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Breakin'

Breakin'

Music · Drama · Romance · 1984

A struggling young dancer joins forces with two breakdancers and together they become a street sensation.

Movie details

Breakin'

“Push it to pop it! Rock it to lock it! Break it to make it!”

1984 Music · Drama · Romance 1h 30m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.7 / 10

Community rating

A struggling young dancer joins forces with two breakdancers and together they become a street sensation.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Breakin'?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Step Up Revolution

Step Up Revolution

Music · 2012

Emily arrives in Miami with aspirations to become a professional dancer. She sparks with Sean, the leader of a dance crew whose neighborhood is threatened by Emily's father's development plans.

StreetDance 3D

StreetDance 3D

Music · 2010

In order to win the Street Dance Championships, a dance crew is forced to work with ballet dancers from the Royal Dance School in exchange for rehearsal space.

Step Up 2: The Streets

Step Up 2: The Streets

Music · 2008

When rebellious street dancer Andie West lands at the elite Maryland School of the Arts, she finds herself fighting to fit in while also trying to hold onto her old life. When she joins forces with the school's hottest dancer, Chase Collins, to form a crew of fellow outcasts to compete in Baltimore's underground dance battle The Streets.

High Strung

High Strung

Music · 2016

When a hip hop violinist busking in the New York subway encounters a classical dancer on scholarship at the Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts, sparks fly. With the help of a hip hop dance crew they must find a common ground while preparing for a competition that could change their lives forever.

Footloose

Footloose

Drama · 2011

Ren MacCormack is transplanted from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont where loud music and dancing are prohibited. Not one to bow to the status quo, Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister’s troubled daughter Ariel in the process.

Not Easily Broken

Not Easily Broken

Drama · 2009

A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.

Step Up 3D

Step Up 3D

Drama · 2010

A tight-knit group of New York City street dancers, including Luke and Natalie, team up with NYU freshman Moose, and find themselves pitted against the world's best hip-hop dancers in a high-stakes showdown that will change their lives forever.

Morris from America

Morris from America

Drama · 2016

13-year-old Morris Gentry has just relocated with his single father, Curtis to Heidelberg, Germany. Morris, who fancies himself the next Notorious B.I.G., is a complete fish-out-of-water—a budding hip-hop star in an EDM world. To complicate matters further, Morris quickly falls hard for his cool, rebellious, 15-year-old classmate Katrin. Morris sets out against all odds to take the hip-hop world by storm and win the girl of his dreams.

Honey

Honey

Music · 2003

Honey Daniels dreams of making a name for herself as a hip-hop choreographer. When she's not busy hitting downtown clubs with her friends, she teaches dance classes at a nearby community center in Harlem, N.Y., as a way to keep kids off the streets. Honey thinks she's hit the jackpot when she meets a hotshot director casts her in one of his music videos. But, when he starts demanding sexual favors from her, Honey makes a decision that will change her life.

High Strung Free Dance

High Strung Free Dance

Music · 2018

Zander Raines, a dazzling and tempestuous young choreographer, gives the break of a lifetime to two hopeful artists when he casts a stunning contemporary dancer, Barlow, and innovative pianist, Charlie, in New York’s most-anticipated new Broadway show: Free Dance. But the move throws off the show’s delicate creative balance when Charlie falls hard for Barlow, while Zander embraces her as his muse.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Joel Silberg

Written by

Charles Parker · Allen DeBevoise · Gerald Scaife

Lucinda Dickey

Lucinda Dickey

Kelly / Special K

Adolfo Quinones

Adolfo Quinones

Ozone

Michael Chambers

Michael Chambers

Turbo

Ben Lokey

Ben Lokey

Franco

Christopher McDonald

Christopher McDonald

James

P

Phineas Newborn III

Adam

Ice-T

Ice-T

Rap Talker

Court is in session

Put Breakin' on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.