Movies Where Christopher Walken Dances

He trained as a dancer. He has never once let anyone forget it.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A row of streetlamps on a 1960s New Jersey street set at night, a fedora and a pair of polished shoes left at the curb.

    10. Jersey Boys

    Clint Eastwood · 2014

    Walken plays a mobster who adopts young Frankie Valli, and Clint Eastwood, of all people, ends the movie with a full-cast song-and-dance curtain call. Walken joins in. That's the whole reason to watch the last five minutes, and it's enough.

  2. A sunlit living room with furniture pushed against the walls, a tangle of headset wires coiled on the coffee table.

    09. Brainstorm

    Douglas Trumbull · 1983

    A sci-fi thriller about recording thoughts, with Walken dancing around a room with Natalie Wood, shot in a Chapel Hill house. Wood died before production finished, and the film was completed with insurance money. The dance plays differently now.

  3. A pair of tall cavalier boots with plumed hat resting on a castle throne, a ball of yarn rolled beneath it.

    08. Puss in Boots

    Eugene Marner · 1988

    A Cannon Movie Tales musical in which Walken plays a cat who becomes a man when he puts on boots, then sings and dances his master into royalty. Golan-Globus produced it. Somehow this is not the strangest thing either party did in 1988.

  4. A white tent dance floor at a coastal estate at dusk, champagne flutes on a round table and a toppled place card.

    07. Wedding Crashers

    David Dobkin · 2005

    As Treasury Secretary William Cleary, Walken dances with his daughter at the family's engagement party while two professional crashers plot nearby. The studio reportedly wanted Burt Reynolds; Dobkin fought for Walken. The first R-rated comedy to top $200 million domestic.

  5. A disco ball hanging inside a dim, rounded metallic chamber, blue light spilling across a ribbed floor.

    06. Communion

    Philippe Mora · 1989

    Walken plays Whitley Strieber in the adaptation of Strieber's alien-abduction memoir, and the climax becomes a dance party aboard the spaceship, with the visitors joining in. It made $1.9 million on a $7 million budget. The aliens had a good time.

  6. A hi-fi record player spinning a vinyl in a dim 1960s living room, a rolled rug pushed aside to clear the floor.

    05. Catch Me If You Can

    Steven Spielberg · 2002

    Frank Abagnale Sr. dances with his wife to Embraceable You in their living room, a last good night before the family comes apart. Walken got an Oscar nomination for the role. The sadder the movie, the better the box step.

  7. A jukebox glowing in a Queens kitchen, a pack of cigarettes and a coffee cup on the linoleum floor, a police cap hung on a chair.

    04. Romance & Cigarettes

    John Turturro · 2005

    As Cousin Bo, Walken acts out Tom Jones's Delilah, a cheerful song about stabbing someone, then leads a production number. It premiered at Venice in 2005, lost its distributor, and Turturro released it himself in 2007. Worth the wait.

  8. Sheets and housedresses flapping on a backyard clothesline in 1960s Baltimore, a joke-shop rubber chicken clipped among the clothespins.

    03. Hairspray

    Adam Shankman · 2007

    Wilbur Turnblad and wife Edna, played by John Travolta in a fat suit, dance through the backyard laundry to (You're) Timeless to Me. Travolta asked for Walken, who beat out Billy Crystal and Jim Broadbent. Two famous dancers, one clothesline.

  9. A penthouse window overlooking the Manhattan skyline at night, a bottle of champagne on the sill and scuff marks on the parquet floor.

    02. King of New York

    Abel Ferrara · 1990

    Frank White, fresh out of Sing Sing, meets his crew in a hotel suite. The tension builds like somebody's about to get shot. Then he dances. It grossed $2.6 million and became a hip-hop touchstone; Biggie called himself the Black Frank White.

  10. A polished saloon bar top scuffed with tap-shoe marks, a discarded vest and suspenders draped over a brass rail under a single spotlight.

    01. Pennies from Heaven

    Herbert Ross · 1981

    As Tom, a pimp, Walken tap-dances along a bar while stripping and lip-syncing Let's Misbehave. Choreographer Danny Daniels had taught him tap as a kid. Steve Martin trained eight months for this movie and still lost the dance-off to a supporting player.

Honorable mentions

  • An empty hotel lobby at dawn with a wheeled luggage cart and a lone armchair, a dent in the carpet suggesting someone launched off it.

    Weapon of Choice

    Spike Jonze · 2001

    Not a movie, but the best thing on this page: Walken dances through an empty Los Angeles Marriott lobby to Fatboy Slim, then flies. He co-choreographed it. Six MTV awards and a Grammy. Every film above is the warm-up.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A ticking alarm clock on the deck of a cardboard pirate ship, a single tap shoe beside a plumed captain's hat.

    Peter Pan Live!

    NBC · 2014

    NBC cast Walken as the first tap-dancing Captain Hook for its live broadcast. Some critics found him loose-limbed; more found him barely awake. A dance man at 71, on live TV, in a hook. The crocodile was more nervous.

Every list.
On tap.

No newsletter. Point your AI at our public MCP server, or follow the RSS feed. New lists show up in both.

Get the MCP RSS