The Chosen is the 1981 film adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel about friendship between two Jewish boys growing toward adulthood.
The film centers on Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, who meet in Brooklyn and form a complicated friendship despite coming from different Jewish religious environments. Their relationship is shaped by study, family expectations, political disagreements, and the question of how tradition should be carried into the future.
Although the story includes the boys’ movement toward religious adulthood, the film is broader than a bar mitzvah story. It explores father-son relationships, Jewish identity, Zionism, and the meaning of silence and communication within families.
The adaptation was directed by Jeremy Kagan and stars Barry Miller and Barry Livingston as Reuven and Danny. The novel The Chosen was published in 1967, fourteen years before the film.