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".

Royal Wedding (1951)

This musical from the Freed unit at MGM was directed by Stanley Donen in his first solo assignment; it contained many song-and-dance numbers with Fred Astaire and Jane Powell, who took the parts of a famed sister/brother dance/song team (Tom and Ellen Bowen) who found romance during a sojourn to London for Princess Elizabeth II's wedding; this is the film with the most-remembered Astaire dance number: his famous walk-dance on the walls and ceiling of his London hotel room during the song You're All the World To Me (pictured); he also performed in a lavish Caribbean production number to the tune of I Left My Hat in Haiti (pictured); both Powell and Astaire danced to the impossibly-titled How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life, and Every Night at Seven (pictured); in another incredible dance number titled Sunday Jumps (pictured), Astaire danced to a metronome beat with a clothes-horse (or hat-rack) and gym equipment in the ship's workout room (with an inserted body-building segment to mock and parody his dancing rival/friend Gene Kelly).

San Francisco (1936)

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Director John Badham's Seventies' disco dance classic starred Saturday night dance king Tony Manero (Oscar-nominated John Travolta) wearing a white polyester suit and strutting his stuff on a pulsating color-tiled dance floor of the 2001 Odyssey club to the songs of the Bee Gees, The Trammps and Yvonne Elliman; also the scene of the Night Fever line dance, and the contest scene with a white-suited, black-shirted Tony dancing next to partner Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) to the tune of More Than a Woman to win the $500 prize; though not a dance, the film opened during the credits with the iconic shot of Tony strutting down the street in time to the Bee Gee's Stayin' Alive ("Oh, you can tell by the way I walk / I'm a woman's man, no time to talk").

Selena (1997)

Jennifer Lopez recreated the spirit and energetic performances of Texas born tejano singer and future Latino superstar Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in this romance-drama and musical biopic by director Gregory Nava.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

#21

One of the best musicals of the mid-50s was this film from MGM with a Best Picture nomination and an Oscar-winning Score by Saul Chaplin and Adolph Deutsch, and featuring incredible dancing segments - it was derived from a Stephen Vincent Benet tale titled The Sobbin' Women, about the six brothers of Adam Pontipee - an Oregon farmer (Howard Keel) (the eldest of seven brothers) and his wife Milly (Jane Powell) in 1850 who eventually would be married to six women in the town; the great Gene de Paul/Johnny Mercer songs in the score included Keel's Bless Your Beautiful Hide and Sobbin' Women, Powell's Wonderful Wonderful Day and Goin' Courtin' (advising her brothers-in-law), and the brothers' lovesick Lament (I'm a Lonesome Polecat) and their sweethearts' song Spring, Spring, Spring; the lively and large-scale dance numbers - choreographed by Michael Kidd - included the barn-raising sequence that began with a competitive challenge dance of acrobatic leaps and balletic steps and led to a brawl and actual barn-raising.

Shall We Dance (1937)

This classic RKO film (with an Ira and George Gershwin score), by director Mark Sandrich, marked the seventh pairing of Fred Astaire (as Russian ballet star Petrov) and Ginger Rogers (as musical comedy headliner and tap dancer Linda Keene) - often seen as the last of their classic string of films together; this film included one of their most famous numbers: the Central Park roller-rink skating duet Let's Call the Whole Thing Off : ('You say potayto and I say potahto'), Astaire's song-and-tap dance solo Slap That Bass performed in the boiler-engine room of a transatlantic ocean liner, the very short (I've Got) Beginner's Luck (pictured), Astaire's singing of the lovely Gershwin song They Can't Take That Away From Me (followed by a dance with ballerina Harriet Hoctor), and their best number They All Laughed performed at a rooftop restaurant; the film closed with the title number Shall We Dance featuring Fred dancing with dozens of chorus girls (with Ginger Rogers masks).

The Show of Shows (1929)

Here was one of the first "variety" revue shows, featuring "all-talking, all singing, and all dancing" vaudeville dramatic acts and songs from dozens of Warners' stars and hosted by Master of Ceremonies emcee Frank Fay; this was originally a two-color Technicolored film, but now available as mostly black and white; comedienne Winnie Lightner sang Singin' in the Bath-Tub (pictured) (a spoof of Singin' in the Rain in MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929) with a beefy male chorus attired (with shower caps and striped bathing suits) as bathing girls, and an all-star number titled Meet My Sister featured eight sets of starlets, each attired in costumes of various countries with Richard Barthelmess as emcee; John Barrymore delivered a brilliant rendition of Richard III's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry VI; a ballet number featured 75 dancing girls in black and white costumes, highlighted by Louise Fazenda; in the lavish Lady Luck finale (pictured), Betty Compson and Alexander Gray starred along with 15 individual acts, climaxed by each of the film's stars poking their heads through holes in a canvas and singing Lady Luck; earlier numbers Li-Po-Li and Floradora Girls featured little-known Myrna Loy.

Show Boat (1936)

#24

This black and white film from Universal, the definitive version directed by horror film master James Whale, was the best adaptation of the popular, 1927 hit musical (by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II) and the partly-silent 1929 film version about the showboat Cotton Blossom, and included three Jerome Kern numbers in rapid succession: Irene Dunne (as charming heroine Magnolia) and Allan Jones (as her irresponsible gambling husband Gaylord Ravenal) singing Make Believe; Paul Robeson's (as roustabout Joe) famous powerful, deep-voiced rendition of Ol' Man River; and many of the cast singing Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man; another theatrical version was released as a color version in 1951 (with Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, and Kathryn Grayson).

Shrek (2001)

This computer-generated animation PDI/DreamWorks production, with parodies of well-known fairy tales, Disney and Disneyland-related items, and popular films (the Wicked Witch, Cinderella, Robin Hood, The Matrix, etc.), ended with the celebratory song-and-dance number I'm a Believer sung by Donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy) with the entire cast dancing in their own unique styles (the pigs performed a breakdance, Cinderella and Robin Hood's Merry Men did the macarena, etc.); the DVD release included an additional three-minute segment of the film's I'm a Believer musical finale.

Shrek 2 (2004)

In this sequel, after green ogre Shrek and Princess Fiona were married in the original film, they returned to the in-laws; memorable numbers included the Fairy Godmother's (Absolutely Fabulous' Jennifer Saunders) two show-stopping numbers: The Fairy Godmother Song - a parody of the song Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast (1991), and her cabaret-styled rendition of Holding Out For a Hero in a sequined red dress; the film's Accidentally In Love was Oscar-nominated for Best Original Song; another celebratory closing song-and-dance ensemble number, Livin' La Vida Loca, was sung by Donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy) and ogre-killer Puss-In-Boots (voice of Antonio Banderas); the DVD release featured an American Idol spoof called "Far Far Away Idol", with Simon Cowell (as Himself) judging the film's characters.