitsch's sophisticated touch, sexual innuendo, and such delightful and lilting songs as Dream Lover (sung by MacDonald as she drowsily awakened in a sleekly revealing negligee once more without a man), their duet of the title song My Love Parade, and Chevalier's singing of Anything to Please the Queen and Nobody's Using It Now (about his tribulations after being married and finding himself virtually castrated as the Prince Consort).

Lucky Me (1954)

This musical (the first shot in Cinemascope) starred Doris Day (as traveling show singer/actress Candy Williams) and Robert Cummings (as NY songwriter Dick Carson), along with Phil Silvers, Nancy Walker, and Eddie Foy Jr. as troupers who were forced to work in a hotel after they ordered a large meal and were unable to pay the bill; Day's opening number sung on the streets of Miami was The Superstition Song; she also performed High Hopes with the ensemble ("Just what makes that little old ant, think he can move that rubber tree plant, Anyone knows an ant can't move a rubber tree plant...'Cause he had hi-i-igh hopes, he had hi-i-igh hopes, He had high apple pi-i-ie-in-the-sk-y-y hopes") and the hit song I Speak to the Stars; other popular tunes included I Wanna Sing Like an Angel and Love You, Dearly (a ballad between Day and Cummings).

Lullaby of Broadway (1951)

Man of La Mancha (1972)

Filmed on location in Spain by director Arthur Hiller, this much-criticized film version of the 1965 stage production (with Richard Kiley) starred Peter O'Toole (with singing voice of Simon Gilbert) as the title character Miguel de Cervantes aka knight errant Don Quixote known for its memorable songs Impossible Dream ("To dream the impossible dream to fight the unbeatable foe to bear with unbearable sorrow to run where the brave dare not go") and the title tune Man of La Mancha; the film was also noted for Sophia Loren's portrayal of abused scullery maid Aldonza (the honorable Dulcinea in Quixote's mad mind).

Mary Poppins (1964)

#6

This popular Academy Award Special Effects-winning musical fantasy children's/family film from Walt Disney studios, unique in that it had no stage origins, had an amazing blending of live action with animated cartoon characters and many imaginative numbers by magical nanny Mary Poppins (Oscar-winning Julie Andrews) in the P.L Travers-inspired tale, including A Spoonful of Sugar and Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag) sung by Mary and an old Bird Woman (Jane Darwell in her final role); carefree Cockney sidewalk artist/chimney-sweep Bert (Cockney-accented Dick Van Dyke) sang the Oscar-winning Best Song Chim-Chim-Cheree and the wild Step in Time - a huge Irish jig dance number on rooftops with other chimney-sweeps while dodging fireworks and cannon-blasts; the most famous number from the film, the catchy, tongue-twisting classic tune Super-cali-fragilistic-expi-ali-docius, was set in an animated, comical setting/world.

M*A*S*H (1970)

The Mask (1994)

The entrance scene of Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz in her screen debut, singing voice of Susan Boyd) seductively singing Gee Baby Ain't I Good to You in the Coco Bongo Club caused the heart of The Mask (Jim Carrey) - a yellow zoot-suited wolf with green skin, to beat through his shirt - he joined her on stage, transforming the band and the number into the upbeat Cab Calloway song Hi De Ho, in which he danced with her using physically impossible moves; another particularly memorable dance number was Cuban Pete.

Maytime (1937)

(Monty Python's) The Meaning of Life (1983)

The many comic songs in this Monty Python classic included the satirical Every Sperm is Sacred (mocking the "no birth control" policy of the Catholic church): ("Hindu, Taoist, Mormon, Spill theirs just anywhere; But God loves those who treat - their semen with more care; Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate") and the outrageous The Penis Song sung by Noel Coward (Eric Idle): ("Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? / Isn't it frightfully good to have a dong?"); also the Galaxy Song sung by Mr. Pink (also Idle), stressing the place of Man in the universe: ("So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure / How amazingly unlikely is your birth / And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space / 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth") while featuring a constellation of stars resembling a pregnant woman giving birth to represent the "expanding universe"; and the Christmas In Heaven segment -- featuring Santa Claus-outfitted female angels with exposed breasts.

Meet Me in St. Lous (1944)

#10

Vincente Minnelli's gorgeous musical (his third film and his first in color) that romanticized and idealized the turn of the century at the time of the 1904 World's Fair, the second highest-grossing film for MGM up to that time, included Judy Garland's (as winsome daughter Esther Smith) famous renditions of the joyful The Trolley Song ("Ding, ding, ding went the trolley!") (pictured) as she rode to the fairgrounds, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (pictured) lovingly and tenderly sung at a wintry window to her distressed sister 'Tootie' (Margaret O'Brien), and the romantically expressive falling-in-love song The Boy Next Door (pictured), as well as the title song Meet Me in St. Louis, sung by Garland, Joan Carroll, Harry Davenport, Henry H. Daniells, and Lucille Bremer; it also featured Garland's and O'Brien's delightful song and cakewalk to Under the Bamboo Tree (pictured) complete with straw hats and canes in a home-style minstrel shuffle.

The Merry Widow (1934)

Metropolis (1927, Ger.)