From ‘Black Swan’ to ‘Étoile’: The Best Movies and TV Shows About Ballet

From ‘Black Swan’ to ‘Étoile’: The Best Movies and TV Shows About Ballet

Since the early days of Hollywood, the high stakes world of ballet has often made for a compelling onscreen drama. Filmmakers have showcased the dance form in both narrative and non-fiction stories, on TV and in film. There have been numerous documentaries that focus on individual dancers and larger dance companies, and multiple teen television series that use ballet as a backdrop for dramatic stories. But the best movies and TV shows incorporat…

Inside “Étoile,” Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino’s New Ballet TV Series

With “Étoile,” the Palladinos are aiming to paint a realistic picture of the ballet world—without the overdramatized, glass-in-the-pointe-shoes tropes so many films and TV shows fall into. “There wasn’t that wide-range representation of what the dance world is,” says Sherman-Palladino. “And it’s a very weird world. There’s a lot of comedy in it.”