Remake

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Remake

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1h 54m

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43 Reviews

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Filmmaker Ross McElwee has spent forty years recording himself and his family, creating documentaries that chronicle the shifting contours of American society through the lens of personal history. His son Adrian grew up inside those films, and eventually began experimenting with the camera himself. When a Hollywood producer acquires the rights to adapt McElwee's 1986 breakthrough SHERMAN'S MARCH into a work of fiction, twenty-year-old Adrian sees a chance for his father to finally reach a wider audience. As the adaptation stalls, Adrian gets swept into a deepening drug addiction and dies from a fentanyl overdose, leaving behind hours of personal video footage. Retracing Adrian's final years, McElwee reckons with what his camera captured and what remained hauntingly out of frame. As he reflects on a lifetime behind the camera, Ross's own effort to remix and remake the movie that Adrian never got to finish takes on new significance. An ever-expanding hall of mirrors built from decades of home movies, REMAKE is both McElwee's attempt to hold onto his son, and to let him go.

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Coleman Spilde

Salon.com

Aug 12

“Remake” is a truly singular piece of art, a self-reflexive rumination on life and the result of all its passions. It is memory embodied.

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Odie Henderson

Boston Globe

Jul 31

3.5/4

"Remake" becomes a heartbreaking eulogy and one of the year’s best documentaries. It’s a final father-son chat with someone who will never hear the words.

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Aisha Harris

NPR

Jul 30

You will know if you can handle it, and if you believe you can, it's absolutely worth it.

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Matt Goldberg

Commentary Track (Ghost.io)

6d

4/5

Like a true documentarian, he doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to find in his wealth of footage, and even the assemblage arrives at the turmoil of life itself.

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Ben Glidden

Film Threat

6d

10/10

This is not only his goodbye to Adrian, it’s his way of immortalizing him. While his life was cut short, his memory is now preserved forever.

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

Aug 10

More ruminative than revealing (or even moving), Remake is nonetheless impressive as a statement of ambivalence and helplessness. How can a parent explain away a child’s eventual ruin, or excuse themselves from any blame, whether deserved or not?

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Robert S

@rodash Jul 16

For those who know McElwee's films, it's a reunion, albeit often painful, with old friends. Some of the editing is brilliant, but the film ends up spinning its wheels and diminishing its power. Nevertheless, it's a must see for McElwee fans.

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Ian B

@RT59743223 Jul 11

Nothing else quite like it. A category of its own without question. Beautiful, haunting, and so stimulating at times it was hard to process as a true account, given it follows someone’s entire life, from start to finish. A film likely to inspire many filmmakers, and creatives, to come.

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Stephen C

@bob25009 Jul 10

The worldwide gross is $31,199.00.

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Ross McElwee

Director

Joe Bini

Director

Adrian McElwee

Self

Charleen Swansea

Self

Mark Meatto

Producer

Ross McElwee

Executive Producer

Remake: Trailer 1

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Synopsis

Filmmaker Ross McElwee has spent forty years recording himself and his family, creating documentaries that chronicle the shifting contours of American society through the lens of personal history. His son Adrian grew up inside those films, and eventually began experimenting with the camera himself. When a Hollywood producer acquires the rights to adapt McElwee's 1986 breakthrough SHERMAN'S MARCH into a work of fiction, twenty-year-old Adrian sees a chance for his father to finally reach a wider audience. As the adaptation stalls, Adrian gets swept into a deepening drug addiction and dies from a fentanyl overdose, leaving behind hours of personal video footage. Retracing Adrian's final years, McElwee reckons with what his camera captured and what remained hauntingly out of frame. As he reflects on a lifetime behind the camera, Ross's own effort to remix and remake the movie that Adrian never got to finish takes on new significance. An ever-expanding hall of mirrors built from decades of home movies, REMAKE is both McElwee's attempt to hold onto his son, and to let him go.

Director: Ross McElwee, Joe Bini
Producer: Mark Meatto, Ross McElwee
Screenwriter: Ross McElwee
Distributor: Music Box Films
Production Co: Giant Squid, Impact Partners
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jul 10, 2026, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA): $55.7K
Runtime: 1h 54m

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