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".

Cover Girl (1944)

This elaborate 1940s musical from Columbia Pictures (Columbia's first Technicolor musical) and first-time musical director Charles Vidor was designed to showcase iconic red-headed star Rita Hayworth (as ambitious showgirl and top magazine cover girl Rusty Parker) and feature a joint appearance with rising and exuberant young dancer Gene Kelly (as Brooklyn nightclub owner/dancer Danny McGuire), as well as comic roles played by Phil Silvers (as Genius) and Eve Arden (as Cornelia "Stonewall" Jackson); the Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin songs complemented the entire film along with the great photography by Rudolph Mate; the most famous number was the beautifully-timed landmark Alter Ego dance (pictured) performed by the athletic and imaginative Gene Kelly, in which he literally danced with a semi-transparent reflection of himself (double-exposed) in a storefront glass window - the spectacular solo ended with Kelly heaving a trash can barrel at his telltale image; other numbers included the opening The Show Must Go On, the haunting Oscar-nominated Best Song ballad Long Ago and Far Away (pictured) sung and danced as a duet by Kelly and Hayworth (singing voice dubbed by Nan Wynn), and the celebrated, bright, and joyful Make Way for Tomorrow (sung by Silvers, Hayworth, and Kelly).

Curly Top (1935)

Dames (1934)

This film followed up on The Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) with more astonishing Busby Berkeley production numbers, including the clever and most memorable I Only Have Eyes For You (sung by Dick Powell), in which Ruby Keeler and Powell fell asleep aboard a subway train as he dreamt of repeated images of her face (actually chorus girls with large Keeler-face masks) and images of white-gowned chorus girls on a rotating white ferris wheel and multiple sets of stairs - the set ended with the chorus girls (with puzzle pieces strapped on their backs) coming together to form a huge jigsaw puzzle of Ruby's face; in the title number finale Dames, close-ups of the faces of various 'dames' applying for work led to the camera voyeuristically following the chorus girls with white blouses (and black tights) through a single day (including their waking, stretching, bathing, powdering, applying makeup, etc.), ending with an overhead kaleidoscopic star-formation of abstract designs - and one sequence where the trick reverse-action camera made it appear that the tap-dancing chorines were flying straight up from the floor into the camera.

Damn Yankees! (1958)

This Faustian musical baseball fantasy from Warner Brothers was co-directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen and featured choreography supervised by Bob Fosse; this adaptation of the Broadway hit was about a sensational Washington Senators baseball player Joe Hardy (Tab Hunter) who was under the spell of the Devil-Mr. Applegate (Ray Walston) and the Devil's sizzlingly seductive and tempting assistant Lola (Gwen Verdon) to convince Joe to stay young and not convert to his old self; Verdon's sensuous, hot-blooded show-stopping Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets) (pictured) was the highlight of the film, as was the inspirational song (You Gotta Have) Heart ("Ya gotta have heart! / Lots and lots and lots of heart") (pictured).

A Damsel in Distress (1937)

Dancing Lady (1933)

In his first screen appearance, Fred Astaire (already wearing his trademark top hat and tails) danced opposite MGM star Joan Crawford (as upwardly aspiring dancer Janie Barlow) in this musical extravaganza in the number Heigh, Ho, The Gang's All Here - the whole production was an imitation of the year's other backstage musical 42nd Street (1933).

Dangerous When Wet (1953)

In this musical film, aqua-queen Esther Williams (as English Channel swimmer Katie Higgins) performed her famous underwater ballet with MGM cartoon stars Tom and Jerry, reprising the Arthur Schwartz and Johnny Mercer tune In My Wildest Dreams.

A Day at the Races (1937)

Destry Rides Again (1939)

As a lusty, tawdry, frontier saloon singer and hostess/bad girl named Frenchy, Marlene Dietrich excited her western audience with a rendition of See What the Boys in the Backroom Will Have (pictured) - she wore a black cowgirl/bolero outfit on stage, and first asked her audience: "Anybody thirsty?" - and then placed her leg up on a chair and began belting out the saloon song - in the midst of the song, she kicked another saloon-girl tart in the hind-end in the audience who had taken attention away from her, and sat in the lap of a cowboy; and during the finale, she strutted down the length of the bar and to emphasize one line of the lyrics, she made her throat quiver by grasping the flap of skin below her chin and jiggling it; earlier in the film, she sang the rousing Western number Little Joe the Wrangler with a whiskey, monotoned, deep-throated voice - a ribald elegy for a unlucky cowboy, and she also sang You've Got That Look (That Leaves Me Weak) (pictured) while wearing a feather boa.

Dick Tracy (1990)

Dirty Dancing (1987)