Choose Me · reception & legacy
1984 · Alan Rudolph
How Choose Me has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A tiny-budget arthouse sleeper that critics adored in 1984, it then slipped into semi-obscurity for decades — until repertory screenings and streaming-era rediscovery recast it as Alan Rudolph's masterpiece and one of the great overlooked American romances of the '80s.
What's debated
The perennial fight: is Rudolph just 'Altman-lite' (he was Altman's protégé), or does Choose Me prove he had a dreamier, more romantic sensibility all his own?
Its footprint
The neon-soaked opening — strangers dancing in the street outside Eve's Lounge to Teddy Pendergrass's title song — is the film's calling card, endlessly clipped and cited as peak '80s romantic mood.
Where it stands
A cinephile secret-handshake film: beloved-but-underseen, a fixture of 'best films you've never heard of' lists and a quiet Letterboxd favourite among fans of lonely-people-in-bars cinema.