Movies: Steve James

Set in 1964, a camera crew follows Willie Pep, retired featherweight boxing champion. Down and out in Hartford CT, married to a woman half his age and with a drug-addled son and mounting debts, Pep decides to make a return to the ring....

Director Steve James returns to his home town of Hampton, Virginia to tell the story of how the trial of a young basketball star left a city divided....

A true story of a priest (Andre Braugher) in New Orleans who formed a group of black players and challenged an all-white prep school basketball team in the 1960's. Eventually events like these signaled the pivotal turn in the games' history leading t...

The surprising and entertaining life of renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert (1942-2013): his early days as a freewheeling bachelor and Pulitzer Prize winner, his famously contentious partnership with Gene Siskel, his life-altering...

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of i...

It's the true-life story of legendary track star Steve Prefontaine, the exciting and sometimes controversial "James Dean of Track," whose spirit captured the heart of the nation! Cocky, charismatic, and tough, "Pre" was a running rebel who defied rul...

An educational companion piece to Hoop Dreams, Higher Goals features NBA star Isiah Thomas in a fast-paced, entertaining PBS special that encourages young athletes to put their dreams of professional sports in perspective and focus on getting an educ...

Francis is a young gay man, Marie is a young straight woman and the two of them are best friends -- until the day the gorgeous Nicolas walks into a Montreal coffee shop. The two friends, instantly and equally infatuated, compete for Nicolas' indeterm...

Three young men bond together to escape volatile families in their Rust Belt hometown. As they face adult responsibilities, unexpected revelations threaten their decade-long friendship....

Former indie film "guru" John Pierson takes his family to Fiji for one year to run the world's most remote movie theater....

Focus Forward: Short Films, Big Ideas is an award-winning series of 30 three-minute stories about innovators—people who are reshaping the world through act or invention—directed by the world's most celebrated documentary filmmakers....

Former football player and wrestler Chris Nowinski's quest to publicize recent findings about the often dire consequences of head concussions sustained by athletes in contact sports — injuries that have previously been considered momentary setbacks a...

Tells the history and importance of The National Film Registry, a roll call of American cinema treasures that reflects the diversity of film, and indeed the American experience itself....

The incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charge...

True story of boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling and their enduring friendship....

Physicist Ted Hall is recruited to join the Manhattan Project as a teenager and goes to Los Alamos with no idea what he'll be working on. When he learns the true nature of the weapon being designed, he fears the post-war risk of a nuclear holocaust a...

In 1995 Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) returned to rural Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, a troubled young boy he had been an 'Advocate Big Brother' to ten years earlier....

Declining participation leads two Milwaukee area high schools—one black and urban, the other white and suburban—to combine their football programs. Tensions rise as the disparities between the two schools become increasingly apparent over the course ...

The New Americans follows a diverse group of immigrants and refugees as they leave their home and families behind and learn what it means to be new Americans in the 21st century....

Everyone’s talking about it, but who can explain it? Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Productions and Morgan Spurlock’s Cinelan have partnered to produce WE THE ECONOMY 20 Short Films You Can’t Afford to Miss. Each film is helmed by an acclaimed filmmaker, ea...