Dirty Dancing - Reception

Reception

The film received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 68% of professional critics gave the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.8 out of 10 based on 44 reviews.

For the film's opening, the August 16, 1987 edition of The New York Times published a major review, with a headline reading, "Dirty Dancing Rocks to an Innocent Beat." The Times reviewer called the film "a metaphor for America in the summer of 1963 – orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions, a sort of Yiddish-inflected Camelot." Other reviews were more mixed: Gene Siskel gave the film a "marginal Thumbs Up" as he liked Jennifer Grey's acting and development of her character, while Roger Ebert gave it "Thumbs Down" due to its "idiot plot", calling it a "tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds." Time magazine was lukewarm, saying, "If the ending of Eleanor Bergstein's script is too neat and inspirational, the rough energy of the film's song and dance does carry one along, past the whispered doubts of better judgment."

Regardless of reviews, the film drew adult audiences instead of the expected teens, with viewers rating the film highly. Many filmgoers, after seeing the film once, went right back into the theater to watch it a second time. Word-of-mouth promotion took the film to the number one position in the United States, and in ten days it had broken the $10 million mark. By November, it was also achieving international fame. Within seven months of release, it had brought in $63 million, and boosted attendance in dance classes across America. It was one of the highest-grossing films of 1987, earning $170 million worldwide.

The film's popularity continued to grow after its initial release. It was the number one video rental of 1988, and became the first film to sell a million copies on video. When the film was re-released in 1997, ten years after its original release, Swayze received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and videos were still selling at the rate of over 40,000 per month. As of 2005, it was selling a million DVDs per year, with over ten million copies sold as of 2007.

A May 2007 survey by Britain's Sky Movies listed Dirty Dancing as number one on "Women's most-watched films", above the Star Wars trilogy, Grease, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman. The film's popularity has also caused it to be called "the Star Wars for girls." An April 2008 article in Britain's Daily Mail listed Dirty Dancing as number one on a list of "most romantic movie quotes ever", for Baby's line "I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." The film's music has also had considerable impact. The closing song, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" has been listed as the "third most popular song played at funerals" in the UK.