PodBill Just what I expected

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

cinephile-27690 This is in my top 10 and along with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel I think this is 1994's best movie! It's 172 minutes long but it's worth your time. The movie follows 2 boys who want to become NBA basketball players. This is limited to see(though as I write this it's free on Demand) and it needs more attention! Fun Fact: Steve James, the director, appreciated Roger's acclaim so much that he directed his biography! If you can't see it on Demand, you can get it for $30 at Barnes and Noble on DVD(that's how I own it.) This is very much worth your time- so please see it!

Kevin H The documentary is very real, authentic, and touching.It is about two young men in their teens trying to make it in basketball. The movie capture about 5 years of their life in high school as basketball player.They came from tough neighborhoods. Their families went though touch times just to make sure their kids turn out alright. I have a lot of respect for them and their family as well as their school.The movie is almost 3 hour long but every moment is worth watching. A shorter version would not be sufficient to show so much truth and reality.I would recommend this movie for anybody who have have kids who are pursuing an athletic career. They would get a chance to learn the lesson from the two young men and their families.A great work! I would like to thank the filmmakers and the two families.

G K Hoop Dreams is one of the richest film experiences of 1994, a spellbinding American epic that holds you firmly in its grip for nearly three hours. Two African-American teenagers (William Gates and Arthur Agee) from inner-city Chicago struggle to enter the world of professional basketball.Epic, moving and intensely memorable, the film tackles the issue of sport as an escape route from the ghetto, but heroically transcends the clichés, delving into the backgrounds of the boys and their families, detailing the obstacles they have to face over four years, and showing us what it means to them to win - a game, a place in the team, a new life. It is truly a great American documentary.

bob the moo When I first moved to England in the mid-nineties, I took advantage of living in a city and having an art cinema near me for the first time ever. As a result I saw many things that I wouldn't have otherwise seen and Hoop Dreams was one of those things. At the time it was getting a lot of buzz about it being a rare film about real life and it also interested me as I had just started getting into basketball as well. Since then the film has become one of those films that is generally well remembered but not seen very often (at least it is in the UK). I eventually managed to get hold of it again recently (again thanks to some of the very kind users on IMDb) and I was looking forward to watching it again.Unfortunately this also meant appraising it again and it must be said that, watching with modern eyes almost 15 years from its release (and longer since it started being made) it doesn't stand up as well as I would have liked. As a rider on this it must be said that Hoop Dreams still has value considering what it is and when it was made. Nowadays we are used to every other programme being some sort of real-life fly-on-the-wall programme, simply because they are popular and cheap to make. However these differ from the ambition here, which is to chart the progress of two boys looking to basketball as their way to a better life – a project that spread over many years with many hundreds and hundreds of hours of video to edit down (and accordingly the film did get the Oscar for editing). So what we are left with is a film that does a solid job of telling these two stories and marks itself as a bit of a modern milestone in reality cinema. It must be noted though that being an important film in terms of what it does is not the same as it being a really good film.The problem is that it doesn't totally manage to tell the story in a way that engages on a personal level and inform on a more general basis – both of which appear to have been aims. The film is solid when it comes to the focus on the two boys but the problem is that, as individuals, the film doesn't make them particularly engaging people for the audience to care about and I didn't get a lot of drama from their respective journeys. OK they were interesting enough and also pulled together in quite a succinct manner but it never gave me much of a reason to really be held by the tale. Surprisingly bigger events in their lives are frequently just mentioned by the narrator (the father getting on and then off crack is dealt with in one line). Of course this is why it is important for a larger message to be clear and, in the case of Hoop Dreams, the bigger picture is the reality of the "making it out the ghetto via basketball" dream and the limited options to those who do not have this. In this regard the film doesn't achieve it because it is too tightly focused on the two boys and their families. There isn't a feel of the scale of this, of the challenges facing those who don't make it, of the desperation to make it and so on. This is a real shame because it could have made a good film into a great film and were the film made today one does think that it would be a pre-requisite. The dated presentation doesn't help – obviously visually it is of the time it was made but I remember the cheesy sax music as horrid and time has only made it worse.There is no doubt that the scale and aims of Hoop Dreams and its cinematic success makes it an important part of modern reality cinema – it is just that the film isn't as good to watch as its reputation deserves. The editing is good but the structure lacks a personal hook and doesn't manage to deliver much in terms of the bigger picture. It is still worth seeing and it is "good" but it is hard to understand why so many people lavish praise on it without pointing out its many faults.