The Basketball Diaries poster & wallpaper

Leonardo DiCaprio, Lorraine Bracco, Ernie Hudson

Film adaptation of street tough Jim Carroll's epistle about his kaleidoscopic free fall into the harrowing world of drug addiction. As a member of a seemingly unbeatable high school basketball squad, ...( read more  read more... )Jim's life centers around the basketball court and the court becomes a metaphor for the world in his mind. A best friend who is dying of leukemia, a coach ("Swifty") who takes unacceptable liberties with the boys on his team, teenage sexual angst, and an unhealthy appetite for heroin -- all of these begin to encroach on young Jim's dream of becoming a basketball star. Soon, the dark streets of New York become a refuge from his mother's mounting concern for her son. He can't go home and his only escape from the reality of the streets is heroin for which he steals, robs and prostitutes himself. Only with the help of Reggie, an older neighborhood friend with whom Jim "picked up a game" now and then, is he able to begin the long journey back to sanity.

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79% liked it

46,846 ratings

Critics

38% liked it

34 critics

R, 120 min.

Directed by: Scott Kalvert

Release Date: April 21, 1995

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DVD Release Date: June 30, 1998

Stats: 2,231 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (2,231)

  • Mrbishi
    October 3, 2009
    Mrbishi
    By far still one of the best DiCaprio movies thats ever been, forget Titanic this tale of a mans fall and rise over smack addiction on the streets of New York to become an author, poet, autobiographer, and punk musician. Sadly Jim died of a heart attack at his Manhattan home on S...( read more)eptember 11, 2009 aged 60 so thought Id give this epic movie another run.
  • SirPant
    September 28, 2009
    SirPant
    Surprisingly good, not amazing and far from convincing but still pretty entertaining
  • 76Majikat
    February 7, 2009
    76Majikat
    The Basketball diaries takes you on a journey of a drug user from the very beginning and shows the escalation into drug abuse and the crimes comitted to support the habbit. The film lures you into a false sense of security by showing the boys just as juvenile delinquents , not e...( read more)xperiencing too many problems, then bang, they're hooked and everything changes.



    The end result (in my opinion) is Dicaprio?s finest performance to date and this is why I feel in later years he took on a few films that really didn?t show his acting skills at his best. One particular scene is extremely powerful and emotional.



    Based on a true story, this is a remarkable tale cleveryly put together.
  • benpuetz
    July 16, 2008
    benpuetz
    Basketball Diaries wasn't a bad movie...but it was by no means the great movie it could've been. It felt a bit drawn out and unrealistic, which is disappointing coming from a true story. I felt the final scene took some of the edge away from the movie. The acting by DiCaprio a...( read more)nd Wahlberg was very good. Worth an initial watch, but nothing I'll ever see again.
  • drago25
    March 19, 2008
    drago25
    Unlike the title suggests, luckily this film has little to do with basketball; other than its main characters being on a team and there being several scenes of it. In fact, the Basketball Diaries is the real-life story of Jim Carroll, now a successful writer, who spent his teenag...( read more)e years in Manhattan getting severely messed up on drugs along with a couple of his fellow Catholic schoolmates. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Carroll, in one of his first major roles. His performance in this film was probably somewhat overshadowed by his turn in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? a couple years earlier - but I think it's in this film where DiCaprio shows the best early indication of the immense talent he already had at 21, and how much he would grow from there. The film itself certainly doesn't slouch: I dug the direction & cinematography; many attempts have been made in films to recreate the drug experience, and they're usually not very successful. It was done really well in this film, though. Although the only way we can really consider the cast is as "Leo & the rest of the cast", the rest of the cast happens to be formidable. A young Mark Wahlberg is fun to watch (you can see where he got his tough-guy reputation early on). I was really surprised to see stand-up comic Bruno Kirby as the basketball coach - it surprises me he didn't have more of an acting career after this (other than bit comic relief parts, I mean), because I thought he was excellent, and there was nothing comic about the role whatsoever. I love Lorraine Bracco, as well. Anyway, there's an element of the poetic that seems forced sometimes, but that still connected with me. And in many ways, it's a story we can all relate to - made even more powerful by the fact that it's a true story. Not the greatest film ever made, nor the best drug film, but I really liked it, and it's worth seeing if just to see more of DiCaprio during his formative years as an actor.
  • xxxLimelight1991xxx
    November 15, 2009
    xxxLimelight1991xxx
    quite good movie ;-)
  • HateYouIgnorant
    October 31, 2009
    HateYouIgnorant
    !Comercial or Stupid! :|
  • TheQueenOfAwesomeness
    October 22, 2009
    TheQueenOfAwesomeness
    the tale of a group of promising high school basketball players (DiCaprio, Wahlberg, Madio) and their descent into the dark world of crime and drugs. based on the novel by Jim Carroll and featuring the original music by Michael Peter Balzary.

    one of my all-time favorite films a...( read more)nd yet another great performance by DiCaprio. an all around great film. ♥

