
The American(2023)
American ballet dancer Joy Womack is accepted into Moscow's infamously tough Bolshoi Ballet Academy, with the dream of becoming a great ballerina.


“Before you can fly, you have to be free.”
At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.

Amanda Schull
Elizabeth Mackey

Chi Cao
Li Cunxin - adult
Chengwu Guo
Li Cunxin - teenage
Wen Bin Huang
Li Cunxin - boy

Joan Chen
Niang

Bruce Greenwood
Ben Stevenson

Kyle MacLachlan
Charles Foster

Jack Thompson
US Federal Judge
Camilla Vergotis
Mary McKendry
Madeleine Eastoe
Lori
Mao’s Last Dancer is a drama, romance film released in 2009 exploring themes of dance, dancer, village, ballet dancer, rags to riches, based on true story. Directed by Bruce Beresford, it stars Amanda Schull, Chi Cao, Chengwu Guo. At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
Discover titles like Mao’s Last Dancer — ranked by similarity and community votes
We found 15 movies similar to Mao’s Last Dancer
If you enjoyed Mao’s Last Dancer, you'll love these handpicked recommendations. Each title below shares similar themes, tone, and storytelling style. Our algorithm analyzes genres, keywords, director filmography, and cast connections to find the closest matches. Whether you're looking for the same emotional depth, narrative structure, or visual style, these picks are curated to deliver the best viewing experience for fans of Mao’s Last Dancer.

American ballet dancer Joy Womack is accepted into Moscow's infamously tough Bolshoi Ballet Academy, with the dream of becoming a great ballerina.

A fledgling ballerina falls in love with a brilliant composer, but the jealous head of the ballet company plots to drive them apart.

A group of 12 teenagers from various backgrounds enroll at the American Ballet Academy in New York to make it as ballet dancers and each one deals with the problems and stress of training and getting ahead in the world of dance.

Ensemble drama centered around a group of ballet dancers, with a focus on one young dancer who's poised to become a principal performer.

Ren MacCormack is transplanted from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont where loud music and dancing are prohibited. Not one to bow to the status quo, Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister’s troubled daughter Ariel in the process.

In order to win the Street Dance Championships, a dance crew is forced to work with ballet dancers from the Royal Dance School in exchange for rehearsal space.

Fashion icon Coco Chanel, steeped in wealth and fame, still issues game-changing designs and collections. The audience is taken backwards in time to the woman's upbringing in an orphanage, and traces her path to ubiquity as it winds through poverty, wars, doomed romances, and rather glamorous betrayals.

Ali leaves behind a troubled life and follows her dreams to Los Angeles, where she lands a job as a cocktail waitress at the Burlesque Lounge, a once-majestic theater that houses an inspired musical revue. Vowing to perform there, she makes the leap from bar to stage, helping restore the club's former glory.

A tight-knit group of New York City street dancers, including Luke and Natalie, team up with NYU freshman Moose, and find themselves pitted against the world's best hip-hop dancers in a high-stakes showdown that will change their lives forever.

When a hip hop violinist busking in the New York subway encounters a classical dancer on scholarship at the Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts, sparks fly. With the help of a hip hop dance crew they must find a common ground while preparing for a competition that could change their lives forever.

When teenager Ren and his family move from big-city Chicago to a small town in the West, he's in for a real case of culture shock after discovering he's living in a place where music and dancing are illegal.

A bored estate lawyer spots a beautiful woman in the window of a ballroom dance studio. He secretly starts taking dancing lessons to be near her, and then over time discovers how much he loves dancing. His wife, meanwhile, has hired a private detective to find out why he has started coming home late smelling of perfume.

When her niece is cast in The Philadelphia Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, a jaded ex-ballerina is forced to come to terms with the life and love she left behind.

The story of Rudolf Nureyev, whose escape to the West stunned the world at the height of the Cold War. With his magnetic presence, Nureyev emerged as ballet’s most famous star, a wild and beautiful dancer limited by the world of 1950s Leningrad. His flirtation with Western artists and ideas led him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the KGB.

During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.