Product Details

• Actors: Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper, Sheb Wooley, Fern Persons
• Directors: David Anspaugh
• Writers: Angelo Pizzo
• Producers: Angelo Pizzo, Carter DeHaven, Derek Gibson, Graham Henderson, John Daly
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: February 29, 2000
• Run Time: 114 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792843592
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #925 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Hoosiers" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

One of the most rousingly enjoyable sports movies ever made, this small-town drama tells the story of the Hickory Huskers, an underdog basketball team from a tiny Indiana high school that makes it all the way to the state championship tournament. It's a familiar story, but sensitive direction and a splendid screenplay helped make this one of the best films of 1986, highlighted by the superb performances of Gene Hackman as the Huskers' coach, and Oscar nominee Dennis Hopper as the alcoholic father of one of the team's key players. As the drama unfolds we come to realize that many of the characters (including Barbara Hershey as a schoolteacher with whom Hackman falls in love) are recovering from disappointing setbacks, and this depth of character is what makes the otherwise conventional basketball story so richly rewarding. Like Rocky, Rudy, and Breaking Away, this is a quintessentially American movie about beating the odds and rising above one's own limitations. Just try to watch it without cheering! --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

Nominated* for two OscarsÂ(r) and hailed by Sports Illustrated and ESPN as one of the best sports movies of all time, this triumphant tale of a high school basketball team's long-shot attempt to win the state championship is filled with edge-of-your-seat suspense and breathless excitement! Featuring "fast-break cinematography that catches the pace of the game.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical, March 28, 2003

By	D. Mikels "It's always Happy Hour here" (Skunk Holler) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hoosiers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

From the opening scenes of this film--majestic shots of a car traveling the rural midwest on a crisp autumn morning--HOOSIERS serves notice to the viewer that he or she is in for a wonderful movie experience. Set in a tiny Indiana town half a century ago, HOOSIERS captures the look and feel of rural Americana, of a hardworking people with a single commonality: their love for basketball. The pure innocence of this film, innocence long lost over the subsequent decades, is magical.

Gene Hackman portrays Coach Norman Dale, an outsider who comes to basketball-crazy Hickory, Indiana, to coach the high school team. Haunted by mistakes made in his past, Dale is eager for the second chance he has been given. Immediately, his no-nonsense, stress-the-fundamentals coaching philosophy puts him at odds with the town, yet Dale refuses to compromise his principles. He survives--barely--a petition for his ouster, and the rest of the movie warmly portrays the town of Hickory and its high school basketball team coming together, a team that makes a magical run through the Indiana State Tournament.

Barbara Hershey as Myra Fleener, Hickory's assistant principal, and Sheb Wooley as superintendent/principal Cletus--the man who hires Dale--are solid. Yet Dennis Hopper gives the best performance as Wilbur "Shooter" Flatch. Shooter, a former great player himself and father of one of the boys on Coach Dale's team, is the town drunk; despite his alcoholism, his knowledge of the game is immense, and Dale enlists his aid. The reformation of this character--the feeling and depth that Hopper gives this role--is exceptional.

Director David Anspaugh gives us a sensational "feel good" movie, augmented by Jerry Goldsmith's powerful musical score. HOOSIERS tells a beautiful story, so magical in its depiction you'll be cheering from your chair. Highly recommended.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MUCH MORE THAN GREATEST SPORTS MOVIE OF ALL TIME!, February 11, 2000

By	Ronald Zane McCann (Harts Creek, West Virginia, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hoosiers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It is purely coincidental that the backdrop for this movie happens to be high school basketball or sports of any kind: This is a genuinely great movie, leaving the audience feeling good about themselves and willing to search for a second chance at success in life, no matter how great the failure. A one-word description of the movie? REDEMPTION. This theme runs throughout, i.e., a second chance...for the town drunk, for the coach, for the wannabe assistant coach, for the old-maid school teacher, for the team, for Jimmy Chitwood, for the drunk's son, for Strap, for the town, for the principal, for the players who quit, for the equipment manager, for the school bus...with the movie on video, you now have a second chance to watch and enjoy this great movie! It is worth the redemption price! If you already have seen it, after reading this review you may see it through a different perspective; if you have not seen it, I know you will thoroughly enjoy it, over and over again. Hoosiers is not just my favorite sports movie, it is my favorite movie of all time. The movie truly is about redemption, about people failing and being given a second chance. Some handle it better than others, but it cuts a true slice out of life in the 1950s and the 2000s! We should all get that kind of second chance! The best part is, we do. Those who succeeded in Hoosiers accepted their second chance and made something of it. I watch this movie any time that life hands me a setback or any time that I fail or fall. It is a better pick-me-up than any anti-depressant. So, wipe your slate clean and watch Hoosiers again for the first time!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful moment in time captured in a truly beautiful film, December 3, 2005

By	Kevin Woodward (Soquel, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hoosiers (2-Disc Collector's Edition) (DVD)

I was born in Gary, Indiana in 1953, the year before tiny Milan High captured the Indiana State High School Basketball Championship. As most boys who grew up in Indiana, this Cinderella tale was a familiar one to me -- and the true story this film was based on.

Last year, in preparation of attending the NCAA Women's Final Four in Indianapolis with my 11-year-old daughter, I purchased this Collector's Edition DVD to share with her. Although today I live a world away in the heart of Silicon Valley, I will forever remember the part of my childhood that was Hoosier Hysteria.

Of what it was like to play in the annual state tourney, when every school, no matter how big or small, was thrown together into the same fire and born again every March whether their regular-season record was 25-0 or 0-25. Single elimination, do or die, winner take all.

The excitement and hype leading up to the opening games of the first-round Sectional ... of the pride and joy that engulfed the entire communities of the 64 winners who advanced to the Regional ... and then, for a god-like 16 teams, the Semistate ... and ultimately, the originally named Final Four. I can't begin to describe it for you, but this film comes close, really close.

My daughter has played basketball since she was in the third grade, and competes today on a traveling AAU team. She is 10 times the player I ever was at her age, but it is impossible for her to imagine a world without women professional athletes, cell phones or the Internet. And whenever I would tell her about what basketball was -- and still is -- like in Indiana, she would roll her eyes.

Fortunately, I had this film to show her. And a few months later, she experienced the real thing, making the pilgrimage with me down the two-lane backroad blacktops to Milan, where we met the caretaker of the 1954 Milan Museum, Roselyn McKittrick, and later that day, dined with Bobby Plump himself, known as Bobby Chitwood in the film.

I have a photograph of my daughter wearing a red Hickory High -- the fictional school in the film representing Milan -- jersey, holding the ball that Bobby arched high into the Butler Fieldhouse sky that fine and glorious day more than 50 years ago and into history.

This is a rare film in that it somehow captures that special time, that place, that joy. How and why does not matter, only that it does. The tears that falll whenever I watch it are proof enough of that.

This Collector's Edition compliments the original release by including recent interviews with Bobby, the two writer-producers who (as did I) attended Indiana University in the early 1970s, some deleted scenes that shed new light on the storyline, even a glorious B&W archived copy of the 1954 state championship game in its entirety.

A beautiful moment in time captured in a truly beautiful film.

Or, as my daughter later remarked to me, "You know Dad, basketball really is different in Indiana."