Field of Dreams is a 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, based on Canadian novelist W.P.

It received positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Troubled by his broken relationship with his late father John, a devoted baseball fan, Ray fears growing old without ever having done anything to achieve his dreams.

Ray and Annie attend a PTA meeting, where she argues against someone who is trying to ban books by Terence Mann, a controversial author and activist from the 1960s.

Ray deduces the voice was referring to Mann, who had named one of his characters "John Kinsella" and had once professed a childhood dream of playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

There Ray hears the voice urging him to "go the distance", seeing statistics on the scoreboard for Archie "Moonlight" Graham, who played in one 1922 game for the New York Giants but never got to bat.

During the drive back to Iowa, Ray and Mann pick up a young hitchhiker named Archie Graham, who is looking for a baseball team to join.

At 14, after reading one of Mann's books, Ray stopped playing catch with his father, and they became estranged after he mocked John, saying "[he] could never respect a man whose hero [Joe] was a criminal."

As he heads back toward the cornfield, he is commended by the other players, and before he can disappear into the corn, Shoeless Joe calls out, "Hey, rookie!

Lawrence Gordon worked for 20th Century Fox, part of the time as its president, and repeatedly mentioned that the book should be adapted into a film, but the studio always turned down the suggestion because they felt the project was too esoteric and noncommercial—Fox’s Production Chief, Scott Rudin, eventually withdrew his support and put Field of Dreams into turnaround.

[9] Robinson and the producers did not originally consider Kevin Costner for the part of Ray Kinsella because they did not think that he would want to follow Bull Durham with another baseball film.

When Salinger threatened the production with a lawsuit if his name was used, Robinson decided to rewrite the character as reclusive Terence Mann.

Robinson had originally envisioned Shoeless Joe Jackson as being played by an actor in his 40s, someone who would be older than Costner and who could thereby act as a father surrogate.

[11] Burt Lancaster had originally turned down the part of Moonlight Graham, but changed his mind after a friend, who was also a baseball fan, told him that he had to work on the film.

[8] During a lunch with the Iowa Chamber of Commerce, Robinson broached his idea of a final scene in which headlights could be seen for miles along the horizon.

A production assistant drove from the set into town and measured the distance between, deducing it would require 1,500 cars to fill the shot.

Because the shooting schedule was too short for grass to naturally grow, the experts on sod laying responsible for Dodger Stadium and the Rose Bowl were hired to create the baseball field.

[11] At first, James Horner was unsure if he could work on the film due to scheduling restrictions until he watched a rough cut and was so moved that he accepted the job of scoring it.

They are listed in the following order in the closing credits: The character played by Burt Lancaster and Frank Whaley, Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, is based on an actual baseball player with the same name.

For instance, the real Graham's lone major league game occurred in June 1905,[15] rather than on the final day of the 1922 season.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Field of Dreams is sentimental, but in the best way; it's a mix of fairy tale, baseball, and family togetherness.

"[20] Caryn James of The New York Times wrote: "A work so smartly written, so beautifully filmed, so perfectly acted, that it does the almost impossible trick of turning sentimentality into true emotion.

"[21] Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter praised Costner for his performance, writing that it was his "eye-on-the-ball exuberance that carries Dreams past its often mechanical aesthetic paces.

"[22] Variety gave the film a mixed review: "In spite of a script hobbled with cloying aphorisms and shameless sentimentality, Field of Dreams sustains a dreamy mood in which the idea of baseball is distilled to its purest essence.

Just when Jones was delivering an inexcusably sappy speech about baseball being "a symbol of all that was once good in America," I heard the words "If he keeps talking, I'm walking.

""[24] Former U.S. president George W. Bush named the film as his favorite, saying that it made him cry because it reminded him of playing catch with his father.

[44] In 2019, Major League Baseball announced that it would hold a neutral-site regular season game between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees at the Dyersville site on August 13, 2020, playing on an 8,000-seat field constructed adjacent to the original, with a pathway connecting the two.

[45] In July 2020, because of the shortened 2020 Major League Baseball season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that the White Sox would be playing the St. Louis Cardinals instead of the Yankees.

The Cubs and Reds then also entered from the cornfield beyond centerfield along with multiple National Baseball Hall of Fame members representing both teams – catcher Johnny Bench and shortstop Barry Larkin for the Reds along with second baseman Ryne Sandberg, outfielder Andre Dawson, pitcher Ferguson Jenkins and left fielder Billy Williams for the Cubs.

[52][53] In August 2021, plans were announced to remake the film as a television series, produced by Lawrence Gordon and written by Michael Schur, for Peacock.