Hoosiers

A coach with a shadowed past takes over the high school basketball team of an Indiana town of a few hundred people. The town does not want him and there are eight players. The film's subject is not the games but the coach teaching them to pass: no shot until the ball has moved four times. The narrative uses that rule as both a tactic and a moral position. The thread with Dennis Hopper as an alcoholic father is its best material. David Anspaugh directed, with Gene Hackman in the lead. It draws on a real championship won in 1954. Who it's for: those who like classic sports films. Who it's not for: viewers who will find the one woman in the narrative underserved; the film gives its attention entirely to the boys' team.