5 To Watch: Ice skating movies that go for the gold

As the Olympics wind down, here are five films that celebrate the most graceful winter sport

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5 To Watch: Ice skating movies that go for the gold
Background, clockwise from top left: Ice Castles (Screenshot), Sun Valley Serenade (Screenshot), I, Tonya (Screenshot), The Cutting Edge (Screenshot), Blades Of Glory (Screenshot). Foreground: Nathan Chen (Photo: Jamie Squire/Staff/Getty Images) Graphic: Rebecca Fassola

So many of the events in the Winter Olympics just seem to be about falling, whether it’s traveling down a mountain on two sticks, lying on top of someone in the doubles luge, etc. But figure skating stands apart from the snow-based sports as something much more graceful, gliding across the ice and attempting to defy gravity, not succumb to it—in the case of recent Olympic gold medal winner Nathan Chen, with a quadruple axel, no less.

So it’s unsurprising that the magic of ice-skating has also made its way to movies. As these Olympics draw to a close, you may be longing for more pairs routines and gold medal ambitions. Why not check out these cinematic forays into the figure skating world—from Sonja Henie’s Busby Berkeley-inspired extravaganzas to Tonya Harding’s rebellious attempt at Olympic greatness. At the very least, some of these more in-depth looks at skating challenges might give you a bit more appreciation for the perfection of those routines as these athletes vie for a spot on that heralded podium.

previous arrowSun Valley Serenade (1941) next arrow

Norway’s Sonja Henie was an Olympic champion in a world before television, which made her a good fit for the movies, with audiences hungry to see the famous athlete. The blonde, dimpled skater wasn’t much of an actor, but that didn’t seem to matter much as she glided off into one extravagant ice dance number after another. Sun Valley Serenade was the best of these cinematic outings, as Henie’s presence was bolstered by dashing John Payne as her love interest, future standards supplied by Glenn Miller himself, a wisecracking Milton Berle, and even the fabulous Nicholas Brothers. Henie’s attempts to win Payne over from his blameless girlfriend (her only flaw seems to be that she’s not a fan of winter sports) are downright villainous, but nevertheless, her skating dances on black ice are stunning. And the setting is sublime, enough to turn even the most devout winter-hater into someone considering a trip to Idaho before the end of the season. [Gwen Ihnat]

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