    ** review to be continued **
  • magnolia12883
    October 20, 2009
    magnolia12883
    Here's a rise-and-fall tale with all the power and poignancy of an R-rated After School Special. Jim Carroll (Leonardo DiCaprio) "had it all": he was an up-and-coming star on his Catholic high school's basketball team, a potential All-American; he had a propensity for writing flo...( read more)wery poetry and prose about his angst-ridden young existence, sometimes with a certain gutter honesty ("Time flies when you're young and jerkin off"); he had a working mother (Lorraine Bracco) who cared for him, and a tough black playground opponent (Ernie Hudson) who tried to keep him on track. Of course, there were the bad things too: His basketball coach Swifty (Bruno Kirby) would not-so-subtly hit on him, and even propositions him down the line, and Jim also hung out with the wrong crowd: Pedro (James Madio), the short goofy would-be thief who enjoyed the company of the "in-crowd"; Neutron (Patrick McGaw), who turned out to be the conscience of the group and was smart enough to get out when he still could; and Mickey (Mark Wahlberg), a mad-dog with a viciously violent streak in him who never knew when to quit. His best friend Bobby (Michael Imperioli) was dying of leukemia, and Jim decides to take him to a peep show to "make him feel better." Then there was the neighborhood skank Diane (Juliette Lewis), whose obvious drug addiction should've been a harbinger of things to come. In a savage bit of irony, it was Jim's visit to a couple of Neutron's hooker friends (with the improbable work names of Winky and Blinky) that resulted in Jim's first taste of cocaine. He's hooked seemingly right away and it's not long before the narration shifts to right-to-the-point gut punch lines like "Did I ever tell you about the first time I did heroin?" Heroin becomes Jim's drug of choice, and it's not long before he's trying to play through games high, living on the street, robbing old women and candy stores, and turning tricks in subway bathroom stalls; it seems it took actually living the gutter lifestyle before Jim's poetry could have the ring of truth. Jim Caroll kept all of these thoughts, poems and experiences in an ongoing diary published in 1978. The film, directed by Scott Kalvert and adapted by Bryan Goluboff, is long on style but short on poignancy. Kalvert, a music video veteran, has made a directorial debut that takes the ugliness of heroin addiction, withdrawal, and living on Skid Row and tries to turn it into a music video-esque collage of horror and visual poetry: There was some controversy over a particularly offensive fantasy sequence in which Jim goes into his classroom, decked out in black leather, and blows away his fellow students with a big shotgun, mostly in slow motion and Dutch angles, his friends laughing the whole time. Similarly, after Bobby's death, we get a montage-like sequence of Jim and friends horsing around in the rain, playing basketball, and just generally spouting angst all set to the ghoulishly upbeat punk song "People Who Died," written and performed by the actual Jim Caroll. Is the message, it's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt? Great. What else? That's the general problem; the material is there but the treatment is off. Until I learned that Caroll in fact survived and turned his life around, becoming a published poet and author, as well as a successful musician, I found this film increasingly exploitative and offensive in its depiction of the "ugly truth" of the downtrodden; it seemed like it was trying to make the ugliness look pretty. That's not to say that the film doesn't have its moments; a scene with a shrieking Jim begging his mother (Bracco) for cash through the apartment door is particularly gut-wrenching. Indeed, the performances in general cannot be faulted. DiCaprio is good at playing essentially a whiny little kid who wants to grow up too fast because he thinks he's deeper and wiser than he is, and his supporting cast does what they can with underwritten and/or overplayed material. Ultimately, this is simply a case of style in place of substance; a near-total misfire.
  • heybarbara
    October 18, 2009
    heybarbara
    Kalvert's portrayal of a catholic school basketball star, turned junkie is touching, but definitely flawed. DiCaprio is pretty good in the lead role of Jim Caroll, although he had some problems with the drug scenes (especially the first one) and the basketball scenes (he played l...( read more)ike he sucked), other than that his performance was pretty good. The film had a great supporting cast, with Lorraine Bracco shining as his mother and Mark Wahlberg, Bruno Kirby and James Madio were all great in their roles, as well as Michael Rapaport, who stole his single scene from DiCaprio. The problem I had was that the film was not the most realistic, although a lot of the stuff it did portray I can either relate to or have seen go on in my high school (not exactly the most safe environment, California high schools or NY...). The direction was good keeping it interesting at most times, but i felt the screenplay was a bit weak and especially in the 3rd act it fell apart, although the ending was a bit cliché, it still helped as it rescued the 3rd act which seemed to be going nowhere. The acting was good, direction was nice and music used was also well done, screenplay was lackluster however.

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Critic Reviews

May 12, 2001
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

You leave The Basketball Diaries believing that Leonardo DiCaprio can do anything. full review

January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Will there ever be a market for a movie about a character who hurries past his drug phase because he can't wait to tell you what he did after he pulled his act together? Probably not. full review

View more The Basketball Diaries reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

  • Truth16
    March 21, 2008
    Truth16
    This movie opened my eyes to see life a different way,atleast for sometime.
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The Basketball Diaries Trivia

  • Which actor starred in The Beach, The Basketball Diaries and William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet?  Answer »
  • SAME NAME: Jason Biggs in American Pie James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries Sean Penn in We're No Angels John C. Reilly in Magnolia  Answer »
  • He played "Jim Carroll" in the basketball diaries  Answer »
  • If at some point in life we've all hated Leo DiCaprio, we got compensation in seeing him playing a heroin addict, and a retard (sorry, "mentally challenged"). The movies in question are:  Answer »
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