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The First Slam Dunk Reviews
The two-hour basketball game, rendered with solid animation that redefines the standard in the sports genre, moves at a fast-paced pace that never loses its pulse or excitement. [Full review in Spanish]
| Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 21, 2025
Takehiko Inoue’s The First Slam Dunk is a sports movie done right, with one of the best climaxes of the year that’s guaranteed to leave you fist-pumping the air.
| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 7, 2025
The First Slam Dunk's biggest finding is how well it conveys its nuances multi-dimensionally, and details the physical and emotional experience of a basketball game. [Full review in Spanish]
| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 27, 2024
The First Slam Dunk is one of the best basketball movies you could ever see. It's a suspenseful and emotionally gripping film that balances a story of achieving sports greatness and coping with grief.
| Feb 23, 2024
The game scenes are so well done...what a compelling film that almost anyone will enjoy.
| Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 26, 2023
Mixing hand-drawn art with digital trickery, the characters have real weight and presence on-screen, and the story is structured like a beefy biopic.
| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 5, 2023
While it leans a little heavily on baffling basketball strategy and court-based machinations, it's a dynamic and unexpectedly affecting animation.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 3, 2023
... The film may not be covering new ground thematically, but Inoue does take the novel step of dispensing with any build-up and filtering all the usual off-court drama through the action of a single championship game.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 31, 2023
Even if the film lacks the emotional wallop of the best sports movies, it brings a nifty new style to the genre.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 31, 2023
The First Slam Dunk will appeal to those with Hoop Dreams, or fans of the source material; a flawed but affectionate journey.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 31, 2023
Like the title says: a total slam dunk.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 30, 2023
The First Slam Dunk uses breathtaking, blended animation to bring basketball to life like no other film has previously.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2023
Apologies to Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan; this is the best animated basketball film ever.
| Aug 26, 2023
... A rare sports movie that captures the tensions and chaos of sometimes conflicting characters and personalities coming together as a team in a serious (and not just comedic) way.
| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 22, 2023
The CGI-led courtside portions (as opposed to traditional 2D for the real-life stuff) are miraculously kinetic, with beautifully shaded character models. Inoue orchestrates it all into a rousing, garage rock-powered finale.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 22, 2023
Heart-pounding and heartrending, first-time director Takehiko Inoue's adaptation of his own manga proves that he has the skills of a pro.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2023
The sound design brings up every squeak of a sneaker on the gym floor. It really feels like you're at a basketball game.
| Aug 11, 2023
Complicated emotionally and very exciting visually. I really enjoyed it, and I think basketball fans will get off on it.
| Aug 11, 2023
There's never been any truly great basketball feature films. Boxing? Sure. Baseball? Definitely, but not basketball. In his directorial debut, Takehiko Inoue not only gives us the first, but one of the best sports movies ever. [Full Review in Spanish]
| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 4, 2023