Roger Ebert Was So Outraged by This Documentary’s Oscar Snub, He Sparked an Awards Revolution

When Steve James’ ground-breaking documentary ‘Hoop Dreams’ was released in 1994, it immediately became a classic, receiving praise from critics and a remarkable $11.8 million worldwide—an unprecedented amount of money for a documentary at the time. A lot of people thought it would be nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars, and some even thought it would win Best Picture. 

However, ‘Hoop Dreams’ only received a nomination for Best Editing, which it ultimately lost, and was startlingly excluded from the Best Documentary category when the 67th Academy Awards candidates were revealed. Renowned cinema critic Roger Ebert was one of the most outspoken reviewers to voice their indignation about this rejection. His response was crucial in pressuring the Academy to change its voting procedure.

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When ‘Hoop Dreams’ first came out, Ebert gave it high marks. He famously started his review by saying, “A film like ‘Hoop Dreams’ is what the movies are for.” By the end of the 1990s, he had declared it his favourite movie of the decade because he loved its honest, personal depiction of inner-city life in Chicago. His passionate opposition to the documentary’s Oscars snub was hardly surprising, considering how much he loved it. In his piece ‘Anatomy of a Snub’, he claimed that ‘Hoop Dreams’ was superior to all five of the nominated movies and charged that the Academy’s documentary committee had not done its job effectively.

The Academy’s faulty seven-point scoring system for nominations was exposed by the debate. 

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‘Hoop Dreams’ was pushed to sixth place by a small group of voters who allegedly cheated the system by giving it the lowest possible score, even though it received the most perfect marks among the eligible films. A new five-point scoring system, the abolition of an antiquated screening procedure, and ultimately the establishment of a specialized documentary division inside the Academy were among the significant improvements brought about by the incident.

–Farheen Ali 

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