There has only ever been one movie that has inspired me to take ballet classes—this is it.

I saw Billy Elliot for the first time when I was only eleven-years-old. It was news to me then, news to me that a boy could be a ballet dancer, a “ballerino” if I may. However, I had just entered junior high at that point in my life and decided that the pursuit of dance would only make my walks down the hall that much more difficult.

Billy Elliot was also my first introduction to Jamie Bell, an actor who I can now not help but love. It is the story of an eleven-year old who discovers his love for ballet while in the midst of the 1984 Thatcher closure of British coal mines. His father and older brother are less then excited when they find out that Billy has shunned his boxing prowess and hung up his gloves for a life of pirouettes and frappes.

Perhaps the most charming quality of Billy Elliot concerns his earnest desire to dance. At first, the only support he receives comes from his closeted friend, Michael Caffrey. Even Billy is wary about ballet at first and signs up for classes across town without his father and older brother knowing. Of course, his father and brother are not pleased in the beginning, but eventually they come to champion his efforts to tryout and join the ranks of the Royal Ballet.

It is rare to find a movie with this combination of tenderness and grit. It is certainly a coming of age story that deserves to be seen by boys and men of any age. I saw this for the second time once I had entered college and this second viewing prompted me to start taking ballet classes both at my school and at independent dance studios. In this sense, this movie is also a rarity in the film world—rarely am I provoked to follow through on the emotions that I felt while sitting in the theater. In this case, I was.