"The Way You Look Tonight" is a 1936 song by Jerome Kern (music) and Dorothy Fields (lyrics), written for the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Swing Time. In the film Astaire sings it to Rogers while she washes her hair in an adjacent room, a moment that helped make the song famous. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year. In the film it is in D major, but it is typically performed in E-flat major with a modulation to G-flat major. Astaire recorded it in July 1936 for Brunswick, and it was a top seller that year, alongside versions by Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee, Teddy Wilson with Billie Holiday, and Guy Lombardo. Later recordings include The Lettermen's version, which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961, and Frank Sinatra's 1964 version with Nelson Riddle, described as the most popular and imitated version. Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Bill Charlap, Rod Stewart and Phil Collins have also recorded it. It is a jazz standard with lyrics.
