‘Hoop Dreams’

By focusing on the personal side of the quintessential city sport, basketball, filmmakers Steve James, Frederick Marx and Peter Gilbert tell us more about what works and doesn’t in our society than a shelf full of sociological studies. They shot approximately 250 hours of footage over five years, staying with a pair of promising teen-age basketball players (William Gates, Arthur Agee, pictured), through their high school careers (KCET Sunday at 2 p.m.).