Film

ABCD 2

ABCD 2 is a Bollywood dance film following childhood friends pursuing hip-hop stardom through a Las Vegas competition. It's a high-energy showcase of choreography and ensemble charm, built on the infectious optimism of young people chasing something together. For anyone who watches dance films for the dancing, or who loves Bollywood's particular brand of heart-on-sleeve ambition.

TMDb rating2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love dance films where the joy is in the choreography and the rivalry-turned-team bond, and you don't mind a story that wears its heart on its sleeve.

Skip it if you want a tight, grounded plot; this runs about two and a half hours and leans on big musical set pieces and broad, sincere sentiment more than on surprises.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a long, buoyant ride at a steady, upbeat tempo, with plenty of sitting through the sentimental stretches between the dance numbers.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Step Up2006

The template for dance-competition narratives: street dancers, classical training, unlikely partnership, ensemble growth, and genuinely thrilling choreography. Everything ABCD 2 builds on came from here.

But The 2006 filter is thick, and the romance is aggressively earnest in ways that have aged oddly.

Step Up poster

Footloose1984

Dance as rebellion and joy, an entire community learning to move again. The moral conviction underneath the spectacle is what makes it last—and what ABCD 2 inherits.

But It's a product of the 1980s in ways that show. The pacing is glacial by modern standards.

Footloose poster

Center Stage2000

An ensemble dance film that cares about character alongside technique. The ensemble lives as real people, not just bodies in formations. ABCD 2 learned this lesson well.

But The melodrama around the leads overwhelms the dancing in places. Some of the technical dance criticism feels dated now.

Center Stage poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from ABCD 2

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Billy Elliot: The Musical Live2014

Both films believe dance is not decoration but survival—the way a young person tells the world who they are when language fails.

A stage musical filmed as stage musical, not adapted into cinema. The physicality is the whole point: a working-class boy discovering he can make his body speak in ways words cannot. Entirely earned joy.

But It's nearly two and a half hours. If you're not moved by the specific emotional arc of dance-as-belonging, the length will test you.

Billy Elliot: The Musical Live poster
More like this (8)

Dirty Dancing1987

Two people from different worlds learning to move together; the dancing is the conversation they can't have in words. A masterclass in using choreography to tell story.

But The gender politics are of the 1980s and feel stuck there. The dancing, while iconic, is brief relative to the romantic plotting.

Dirty Dancing poster

Fame1980

Young artists pursuing stardom in ensemble, with genuine attention to different disciplines and different kinds of hunger. The optimism is fierce and unsentimental.

But It's a sprawl. The tonal shifts can feel abrupt, and the film doesn't always land its emotional moments.

Fame poster

Flashdance1983

Pure aesthetic pleasure: a film that knows exactly what it is and delivers it without apology. The dancing is secondary to the *feeling* of movement and ambition.

But There's almost no narrative to speak of. The gender dynamics are uncomfortable. It's really just an extended music video.

Flashdance poster

Honey2003

Street dancer trying to break into commercial choreography. Less about competition than about finding your voice as an artist and claiming space that wasn't meant for you.

But The plotting is thin and the film leans on feel-good platitudes rather than earning them dramatically.

Honey poster

You Got Served2004

Crews, battles, hip-hop culture as real infrastructure. It understands dance as identity and community, not just technical skill or tournament victory.

But The acting is genuinely difficult to sit through. The dialogue often sounds like it was written by someone who heard people talk once.

You Got Served poster

Take the Lead2006

A stranger teaches ballroom to at-risk youth; the specificity of partner dancing carries weight. Antonio Banderas commits fully to something that could have been insulting.

But It's treacly in places and the class-rescue narrative has aged poorly. The ending telegraphs itself from the opening scene.

Take the Lead poster

Kanal1957

Both films know that ensemble—people moving as one organism with shared purpose—is the deepest subject available. Form matters more than narrative.

Polish cinema's masterpiece of ensemble under pressure. A group moves through impossible circumstances bound by loyalty and purpose. The choreography of bodies through space is as rigorous as any dance film.

But It's a war film, not a dance film. Bleak in ways that would horrify ABCD 2. Black and white, 1950s, demands patience and attention.

Kanal poster

Happy as Lazzaro2018

Both believe ensemble is sacred—that people coming together with pure intention can achieve something impossible. One shows it through hip-hop, one through magic.

An Italian magical realist film where a saint-like man disrupts a community's careful arrangements. Strangest film on this list, but it shares ABCD 2's faith that goodness and cooperation can reshape the world around it.

But Nothing like a dance film. Surreal, slow, sometimes frustratingly oblique. You'll spend parts of it unsure what you're watching.

Happy as Lazzaro poster

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