With a new date and a show time, American Center will screen, a series of mvies under the theme of after school movies during the month of January.

‘Hoosiers’, 1986 sports film about a small-town Indiana high school basketball team that wins the state championship will be screened on Thursday, Janaury 15 at 2.30 pm at the American Center Colombo, Galle Road, Colombo-3.

An unexpected late-1986 box-office hit, Hoosiers tells the true story of a group of underdogs who become champions. Set in the 1950s, Hoosiers is about a hard-luck, unemployed college basketball coach (Gene Hackman) who gets a chance to coach a small-town Indiana high-school basketball team. Facing resentment from the community and the team itself, Hackman manages to inspire his young athletes, leading them to the state championship with the help of the assistant coach (Dennis Hopper), who happens to be a recovering alcoholic.

It stars Gene Hackman as a new coach with a spotty past, Barbara Hershey, Sheb Wooley, and Dennis Hopper as the basketball-loving town drunkard; a performance that brought Hopper an Oscar nomination.

The movie was written by Angelo Pizzo, who also co-produced the underdog sports movie Rudy, and directed by David Anspaugh, who directed the latter film. The score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, who was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score.

The film was the choice of the readers of USA Today newspaper as the best sports movie of all time.
In 2001, Hoosiers was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.