From kids' movies about the competitive side of the sport to biopics and documentaries, these are some of the greatest ice skating movies of all time.
Ice skating has been around for thousands of years and yet in most countries, it's a niche sport that people only care about every four years when the Olympic Games are going on. However, for those who practice the sport, ice skating is exciting, dangerous, competitive, and artistic which is why it's the perfect sport to have a movie be centered around.
While movies about ice skating might not be the most popular, they do often perform well at the box office which is why Hollywood continues to make one every few years. From kids' movies about the competitive side of the sport to biopics and documentaries, these are some of the greatest ice skating movies of all time.
The Ice Follies of 1939 was one of the first movies to ever feature ice skating. The musical drama centers on an ice skating duo whose career suffers when one of them falls in love with an inept skater. Despite her history, Larry is determined to put her in his and Eddie's show.
The movie features actual skaters from the national touring group Ice Follies. The black and white movie concludes with an epic Cinderella-inspired finale in full color.
Ice skating movies have been extremely popular with young audiences which is why Disney doubled down on the genre in the 2000s. In 2005, they released one of the most underrated Disney Channel Original Movies of all time, Go Figure.
The movie centers on Katelin, an Olympic figure skating hopeful who desperately wants to train under a famous Russian skating coach teaching at a boarding school. In order to attend the expensive school, Katelin convinces the school's hockey coach to give her one of the team's scholarships so she attend. Now, Katelin must juggle ice skating and hockey while keeping her figure skating dreams a secret from her hockey team who hates figure skaters.
Ice skating movies may not break records at the box office but they do well in the tv movie world and in other countries which is what led Canada to create the made-for-TV movie Ice Girls.
After getting injured in an ice skating competition, a teenage skater's future is not looking bright and is only made worse when she must relocate with her mom because of financial problems. Mattie is on the brink of quitting when she connects with a coach who is determined to rehab her injury and give her a shot of chasing her dream.
Ice Princess is one of the most popular ice skating movies made for younger audiences. However, when it was released in theaters it did not perform well and was a box office flop for Disney.
The movie follows Casey Carlyle, a hopeful ivy league science student, who decides to do a summer project analyzing the physics involved with ice skating in the hopes of getting a scholarship. Casey has always been intrigued with the world of ice skating and falls more in love with it as she studies it. So much so, that she goes against her mother's wishes and becomes an ice skater herself.
While most ice skating movies are dramatic and focus on the seriousness of the sport, Blades of Glory took a different approach. The absurd comedy movie became very successful at the box office and is one of Will Ferrell's best movies.
The movie centers on two male ice skaters whose rivalry runs deep. After they must share gold at the Winter Olympics the two skaters lash out and create a total scene that gets them banned from singles skating and their titles stripped. Determined to prove themselves, Chazz and Jimmy decide to put their differences aside and become a same-sex ice skating pair so they can once again win gold.
Disney's The Mighty Ducks might not be a movie about ice skating in the traditional sense but it does feature ice skating. In fact, two of the members of the team are former ice skaters who use their skills to help coach the rest of the team.
The cult classic movie, which is now a successful teen tv show, follows a group of underdog kid hockey players who get coached by a young lawyer, and former hockey player, as a form of his community service.
Released in 1992 no one excepted The Cutting Edge to take off and spawn a successful film franchise that included three sequels, but that's what happened. It's now one of the most underrated sports movies of all time.
The Cutting Edge centers on Kate, a stubborn and talented figure skater who was missed out on a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics. Determined to earn gold, Kate must find an ice skating partner but finds flaws in all of them. With time running out, Kate is forced to partner with Dough, an arrogant Olympic hockey player whose hockey dreams are over thanks to an injury.
Like any sport, figure skating is not without its fair share of stories about skaters defying the odds to do what they do best. John Curry is one of the most famous ice skaters to do just that which is why there's an entire documentary about him.
The Ice King chronicles John Curry's life as he changed ice skating into the art form the sport has become. In addition, he became the first openly gay Olympian to compete when he came out the night he won gold at the 1976 Olympics.
When it comes to controversies, every sport has one and for figure skating, nothing is more controversial than the Tonya Harding vs. Nancy Kerrigan incident. Even people who don't follow ice skating know of the incident which is why it served as the subject matter in the 2017 biopic I, Tonya.
The Academy Award-nominated movie stared Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding and attempts to tackle Tonya's rise and fall in the sport told through unreliable narrators in a mockumentary style. The movie attempts to frame Tonya as the victim in the incident and how it affected her career after.
While many might consider ice skating as a frilly sport, the truth is that it's pretty gritty. Skaters put their bodies through strenuous training that affects them physically and mentally. Thankfully there are several documentaries that explore just that including the 2020 release Unbroken.
The documentary centers on two figure-skating pairs, one from Russia and one from the United States, who are both trained by one of the world's most decorated coaches. It follows the skaters and their coach through the highest and lows of the competition season as they skate for a chance for gold.
