Hoop Dreams (1994)

"One of the best movies of the year!  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"One of the best films...I have ever seen.  Roger Ebert, Siskel & Ebert

Editor's Note One of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of all-time, HOOP DREAMS has become a model for how to construct a fact-based film, creating intimate and emotionally resonant portraits of its subjects while exploring the larger social issues that those subjects are negotiating with. The film focuses on William Gates and Arthur Agee, two teenagers from inner-city Chicago, and follows them for almost five years, the period where both enter and complete their high school careers. Both young men are talented basketball players, and as the title suggests, have their eyes on the college game and eventually the NBA as their best shot at escaping the poverty they grew up in. But as William and Arthur reach for their goal, they must contend with the pressing issues and difficulties of social class and racism, as well as the predatory practices of the basketball recruiters who entice the pair to attend their schools. In this way, HOOP DREAMS chronicles much more than just the individual experiences of two young men. It examines the larger problems that beset inner-city African-American families and how they cope with those difficulties through family support and friendship, as well as presenting a picture of the increasingly ruthless, big-business tactics of college and even high school sports. It remains a seminal documentary film, both affecting and thought provoking in its story of lives and dreams entangled by forces beyond their control.

	Arthur Agee - Featuring
	Ben Sidran - Musical Score
	Catherine Allan, et al. - Producer
	Emma Gates - Featuring
	Frederick Marx - Writer
	Peter Gilbert - Cinematographer
	Sheila Agee - Featuring
	Steve James - Director
	Steve James - Writer
	William Gates - Featuring
	William Haugse - Editor

The product of 5 years of filming and 250 hours of footage, this documentary premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it won the audience award.| In Chicago's inner-city, 14-year-olds William Gates and Arthur Agee are high school basketball players who dream of making it to the NBA. This compilation follows four years in their parallel lives, as William and Arthur go through trials and triumphs, successes and setbacks both on and off the court. Premiere
"...A powerful and moving real-life story..." - Recommended 05/01/1995 p.134

Rolling Stone
"...This unflinching masterwork is a heartfelt vision of sports and family values that will leave you cheering..." 11/03/1994 p.106

New York Times
"...[This] fascinating, suspenseful film turns the endless revision of the American dream into high drama....[A] profound social tale..." 10/07/1994 p.C1

Entertainment Weekly
"...Brutally poignant..." -- Rating: A 04/21/1995 pp.64-5

Variety
"...A prodigious achievement that conveys the fabric of modern American life, aspirations, and incidentally, sports in close-up and at length, HOOP DREAMS is a documentary slam dunk..." 02/14/1994

Film Comment
"...Utterly, heartbreakingly lucid....Inspiring..." 11/01/1994 p.71-3

Sight and Sound
"...There is something about the film's upfront rawness that pitches it engagingly somewhere between home movie and drama..." 04/01/1995 p.44-5

Entertainment Weekly
Ranked #7 in Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten DVDs Of The Year -- "Episodes of turmoil and triumph run rampant in this 1994 documentary..." 12/30/2005 p.126

Wall Street Journal
"[I]n addition to being a top-notch sports film, it's a sobering study of race, class and life in the inner city." 10/02/2009

Washington Post 9 of 10
Hoop Dreams is the most powerful movie about sports ever made. Compiled from more than 250 ho - Hal Hinson

Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think - Roger Ebert