Ask anyone to talk about the greatest Oscars snubs in history, and you’ll likely get a long litany of grievances. There’s Alfred Hitchcock, five times nominated but never picking up a Best Director; there’s Stanley Kubrick; Citizen Kane; Taxi Driver; Judy Garland; ET: The Extra-Terrestrial; Marilyn Monroe; Pulp Fiction, and so many others.

Yet, if we were to cite a snub that is so much more controversial than others, it would be Hoop Dreams, the wonderful documentary following two young men’s journey and hopes to make it into the NBA. It’s an incredible documentary – sometimes cited as the greatest ever – but it never received an Oscar nomination. It caused an outcry at the time, and it both directly and indirectly impacted how the awards work and the perception of how they work

Hoop Dreams came when the NBA was at its cultural peak

Hoop Dreams was released in 1994, just before the world’s most celebrated basketball star, Michael Jordan, was on the comeback trail to lead the Bulls to championships and be a perennial NBA MVP betting contender again. The contrast of the 1990s NBA and this documentary, set in 1987, was stark. On one hand, you had the riches of the NBA – perhaps at its most popular, and certainly at its zenith as a cultural crossover – and on the other, you had two young African-American boys, William Gates and Arthur Agee, with talent. Throughout the documentary, those boys would become men, and the audience would journey with them as they learned – sometimes the hard way – what it takes to make it.

The key to Hoop Dreams is that it is not a rags-to-riches story or a sports aspiration story, nor is it even a story of Black culture. It is, as Roger Ebert said, “one of the best films about American life that I have ever seen.” The movie spent three years in editing, which tells you the scale of the footage acquired by director Steve James. When the final product was ready, it had widespread critical acclaim. It premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, picking up Best Documentary. It went on a whirlwind across awards season, picking up awards everywhere.

The voting system at the Academy was criticized

And then came the Oscars snub. The outcry was vociferous, with critics claiming that the Academy’s voters were, at best, snobbish about the documentary’s subject matter and, at worst, simply racist. Later, it unfolded what had actually happened, shining a light on the Academy’s archaic voting system. It’s complicated, but basically, voters used a zero-to-ten voting system, ten being the best. Hoop Dreams got more tens than any other movie, but it also received a bunch of zeroes from voters who didn’t want to watch it. There were other problems with the voting, some of which were raised by the legendary Ebert, a champion of the film.

The upshot was that this wonderful picture never got to have a chance at the highest accolade in the industry. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. Citizen Kane and Pulp Fiction are not diminished for not having won Best Picture, nor are Hitchcock and Kubrick. Hoop Dreams belongs in the same category. An ambitious, beautiful and heart-rendering snapshot of American life.