Save The Last Dance - Box Office and Reception

Box Office and Reception

The film debuted at #1 at the North American box office making $27.5 million in its opening weekend. Though the film had a 44% decline in earnings the following weekend, it was still enough to keep the film at the top spot for another week.

The film was a surprise success in theaters especially with the teenage female audience, and is regarded as having two of the best breakthrough performances for its leading actors, Stiles, and especially Thomas. It was a financial success as well, with box-office earnings of $91,057,006 in the US alone and more than $130 million mark worldwide.

Save the Last Dance was also successful at a number of movie awards, most notably:

• The 2001 MTV Movie Awards, winning in the category "Best Kiss" for Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas, who also won "Breakthrough Male Performance"; and being nominated for "Best Female Performance" for Julia Stiles and "Best Dance Sequence" for a scene in the hip hop club
• The 2001 Teen Choice Awards, winning in the categories "Film — Choice Actress" for Julia Stiles, "Film — Choice Breakout Performance" for Kerry Washington and "Film — Choice Fight Scene" for Julia Stiles and Bianca Lawson; and being nominated as best "Film — Choice Drama"
• The 2001 Young Hollywood Awards, winning in the category "Standout Performance — Male" for Sean Patrick Thomas
• It was also nominated for the 2002 Black Reel Awards in the category "Theatrical — Best Supporting Actress" for Kerry Washington and the 2002 Golden Reel Awards in the category "Best Sound Editing — Music, Musical Feature Film" for the music editor Michael T. Ryan.

Despite these awards, the movie was not well received by critics or the adult audience. Rotten Tomatoes' rating assesses the film as "Rotten," with 47 of 92 reviewers panning the film, and summarizes the critical consensus as "This teen romance flick feels like a predictable rehashing of other movies." Even the reviews marked "fresh" are hardly enthusiastic, with remarks such as, "Look elsewhere for reality or good drama. Look here, however, if you're in the mood for a good heaping of fantasy and some fun"; "a decent, well-put-together romantic drama to hold hands to on the weekend"; and "A sometimes predictable, but mostly enjoyable tale." Salon's reviewer called the film "a bad, friendly, enjoyable movie," observing that "for all its dumb clichés it offers the basic appeal of teen movies: the pleasure of watching kids be kids, acting as they do among themselves instead of how parents and teachers expect them to act." Roger Ebert rated it three stars out of four, stating that "the setup promises cliches, but the development is intelligent, the characters are more complicated than we expect, and the ending doesn't tie everything up in a predictable way."