Steve James

Biography

Steve James is an American film producer and director of several documentaries, including the award-winning Hoop Dreams and Stevie. He is also the director of the 1997 feature film Prefontaine. His newest film, The Interrupters, a portrayal of a year inside the lives of former gang members in Chicago who now intervene in violent conflicts, will be released in 2011 after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is his sixth feature length collaboration with his long-time filmmaking home, the non-profit Chicago production studio Kartemquin Films, and is also his fifth feature to be accepted into the Sundance Film Festival. He is a graduate of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, studying with Charles Harpole. His work, he tells journalist Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life, was strongly influenced by the film Harlan County, USA. There’ve been many documentaries over the years that have powerfully impacted me. I think this one came along at the time when I was more interested in being a feature filmmaker than a documentary filmmaker. So it came along at the beginning of a process of moving from an interest in feature film to documentaries…

Directed

1. Life Itself (2014) — Director
2. Hoop Dreams (1994) — Director
3. Prefontaine (1997) — Director
4. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2017) — Director
5. The Interrupters (2011) — Director
6. 30 for 30 (2009) — Director
7. Stevie (2003) — Director
8. No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson (2010) — Director
9. Joe and Max (2002) — Director
10. At the Death House Door (2008) — Director
11. Head Games (2012) — Director
12. Storyville (1997) — Director
13. Reel Paradise (2005) — Director
14. A Compassionate Spy (2022) — Director
15. Passing Glory (1999) — Director
16. America to Me (2018) — Director
17. City So Real (2020) — Director
18. We the Economy: 20 Short Films You Can't Afford to Miss (2014) — Director
19. Grassroots Chicago (1991) — Director
20. Life After Hoop Dreams (2015) — Director
21. Higher Goals (1992) — Director
22. The Value of Work — Director
23. The New Americans (2003) — Director
24. Focus Forward: Short Films, Big Ideas (2012) — Director
25. The Luckiest Guy in the World (2023) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Heartbeats (2010) — Party Lover (uncredited)
2. Life Itself (2014) — Self - Filmmaker / Narrator (voice)
3. Hoop Dreams (1994) — Narrator (voice)
4. These Amazing Shadows (2011) — Self
5. Stevie (2003) — Self
6. No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson (2010) — Self / Narrator (voice)