Highs, lows and real struggles of basketball hopefuls

This 1994 award-winning documentary is about William and Arthur, two Chicago African-American teenagers who, in the eighth grade, are recruited to play basketball for a middle-class parochial high school. Both are good at basketball but struggle with their academics. And both dream of playing for the NBA.

The film follows these two boys for a full six years. It also follows their families and we get a glimpse of the challenges of everyday life in the ghetto. These are real people, not actors, and they have to cope with a lot, including Arthur's father drug problem and the economics of living on $268 per month on welfare. Wisely, the camera is never feels intrusive, and I felt I was right there with them, watching them grow, both mentally and physically. There's a lot of struggle, with highs and lows in their personal lives as well as on the basketball courts, and it is always fascinating. The film is almost three hours long but it is so intriguing that I could have watched it for another hour.

This might not be fiction, but the individual stories are filled with drama as it deals with some very sensitive issues of class, race, maturity and hard choices. And the director, Steve James, who wrote the film along with Fredrick Marx, managed to edit it so perfectly, that I was totally unaware of anything else but just being a part of this world for the duration of the film. Highly recommended for everybody. Do see it! It's wonderful!

Perhaps the Greatest Film Ever Made

And easily the best of the nineties. I've heard people using excuses such as "It's too long" or "It's a documentary" or "It's just a sports movie." Well it is a documentary, but I've seen two other documentaries ("Roger and Me" and "Hearts of Darkness") that rank among the finest I've seen. "Hoop Dreams" encompasses not only basketball, not only the ghettos, but life itself. We see ups and downs, successes and failures, and because we know it's all real, the film affects us tremendously. Its length is no factor. When the Gates or the Agees make bad decisions we cringe, when they gain succeed we cry (literally.) No other film has such an incredible impact emotionally and intellectually. This film will change your life.

Still brings tears to the eyes after 10 years

When this movie first came out 10 years ago, I remembered sitting for several minutes in the theater as the credits were rolling, collecting myself. I never cry in movie theaters. And this movie moved me to bawl like a child. To think about the ups and downs, the raw enthusiasm of the young boys when they first started chasing their hoop dreams, the rough realities that they both faced without consistent fatherhood, without steady incomes, without one advantage in their lives, still brings tears to my eyes. This was a brilliant movie that moved public discourse about the importance of steady parenting, the need for educational and employment opportunities in all corners of America, the costs associated with our obsession for celebrity athletes, and the limitations of athletics as a vehicle for moving young men from poverty to wealth. Because of the openness of the families being documented, and because the film's editors and director were able to cut to the core of human needs and desires, this film broke through cultural barriers, bridged gaps in our understanding of one another, and helped us to understand that every life has value, every person has a story to tell, and every child has the right and the power to dream. It also helps us to understand that it is not always the content of character or talent that enable these children to achieve their dreams. It is also privilege, opportunities, and the right guiding hands. And without these, dreams become melancholy memories of something that could have been, only if...