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"Mad Hot Ballroom" (2005) Not everything about great dance movies is made up. "Mad Hot Ballroom," a documentary, shows that ballroom dance really can transform lives.

It tells the story of 11-year-old students in three New York public schools competing in a citywide dance ... morecompetition, splicing interviews with the kids about life as they know it -- love, parents, the gender wars -- with clips of them learning to tango, rumba, fox-trot, merengue and swing.

Along the way, you see differences in their circumstances. Some kids are white and middle-class, while others barely speak English and live in crowded conditions. But their success in dance has nothing to do with these things; it's all what they bring to the floor. And what they bring is inspirational, so much so that you're tempted to want all middle schools in the United States to teach kids how to ballroom dance. All kids should learn how to work together, respect each other, commit to developing a skill, and have respect for their bodies. Fred and Ginger would definitely approve. (Paramount Classics / Courtesy Everett Collection)

What are your favorite dance movies? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

Martha Brockenbrough is MSN's Cinemama, for the Parents' Movie Guide. She is also the author of "It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond." She's also founder of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. She writes a fun-with-kids column for Cranium.com, as well as an educational humor column for Encarta. Check out her Web site.