Hoop Dreams

Dir: Steve James, 1994 (8.9*)
Sundance Audience Award

What started as a short documentary would up being a four-year filming of two high school hoop stars, and a three-hour documentary film that could be the best one ever, also one of the best sports films. William Gates (no, not the computer nerd!), and Arthur Agee are the players, from Chicago. This was a dedicated filmmaker sticking with his obsession, and the results are tremendous. Sundance Audience Award for Documentary, why no Oscar? Likely ineligible for some stupid reason, as they sometimes enforce some ridiculously arcane rules (has to play in an L.A. theater for a full week?), like a foreign language film has to be in the language of its country, making Motorcycle Diaries ineligible, being in Spanish but a U.S. film.