Night Fever!

Top 11 Disco/ Nightclub Scenes

It is something of a cliché in films (particularly cops ‘n’ crims thrillers) to make the protagonist have to go to a nightclub in order to extract information for a seedy informer. Where nightclub scenes fall down is that they’re mostly too glamorous. Going out to a club on the weekend can be euphoric and hedonistic, but also grubby and tedious, drunkenly romantic or with an undercurrent of violence.

Please note that I have omitted house parties from the list. So no Donnie Darko’s Halloween bash or Superbad. College frat party movies are also out [e.g. National Lampoons’ Animal House] and I’ve limited it to one disco as a gangster hang-out as you could make an entire list out of them.


11. Quadrophenia (1979) Mod Dancehall. Grumpy and self-destructive mod Phil Davies recklessly dances the night away after a tough day of fighting rockers on the Brighton beaches. But he will later discover that the sequinned King of the Mods (Sting) is little more than a BELLBOY!

10. Saturday Night Fever (1977). In his pre hit-man days Vincent Vega was once the arrogant king of disco in this slice of 70s cheese. I suggest playing your own music over the Bee-Gee’s glass-shattering vocals; it improves the film a whole lot.

9. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1993) Metal Club. In order to discover the whereabouts of a stolen dolphin our rubber-faced hero goes to a club run by head-banging animal activists. This made the list purely on the utterly bizarre cameo appearance from death-metal screamers Cannibal Corpse.

8. A Clockwork Orange (1971) Moloko Milk Bar. In a 70s council estate dystopian future violent chavs waste away their time in the lap-dance lounge-come-milk bar sipping on their semi-skimmed as if it were Alco-pops.

7. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) School Prom. I couldn’t have a list without included an awkward school disco scene. This scene sums up how tedious and depressing being a teenager can be, whilst Alphaville’s “Forever Young” sets the melancholy mood.

6. Waltz With Bashir (2008). Israeli Nightclub. In this hallucinatory animated documentary the director is given leave from the Lebanon war only for him to realise that life went on as usual while he was away. This scene perfectly shows the alienation and loneliness that can be felt in a crowded room, accompanied by PiL’s post-punk classic ‘This Is Not a Love Song’.

5. The Terminator (1984) Tech-Noir. Sarah Conner enters this terribly 80s nightclub to escape the creepy future man that seems to be following her. Little does she know that he’s her protector and that the lumbering Austrian pushing through the slow-motion dancers towards her is a cyborg assassin. The tension is so well built that this scene still makes my heart leap all these years after first seeing it as an impressionable youth.

4. 24 Hour Party People (2002) The Hacienda. Nothing sums up the hedonistic, ego-centric, disco-biscuit ridden lunacy of the ‘Madchester’ scene better than the legendary Hacienda club in Michael Winterbottom’s brilliant film on the rise and fall of Factory Records.

3. The Blues Brothers (1980) Country Western Bar. It’s the newly reunited band’s first show after Jake’s release from prison and the Hicks aren’t taking well to their rhyme and blues. But when they play TV western theme tune ‘Rawhide’ the yokels serenade them with beer bottles through the chicken wire.

2. Collateral (2004) Yakuza Club. Tom Cruise gets to play ‘Nasty Tom Cruise’ and shoot up a trendy nightclub as a ruthless, shark-grey hit-man. In this scene Mann shows what a good director of action he is. Shame his next flick Miami Vice was one dull nightclub scene after another for its entire overlong duration.

1. Blade (1998) Blood Club. Raving techno vampires (usually inhabitants of the Sub Club) lure an innocent yet dunderheaded man into their underground club for a night of ‘banging tunes’ and blood-sucking. It’s only when blood starts raining down over the gyrating vamps that he beings to suspect something isn’t quite right.


3 Bad Clubbing Scenes.

3. The Matrix Reloaded (2003). With Zion about to be destroyed by metal squids, everyone decides to have a big-sweaty rave-fest. Makes sense. Excruciatingly stupid and comes off like a multi-million dollar ‘Happy Hardcore’ advert.

2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). Don’t get me wrong I love David Lynch but sometimes the man confuses ‘artiness’ with ‘arsiness’. In drug-fuelled timber-lodge rubbish music is played purposefully loud over even worse dialogue.

1. Basic Instinct (1991). In a film where a man has an ice-pick put through his nose and we get a glimpse of Sharon Stone’s love rug, possibly the most shocking thing on view is Michael Douglas in a green-turtle neck doing ‘dad-at-wedding’ dancing in an underground lesbian rave. Piss off granddad!


If anyone has suggestions for further best/worst lists I’d gladly take them on.