Basketball Movie Review
Hoosiers
Small-town Indiana, a tiny roster and the old-school basketball myth that five disciplined players can make a whole state believe the gym belongs to them.
The template has been copied to death because the original works. A little sentimental, a lot old-fashioned, still brutally effective once the ball goes up.
Movie details
1986 · 1h 55m · Drama
Director David Anspaugh
- Gene Hackman
- Barbara Hershey
- Dennis Hopper
- The story is inspired by tiny Milan High School's improbable 1954 Indiana state championship run.
- The championship sequence was filmed at Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse, the same arena that hosted Milan's real 1954 state-title game.
01
The Take
Hoosiers is basically basketball folklore with a whistle. Norman Dale arrives with rules nobody wants, strips the game back to passing, spacing and discipline, then slowly earns a town that thinks it already knows better. It can be sentimental and the inspirational-coach machinery is now familiar, but that is partly because half the genre has been borrowing from it for decades.
02
Does the Basketball Hold Up?
The basketball is period-appropriate: patient possessions, two-hand passes, little wasted dribbling and a coach obsessed with executing the same way every trip. Modern viewers may want somebody to launch eight threes, but the film understands exactly what kind of basketball its team is supposed to play.
03
Best Basketball Moment
Jimmy Chitwood taking the final shot. Everybody knows it is coming, the defense knows it is coming, and the movie knows you know. The tension comes from refusing to get cute.
04
Ball Cred
Inspired by Milan High School's 1954 title run and filmed in the same Indiana basketball culture that created the legend. Few movies have ever understood the religion of a high-school gym better.