Best movies like Heaven Is a Playground
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Heaven Is a Playground Starring Nigel Miguel, Victor Love, Bo Kimble, D.B. Sweeney, and more. If you liked Heaven Is a Playground then you may also like: O, Rebound, Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault, Above the Rim, The Air Up There and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
On Chicago's South Side, too many kids get their one shot in life at the wrong end of a gun. But Byron Harper is determined to change all that with a dream called basketball. His hottest player, Truth, has a chance to turn pro, but first Harper has to tackle two major obstacles: Truth's drug problem and his ambitious, crooked sports agent. Enter Zack Telander, a promising young attorney who has given up his small-town law practice. He's spending a summer in the city playing pick-up basketball games and re-thinking his future. Harper asks for his help, but first Zack has to prove himself at hoops.
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Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Above the Rim
Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.
The Air Up There
Jimmy Dolan is a college basketball coach who wants a big promotion. To get it, he needs to make a dramatic find. He ends up deep in Africa, hoping to recruit Saleh, a huge basketball prodigy Jimmy glimpsed in a home movie. But Saleh is the chief's son and has responsibilities at home, since the tribe's land is threatened by a mining company with its own hotshot basketball team.
The Basketball Diaries
A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.
Blue Chips
Pete Bell, a college basketball coach is under a lot of pressure. His team isn't winning and he cannot attract new players. The stars of the future are secretly being paid by boosters. This practice is forbidden in the college game, but Pete is desperate and has pressures from all around.
Celtic Pride
Two over-loyal Celtic fans kidnap their opponent's star player in order to guarantee their team the championship.
Coach Carter
Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.
One Man and His Shoes
'One Man and His Shoes' tells the story of the phenomenon of Air Jordan sneakers showing their social, cultural and racial significance and how ground-breaking marketing strategies created a multi-billion-dollar business.
Love & Basketball
Monica Wright and Quincy McCall grew up in the same neighborhood and have known each other since childhood. As they grow into adulthood, they fall in love, but they also share another all-consuming passion: basketball. As Quincy and Monica struggle to make their relationship work, they follow separate career paths though high school and college basketball and, they hope, into stardom in big-league professional ball.
The Sixth Man
A college athlete returns from the dead to help his brother's basketball team win the NCAA title.
He Got Game
A basketball player's father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.
Home of the Giants
A story about basketball and befriending. Gar is a High School journalist who, while covering the team to the state championship, is best friends with the teams' main "Star" Matt Dunbar. Matt's older brother persuades him to steal money from a drug dealers' home. Gar tags along, but soon things go horribly wrong. One question to ask is "Will the Giants win the big game?
Hoop Dreams
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 its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.
Like Mike 2: Streetball
Another young boy with 'hoop dreams' finds an old pair of Michael Jordan's sneakers and can suddenly play ball like the greatest player in the world.
Michael Jordan to the Max
This documentary showcases basketball player Michael Jordan's awe-inspiring moves, providing behind-the-scenes and on-the-court action, including footage of Jordan and the Chicago Bulls going head-to-head against the Utah Jazz in the 1997 NBA Finals. Phil Jackson and Bob Costas are interviewed (among others), and the awesome soundtrack includes songs by Earth, Wind and Fire, Fatboy Slim and Freddie King.
Hurricane Season
Based on true events amid the wreckage and chaos dealt by Hurricane Katrina; one basketball coach in Marrero, Louisiana just will not give up. Coach Al Collins, gathers other players from hard-hit schools and builds a team actually worthy enough to go to the state playoffs.
Cornbread, Earl and Me
The unintentional shooting by police of a star basketball player has profound personal, political and community repercussions in this acclaimed adaptation of the novel Hog Butcher by Ronald Fair. This was one of the more thoughtful urban dramas produced at the height of the "blaxploitation" craze. Also released under the title Hit the Open Man, it features the screen debut of Laurence Fishburne, who was barely a teenager at the time.
High Flying Bird
During an NBA lockout, a sports agent, Ray Burke, presents his rookie client, Erick Scott, with an intriguing and controversial business opportunity.
Sunset Park
A school teacher takes over a talented, but undisciplined high school basketball team and turns them into a winning team.
Thunderstruck
After NBA star Kevin Durant switches talent with 16 year old Brian, the teenager becomes the star of his high school team, but Durant starts struggling and eventually learns an important lesson.
The Winning Season
A comedy centered on a has-been coach who is given a shot at redemption when he's asked to run his local high school's girls basketball team
Pistol: The Birth of a Legend
A story about the great basketball player "Pistol" Pete Maravich when he was in the eighth grade. He plays on the varsity basketball team at Daniel High School but has some very difficult obstacles standing in his way of playing. The only support he has is from his father, retired basketball pro Press Maravich.
The Harlem Globetrotters
All-American basketball player, Billy signs up with the world-famous "Harlem Globetrotters", an all-Negro professional team. Billy struggles with important life decisions and their consequences.
Out of Bounds
Travis Elliot, a star high school basketball player from Memphis, Tennessee must save his older brother but is torn between playing the sport that he loves or living a life of crime.
Believe in Me
In a conservative small town, a young man's wish to coach high school basketball are tweaked by a school board decision that makes him the new coach of the girls' team.
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh basketball team is hopeless. Maybe with the aid of an astrologer, and some new astrologically compatible players, they can become winners.
Talent for the Game
Major League Baseball scout must find promising young player to save his job and his team.
Big and Hairy
A boy moves into a new town and has difficulty making friends, so he joins the basketball team. Initially experiencing little success, his popularity increases when he convinces a Sasquatch to join the team.
White Men Can't Jump
Seemingly opposite street hoopers, Jeremy, an injury prone former star, and Kamal, a has-been prodigy, team up to take one final shot at living out their dreams.
Gas House Kids Go West
The second of three "Bowery Boys" rip-offs produced by bargain-basement Producers Releasing Corporation.
Sweetwater
In 1990 Chicago, a taxi driver recounts to his passenger, a sportswriter, his life story. He reveals himself to be Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, one of the first African Americans to play in the NBA.
Uncle Drew
Uncle Drew recruits a squad of older basketball players to return to the court to compete in a tournament.
On Chicago's South Side, too many kids get their one shot in life at the wrong end of a gun. But Byron Harper is determined to change all that with a dream called basketball. His hottest player, Truth, has a chance to turn pro, but first Harper has to tackle two major obstacles: Truth's drug problem and his ambitious, crooked sports agent. Enter Zack Telander, a promising young attorney who has given up his small-town law practice. He's spending a summer in the city playing pick-up basketball games and re-thinking his future. Harper asks for his help, but first Zack has to prove himself at hoops.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Heaven Is a Playground Starring Nigel Miguel, Victor Love, Bo Kimble, D.B. Sweeney, and more. If you liked Heaven Is a Playground then you may also like: O, Rebound, Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault, Above the Rim, The Air Up There and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
O
Even though he's the only black student at the elite Palmetto Grove Academy, star basketball player and future NBA hopeful Odin James has the adoration of all, including the team's coach and the Dean's beautiful daughter Desi. Odin's troubled friend Hugo, the coach's son, is deeply resentful of his father's preference of Odin on and off the court. When Hugo plots a diabolical scheme to sow the seed of mistrust between O and Desi, it sets in motion a disturbing chain of events which erupts into a firestorm of breathtaking intensity.