MovieChat Forums > Hoop Dreams (1994) Discussion > Why wasn't it nominated?

Why wasn't it nominated?

posted 17 years ago by tommybone17
2 replies | jump to latest

I've never seen the movie, but let me get this straight. It was the best reviewed film of 1994, better than "Pulp Fiction" and "The Shawshank Redemption" by the huge majority of critics, it is a film in the National Film Registry for being an important and cultural film, and it is now named the #1 documentary ever made by some Documentary guild list. Now my question is this: why the hell wasn't it at least nominated for Best Documentary Feature in 1995? This must be one of the biggest misstep I would bet.

[–] Delpheno 17 years ago

If you have the DVD, go look in the special features.

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel tells you how the Oscar's documentary team was very corrupted. Everything else was okay, but the Documentary team was always questionable.

I think after a year later, the Oscar team recognized what was going on and refreshed the group.

I don't know, something like that.

[–] DroverChicago 17 years ago

Delphino has the basics covered. It comes down to this: the documentary "crowd" if you will was very incestuous at that time; those on the nominating committee and the "established" documentarians were very chummy with each other. The committee wanted to nominate their own friends and associates, and everyone knew that if these upstarts with their Hoop Dreams movie got nominated, it would win in a landslide. The outrage over the snubbing of Hoop Dreams forced changes in the nominating process at the Academy.