Film

The Long Goodbye

Name: The Long Goodbye
Genre: Mystery, Drama, Crime
Released: 1973
Cast: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson

Robert Altman's shaggy, melancholy take on Philip Marlowe: a mumbling, hopelessly loyal relic dropped into a smog-hazed 1970s LA that has no use for his code anymore. The mystery matters less than the mood here — funny, sad, deliberately aimless, gliding along on that one wandering theme song played a dozen different ways. For viewers who want atmosphere and moral weariness over tight plotting.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love Robert Altman's loose, mumbling reinvention of a classic detective, where the cynicism is wry, the cigarette smoke hangs in every frame, and the genre rules are treated as a suggestion.

Skip it if you want a tidy whodunit with brisk plotting and clear answers, since this one drifts through its runtime, prizes mood and offhand conversation over solving anything, and may frustrate anyone wanting a conventional mystery.

What it asks of you: Roughly two hours at an amble, with long unhurried scenes, a shambling hero, and patience for a story that prefers wandering to driving straight at its crime.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Chinatown1974

It pairs perfectly as the same era's other great LA noir — polished where Altman's is scruffy, but sharing the same conviction that the city's rot goes all the way to the top.

But It's grim and airtight where Altman's film is loose and shaggy; there are no laughs here to cushion the despair.

The Big Sleep1946

Bogart's original Marlowe is the cool, controlled model Gould's shambling version is gently mocking — watch the two side by side and see exactly what Altman was rewriting.

But The plot is famously, almost proudly incoherent — style over sense, and a style very much of its decade.

Night Moves1975

Gene Hackman plays another private eye drowning in a case that resists solving, wrapped in the same 70s haze of exhaustion and quiet disillusionment.

But Even bleaker in its conclusions, with far less humor to soften the fatalism — a genuinely punishing watch.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Long Goodbye

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kiss Me Deadly1955

Altman's Marlowe is a relic wandering through a genre already gone rotten; Kiss Me Deadly is the film that did the rotting first, curdling the detective story into paranoid nihilism decades before it was fashionable.

The film that first turned the private-eye story rancid — Mike Hammer chases a MacGuffin straight into apocalyptic nihilism, shot in jagged black-and-white nearly twenty years before Altman got there.

But Blunt, ugly, and casually cruel in ways period-typical but still hard to stomach — nothing like Altman's wry humor.

Inherent Vice2014

Paul Thomas Anderson's stoned, digressive LA detective story is the direct descendant of Altman's approach — plot treated as an afterthought, vibe treated as everything.

But Deliberately hard to follow, and the shaggy-dog comedy won't land for anyone actually wanting a mystery solved.

The Nice Guys2016

Same seedy LA underbelly, played this time as loud buddy comedy — a good chaser if you want the setting without the melancholy weighing it down.

But Broader and brasher throughout, trading Altman's wistful cool for slapstick, one-liners, and a much faster pace.

Klute1971

The same early-70s unease runs through this one, a detective story that's really a character study, with Jane Fonda carrying a quiet dread Altman built around Gould instead.

But Slower and more claustrophobic, and considerably less funny — a colder, more interior kind of film altogether.

Farewell, My Lovely1975

Robert Mitchum plays a world-weary Marlowe two years later, straighter and sadder than Gould's — a fascinating compare-and-contrast on how the character bends.

But More conventional in structure and tone, without Altman's formal daring or his streak of dark comedy.

L.A. Confidential1997

Another portrait of Los Angeles as a beautiful machine built for chewing people up, this time with a starrier cast and far tighter plotting.

But Considerably more polished and plot-driven — essentially everything Altman's loose, wandering version deliberately refuses to be.

The Conversation1974

Coppola's paranoid surveillance thriller shares the era's exhausted, watchful mood, with a lead who's quietly, permanently out of step with everyone around him.

But Much quieter and more interior, with almost no action — a very different, more suffocating kind of tension.

The Rockford Files1974

James Garner's Jim Rockford is the shambling, wisecracking, morally stubborn PI archetype Gould's Marlowe helped popularize, transplanted into the loose, hangout rhythms of serial television.

Same rumpled, perpetually broke, stubbornly principled private eye energy as Gould's Marlowe, stretched over six warm, dryly funny seasons of network television.

But Episodic and formulaic by design, shot with none of Altman's visual wit — comfort food rather than cinema.

High and Low1963

Both films hinge on a man entangled in a friend's possible guilt, testing what loyalty is actually worth; Kurosawa treats the question with grave weight where Altman plays it as weary comedy.

Kurosawa's meticulous, tense crime drama follows a man drawn into someone else's crisis through loyalty and guilt — the same setup as Altman's film, played with total moral seriousness.

But Black-and-white, subtitled, and methodical rather than loose — the opposite temperature from Altman's shrugging, ironic cool.