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What our customer's say!

"A True Life Rocky Story and A Steal of a Price for Criterion.", Hoop Dreams is an amazing film. Not only is it the best documentary of all time but one of the greatest movies of all time.
I was amazed at how director Steve James was able to get this on film so perfectly. The story follows two inner city kids, Arthur Agee and William Gates, and their dream of making it to the NBA and out of the ghetto. The doc was filmed over five years we watch these two boys at fourteen grow to be young men and the ups and downs they go through. Viewers also get a look into the life of how kids are scouted and the harsh realities that go along with it but ultimately it's an uplifting story about overcoming your struggles and preserving.

The doc is so natural that at many points I forgot it was a documentary and I was watching a movie based on a true story. Basketball was a part of my life growing up, playing on courts all around Mass, that and a love for film I was certain I'd like Hoop Dreams. Also reading over the years the high praise it received at times once you finally see a movie it could be a let down because your expectations were so high. What I found was the film exceeded any expectations I had and was so much more then just being about basketball.

You don't watch a movie like Hoop Dreams you experience it. And it gets the best treatment dvds can get by Criterion, you can't go wrong. I give Hoop Dreams the highest possible recommendation.

"Alumni Buy This", Alumni of St. Joseph High School will like this because it shows the inside of the school and their teachers from the 80's.

"Great product. Great delivery time", This was a great product. The timing of the delivery was great as well. A +

"The Best Documentary of All-Time", Hoop Dreams is probably the most engrossing documentary ever made. It covers two young kids with unrealistic dreams that they will be the next Michael Jordan, or Isiah Thomas, their idols. Both can play, and play very well at that. However, being from poor families and growing up in a dangerous neighborhood, their only chances of realizing their dream is to play high school basketball out of the area. This documentary shows their lives at home, their lives at school and most of all their lives on the court. The trials and tribulations they go through to just play basketball at a place that warrants their skills is amazing. This is a must see film, I don't think it would be possible not to be intrigued by it. This product is the best documentary of any generation.

"One Of The Better Documentaries You'll Ever See", At three hours, this is a long but interesting documentary about two Chicago-area high school basketball stars, William Gates and Arthur Agee, who try to make something from their basketball talents.

Both athletes, of course, dream of becoming pro players some day. There are hundreds of similar tales each season - of great players, mostly black - who don't make it through college or even to college despite their enormous talents and one can get idea of some of the obstacles by watching these two guys.

Almost all of the three hours is devoted to these kids form junior high through high school. The families and friends of these athletes are interesting and the film really documents the different lifestyles between blacks and whites in the USA.

It's a fascinating picture for people of any race. For non-blacks, it shows them a window into a whole different world. This film is obviously not just to highlight basketball players but to show life as it exists with a lot of poor black families: the good and the bad, the achievements and the big mistakes. I enjoyed it just as much the second time as the first. It's one of the better documentaries I've ever seen, so don't let the length of it discourage you.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Criterion Collection - Missing Something!!!", My family has ownd the Hoops Dreams VHS for quite sometime and we were thrilled to hear that it would be coming out on DVD. We purchased the Criterion collection and watched the story as attentively as we did the first time. We are heavily involved in youth sports, including AAU basketball. We have even give the VHS to several kids as gifts. This movie has a message that allows kids to learn by example. Those hoop dreams are fun to have but in reality, there are so few who ever make it to the NBA. This documentary shows kids that working hard on the court can guarantee a free private high school education and then a college education. It's not always about getting to the NBA.

I was disappointed that we didn't get to see the older Arthur Agee and William Gates. Why did the producers settle for an audio commentary? Too bad the viewer was not reunited with them and their families in person. I felt cheated. It would have been great to see video of Arthur do his "Slam Ball" thing or maybe see William in some video giving an inspiring message to a congregation. Viewers were invited into their homes over the course of several years and now it feels like they are talking to us behind a closed door. Producers, please bring them back one day.

"Great documentary", very inspiring documentary not only for aspiring basketball players but for anyone with a dream. Besides being so real and powerful, I think this is a masterpiece of filmmaking. Beautifully shot in the projects of chicago, the feel and look of the film was what I though made Hoop Dreams so real. The film was shot in analog video and then transfered to 35mm, and the editing they did is really amazing. They had years worth of footage and could have made this a 30 hour film, but they put it together nicely. Anyway shots like a man playing ball with his son and then walking away to go buy drugs make this a great documentary

"Docu-underdogs", It's a testament to how powerful this movie is that I didn't care in the slightest about the subject matter, and yet still was very emotionally affected by the trials and errors of these two kids. I've always viewed sports as that thing that I do to have fun, and I stopped playing once people started taking it so seriously that it became too competitive to be fun.

