Hoop Dreams is a 1994 American documentary film directed by Steve James and written by James and Frederick Marx , with Kartemquin Films . It follows the story of two African-American high school students in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players.
Originally intended to be a 30-minute short film produced for the Public Broadcasting Service , it would be a film and 250 hours of footage. It premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. Hoop Dreams is the most recent documentary film for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing . [2] Despite its length (171 minutes) and unlikely commercial genre, it has been widely acclaimed and grossed over $ 11 million worldwide. It is often considered as one of the greatest documentary films of all time.