Hoop Dreams
An Extraordinary True Story.
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St.Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program.Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way.
- Director
- Steve James
- Signature
- Craft · Tension · Drama
- Worldwide
- $8M
Who's in it
Cast
The billed ensemble, with character names. Open any performer for their Nutevio filmography.
The Nutevio profile
Movie DNA
How Hoop Dreams actually feels to watch, measured on the twelve traits our editors track across every Nutevio title.
Story overview
What It's About
Spoiler-free. Read the analysis below for the full argument.
Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
Where to watch
Streaming
Availability verified against regional listings.
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The numbers
Box Office & Release
Hoop Dreams returned 11.2× its budget worldwide.
- Budget
- $700,000
- Opening weekend
- —
- Domestic gross
- —
- International gross
- —
- Worldwide gross
- $8M
- Release date
- Sep 12, 1994
- Runtime
- 2h 54m
- MPAA rating
- —
- Language
- English
- Country
- United States of America
Figures from the verified production record. Fields we cannot source are left blank rather than estimated.
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