Instant Favorite.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

DREAMKEEPER is a beautiful and powerful film.Shane, a 17-year-old Lakota Sioux who owes money to loan sharks and has all sorts of other troubles on his mind, travels with his 87-year-old grandfather from their South Dakota reservation to an inter-tribal pow-wow in Albuquerque, NM. Along the way, Grandfather spins a number of old myths and tales from the Lakota, Cheyenne, Mohawk, Kiowa, Blackfoot, Chinook-Salish, and several other tribes that teach Shane a great deal about how to approach this life and what follows it. The myths themselves are wonderfully played-out in realistic non-animated fashion, and the 180-minute film is evenly divided between Shane & Grandpa and the stories Grandpa tells. The costume design and settings in the myth sequences are as good or better than those in even the very best western films: DREAMKEEPER truly puts you among the Indians. The cinematography and acting are also splendid throughout. Amazing special effects too.This film could have turned out really sappy, but despite the Hallmark, it's not. The realism is stunning, especially for a made-for-TV affair. Some violence and generally disturbing material, but no serious gore or sex/nudity. Grandpa's tales include everything from the ribald "What's this? My balls for your dinner?" to the transcendent "Quillwork Girl and Her Seven Star Brothers." Both of these tales, along with most of the others, are available in numerous books and websites, but I would particularly recommend American Indian MYTHS AND LEGENDS, compiled and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz and THE MYTHS of the NORTH American INDIANS, by Lewis Spence.

I stumbled across this on YouTube and started watching, it had me completely hooked. The story of the Thunder Spirit had me openly weeping, the sadness was so profound. I have since bought this film and on a bigger-than-computer screen it was truly wonderful. This film is such a welcome antidote to the saccharine, formulaic 'opium for the people' tripe that makes up the majority of what is churned out by Hollywood every year. Something with real depth, resonance and poignancy. I am a European and white and feel that this story / these stories, while Native American in origin and tradition, have something of enormous value to teach all of us. I couldn't agree more with the comments of the first reviewer.

Yesterday i bought the movie the Dreamkeeper because the little scenes i saw on TV during a commercial interested me a lot. I must say that this story was for sure not a disappointment because it is really a beautiful story which is a mix of fantasy, legends and old stories. In this story a boy from the Lakota Sioux tribe has problems because he has a quilt with an Indian gang. His grandfather wants to visit the powwow, which is a meeting between all kinds of tribes from the USA, in which the dances and traditions will be shared. The grandfather wants that his grandson takes him to the powwow and as reward he will receive a car from his grandfather. In the beginning he don't want that but when he realizes that he also has 1 day to pay the money back to the gang than it maybe could be a good alternative to escape. During the trip his grandfather starts to tell him stories which form the base of the movie. During the stories you enter a time of legends and fantasies but with every story the grandfather is teaching the grandson a lesson in life. The maker of this movie also made Arabian nights and you can see it a little back in this movie because the setup is the same because in Arabian nights a woman tells a movie to the sultan she wants to marry. This story really impressed me and i enjoyed it a lot, also because i am very interested in Indian tribes. This movie deserves a 9 out of 10 because i kept my attention for the full 3 hours it took, in one word beautiful and well done.

How can I get a DVD or VHS copy of this movie? I want to save this movie and watch it again. There are some great lessons to be learned. I like that fact that these legends are being saved. Like the line from the L.A. Times TV Times Commentary on Dreamkeeper says, "A lot of our elders are passing, and when they pass, people like myself and like my little sister will need to keep the stories alive. I am hoping that the native youth will embrace this, so people will always know we are still here."