[2] It earned positive reviews from critics, who particularly praised the performances of Grey and Swayze, and its soundtrack, created by Jimmy Ienner, generated two multi-platinum albums and multiple singles.

[4] The film's popularity successfully launched its titular franchise, including a 1988 television series, multiple reality competition shows, a 2004 prequel titled Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, a stage production which has had sellout performances in multiple countries, a made-for-television musical adaptation in 2017, and an untitled sequel scheduled to be released in 2025, with Grey reprising her role.

Exploring one night, Baby secretly observes Max instructing the waiters, all Ivy League students, to romance the guests' daughters, no matter how unattractive.

Baby learns Johnny's dance partner Penny is pregnant by Robbie, a waiter and womanizer who attends the Yale School of Medicine and now has his eye on Lisa.

Johnny rejects an indecent proposal by Vivian Pressman, an adulterous wife, who instead sleeps with Robbie, inadvertently foiling Lisa's plan to lose her virginity to him.

Johnny arrives and disrupts the final song by bringing Baby up on stage and declaring that she has made him a better person, and then they perform the dance they practiced all summer, ending with a successful climactic lift.

[19] For the female lead of Frances "Baby" Houseman, Winona Ryder, Sarah Jessica Parker and Sharon Stone were considered.

Grey was initially not happy about the choice, as she and Swayze had difficulty getting along on Red Dawn, but when they did their dancing screen test, the chemistry between them was obvious.

Morrow himself could be heard at different parts of the movie as a New York area DJ (at the time of the film's setting he was working at WABC, a top 40 station), and served as period music consultant.

[30] The part of Baby's mother was originally given to Lynne Lipton, who is briefly visible in the beginning, when the Houseman family first pulls into Kellerman's (she is in the front seat for a few seconds; her blonde hair is the only indication), but she became ill during the first week of shooting and was replaced by actress Kelly Bishop, who had already been cast to play resort guest Vivian Pressman.

[41] Patrick Swayze also required a hospital visit; insisting on doing his own stunts, he repeatedly fell off the log during the "balancing" scene and injured his knee so badly he had to have fluid drained from the swelling.

They had already had trouble getting along in their previous project, Red Dawn (1984),[43] and worked things out enough to have an extremely positive screen test, but that initial cooperation soon faded, and they were soon "facing off" before every scene.

[45] The footage was found in the editing room and the producers decided the scene worked as it was and put it into the film, complete with Grey's giggling and Swayze's annoyed expression.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Like its winsome characters, Dirty Dancing uses impressive choreography and the power of song to surmount a series of formidable obstacles.

[51] The New York Times described the film as "a metaphor for America in the summer of 1963— orderly, prosperous, bursting with good intentions, a sort of Yiddish-inflected Camelot.

"[54] 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.

[63] 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,[13] and videos were still selling at the rate of over 40,000 per month.

[65] 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 lyrics for the Kellermans' song that closes the talent show were written specifically for the film[31] and were sung to the tune of "Annie Lisle", a commonly used theme for school alma maters.

"[93] In 1988, a music tour, Dirty Dancing: Live in Concert, featuring Bill Medley and Eric Carmen,[80] played 90 cities in three months.

Starring Romola Garai and Diego Luna, the plot follows a sheltered American teenager learning about life through dance, when her family relocates to Havana, Cuba just before the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

[96] The show returned to the West End at the Piccadilly Theatre and ran from July 13, 2013, to February 22, 2014, before resuming its tour of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

It broke box office records in May 2007 for its first such venue, selling $2 million on the first day of ticket sales in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

After Toronto, the musical opened in Chicago in previews on September 28, 2008, and officially on October 19, 2008, running through January 17, 2009,[99] followed by Boston (February 7 – March 15, 2009) and Los Angeles.

Presented by Dawn Porter, an investigative journalist and a self-confessed Dirty Dancing addict, it was very successful, being Channel Five's highest rated documentary of 2007.

Porter visited the film set, met other fanatics, and learned the last dance, which she performs at the end in front of family and friends.

[107] In August 2011, Lionsgate announced their plan to produce a remake, and confirmed that the original film's choreographer, Kenny Ortega, was attached to direct.

"We believe that the timing couldn't be better to modernize this story on the big screen, and we are proud to have Kenny Ortega at the helm", Joe Drake, president of Lionsgate's Motion Picture Group, explained about the project.

[109] In December 2015, ABC ordered a three-hour musical remake of Dirty Dancing, starring Abigail Breslin, Colt Prattes, Debra Messing, Sarah Hyland, Nicole Scherzinger, Billy Dee Williams and Shane Harper.

As part of their presentation during CinemaCon 2022, current rights owner Lionsgate announced the film had the tentative title of DD and reaffirmed that Grey would still reprise her role as Baby.