The film was produced by Ted Hope and James Schamus' Good Machine production company and released through Sony Pictures Classics.

Although the script never mentions St. John's College, the film includes many visual and verbal references to the seminar-based Great Books program taught there.

Director Jenniphr Goodman, after finishing her studies at New York University's film school, returned with her husband to her childhood hometown of Santa Fe, where they shared a house with North, a friend from college.

The Goodman sisters and North spent the next two years writing multiple drafts of the script as it evolved from a personal odyssey story into a romantic comedy.

The Tao Of Steve: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released by Milan Records in 2000, and featured the following songs:[2] The film enjoyed mostly positive reviews.

It creates the feeling of settling in comfortably with old friends... One of the things I like about the movie is the wit of its dialogue, the way sentences and conversations coil with confidence up to a conclusion that is totally unexpected.

"[4] David Edelstein of Slate.com also praised the dialogue: "[The Tao of Steve] has some of the funniest romantic banter in a movie in years..." He says the film "...went down like a slice of warm pecan pie topped with two scoops of Ben & Jerry's Bovinity Divinity.

"[5] In reaction to the film's philosophical undertone, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that "it's pure pleasure" to watch a romantic comedy "with enough verbal smarts to coax laughs out of Lao Tzu, Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.