But seeing these two boys drive themselves through troubles with funds, injuries, and scholastics in order to pursue their one dream is very inspiring. It's yet another work that makes your typical normal middle-class life seem banal in light of the accomplishments and struggles of the underdogs.

Basically, it's like watching all of those millions of "underdog sports" movies, except this one has the added tension of being real: these kids can fail at any moment, and sometimes a last-second basket gets missed. In a way it displaces all of an entire genre of sports movies and makes it only necessary to watch this one, one that is real, has real characters, has real dialog, and has real risk.

--PolarisDiB

"what a great documentary!!!!!!", can't believe the cameras kept focus on these two families with american dream (or the broken american dream?)
william got no killer instinct to become a great player. stupidly got married and had kid in high school, what a waste. like his coash said, he got no killer instinct to be great, and just became another basketball player. what he said in the end was also cruelly true: 'guy came up to me saying don't forget him if i got into the nba; but i just wanted to say to him not to forget me if i didn't make to the nba.' so true and so cruel.
agee's mom is a great mom, his father was just a loser. he later also got two kids when he was in the junior college, that's stupid and he's doomed to be ended up middle of nowhere.
what a shame. three cheers to the production team. amazing job!

"One of the best movies ever, and easily the BEST DVD YOU WILL EVER OWN", THE CRITERION COLLECTION DOES IT AGAIN.
This is a movie that revolves around william gates and young arthur agee.
If you have ever played basketball and I mean against people who can really play then this movie will freaking blow your mind. The movie starts out with with arthur being showcased. He is like in 7th grade and can really play with the older kids, and you might believe this now, but I didn't believe it 11 years ago, a recruiter shows up and wants arthur to go to a certain high school. Throughout the movie there is HUGE things going on like arthur's dad buying drugs ON CAMERA right after shooting a couple of hoops. The movie keeps pouring things like this on like where it's a GOOD thing the camera crew is at arthur's house because they had their electricity shut-off and the camera and candles are their only source of light.

If I went over all the powerful moments of this movie or even the best ones then I would honestly never stop writing. So since I rarely go over special features of a movie, I will go over this one since the commentary is almost better than the movie. Now I don't buy movies for special features, but if you love this movie and would buy it without special features, then you are in the greatest treat in dvd history.
I know that some of you have probably said to yourself "I wish they would make a hoop dreams part 2 to see where these guys are doing now. I mean the director spent SO much time following these kids around and then we only got like 2 1/2 hours of this footage, they should definitely do a follow-up." Well if you said that then you are in for a big freaking surprise.
PART 2 IS HERE. 10 years later they are doing a commentary. If you are watching this on 2-channel stereo than you have william in one speaker and arthur in the other. AWESOME. I would really like to comment on this but I feel like I would be ruining hoop dreams part 2. There is also a commentary by the director which I haven't listened to all the way, but because it's a documentary, the director has a hell of a lot more to comment on than a movie like gladiator like when the electricity is shut off.

Now of course after reading all the other reviews I am pleased that they are providing pretty much all of the information, but one thing I did not see mentioned was that this was not even NOMINATED for best documentary.
Now there are many things that could be brought up here of why these mother f****s didn't nominate this and I will fight against all of them:

movie is too long--this is incorrect because the movie is obviously too short, they had to have had 100's of hours that didn't make it into the movie so the fact that they cut this movie by about 261 hours, I say that it definitely isn't too long.

Movie is about sports--who the hell cares, I've seen horrible documentaries about non-sport related topics.

Now the last point I can't really backfire against, now I may not be seeing this as clearly as a black person being that I am white, but I detect some serious racism with the people who pick the nominees for the oscar's. it is very sad that I have to say that, but if anyone knows the truth on why this movie was not nominated then please tell me, because I say you are full of stuff until you lay down some facts.

So like I said this is easily the best dvd that has ever come out, and it also has a sort of tribute to siskel and ebert to thank them for giving good pub about this movie. I just wished that they could have helped out because somebody behind the curtains was pulling the strings for the oscars that year.