Steve James’ iconic, genre-defining documentaryHoop Dreamsearned great acclaim upon its release in 1994. The film wasinstantly a hitwith critics and earned an impressive $11.8 million at the worldwide box office, arare feat for a documentary at that time. Due to this success, the film was considered to bea favorite in the Best Documentary categoryat the Oscars by many critics and prognosticators, with some even thinking a Best Picture nomination was possible. When the nominees for the 67th Academy Awards were announced though, many were stunned to seeHoop Dreamsomitted from both categories, only earning one total nomination for Best Editing, which it would go on to lose.The film’s snub in the documentary category caused immediate outrage. Among the angered fans was famed film criticRoger Ebert.Hoop Dreams’ snub bothered him to such a degree that his vocal objection would contribute to the Academybeing forced to overhaul some of its voting rules.
Ebert Was One of ‘Hoop Dreams’ Biggest Champions
The most famous film criticof his generation, and possibly of all time, deeply admiredHoop Dreamsfrom the very moment it was released. In fact, Ebert’s1994 reviewof the doc began with the following sentence, “A film likeHoop Dreamsis what the movies are for.” He writes glowingly about the film in the rest of the review, praising the intimate and authentic look it gives the audience into the realities of growing up poor in a big city. Eventually, at the end of the 1990s, he called the movie, which chronicled the young lives ofbasketball standoutsWilliam Gates and Arthur Agee in Chicago’s inner city,his number one film of the decade.
Considering his love of the film, it should come as no surprise that Ebert took great exception to the Academy’s decision to overlookHoop DreamsinBest Documentary. He went as far as to publish anessay entitled “Anatomy of a Snub,”where he took aim at the Oscars misstep. In it, he wrote, “Hoop Dreamsis better than all five of the nominated films, and a lot better than three of them.” He went on to accuse the Academy’s documentary nominating committee ofnot doing their job welland claimed they wereunreceptive of “cinéma vérité.”Had Ebert not been the one leading the charge, it is likely that the snub would not have received the same amount of attention that it ultimately did,nor would it have led to actual change.
‘Hoop Dreams’ Snub Led to Massive Changes for the Academy’s Documentary Nominating Committee
The controversy caused by theHoop Dreamssnub drew attention to the fact that the Academy’s documentarynominating committeeneeded to be overhauled, with some going as far as to claim thegroup’s biases influenced their voting. At the time, the committee was made up of older Academy members, some of whom were not even documentary filmmakers. The group had drawn public ire in the past by failing to nominate othercritically acclaimed nonfiction filmslikeShoah,The Thin Blue Line, andParis is Burning. In the case ofHoop Dreams, a theory emerged that asmall group of voters made a calculated decision to game the systemand leave the film off the list of nominees.
10 Movies That Changed the Oscars' Rules
We’re still waiting for that stunt category to be added.
Before theHoop Dreamssnub, members of the documentary committee would hand out scores to each film eligible for nomination using a seven-point scoring system. This system came under fire after it was revealed that, despiteHoop Dreamsreceivingthe highest number of perfect scoresof the eligible documentaries in1994, a small group of voters — potentially working in coordination —gave it the minimum score, causing it to land in sixth place and miss out on a nomination. The theory that this was a calculated move on the part of this small voting block was given more credence due to the fact that those voters also gave a perfect 10 to each of the five films that did end up getting nominated. Further controversy arose when it was revealed that one of the directors of the nominated films,Freida Lee, had chaired the committee for the previous two years.
Ultimately,the result of all this controversywas the Academy’s decision to implement a 6-10 five-point scoring system, in hopes of avoiding another case of a film receiving perfect scores but still falling to sixth place, likeHoop Dreamsdid. The Academy also changed its screening process for documentaries. Before the snub, the screening process included a rule dictating that if enough voting members shined a flashlight during a film being shown in the Academy’s screening room, the projector would be unplugged. The Academy wisely did away with this disrespectful rule. The final, and perhaps most important, change theHoop Dreams’omission led to was thecreation of a separate documentary branch within the Academy. This change took a bit more time — the branch was created seven years after the snub — but it did eventually givemore voting power to actual documentarians.
In the end,Hoop Dreams’true legacy is rightfully that of an excellent film, much more than an Oscars disruptor. But,the changes it spurred within the Academy did have a significant impact. Hopefully, those changes led to more worthwhile documentaries being both nominated and sought out by film fans around the world.
Hoop Dreamsis available to stream on Max in the U.S.
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Hoop Dreams
