Remake

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Remake

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1h 54m

Documentary

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98%

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53 Reviews

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Fewer than 50 Ratings

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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Critics Consensus

All the more devastating for resisting easy sentimentality, Remake is a deeply personal investigation of memory that will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one.

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Kevin Maher

The Times (UK)

Oct 9, 2026

5/5

McElwee’s self-lacerating honesty informs the film’s emotional power.

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Wendy Ide

Observer (UK)

Oct 5, 2026

A raw, candid examination of the past, it’s an intricately structured assemblage that weaves together key moments from the film-maker’s career with fragments of domestic life.

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Leslie Felperin

Guardian

Sep 24, 2026

5/5

A profoundly moving work, one that will resonate with anyone who is a parent or close to a troubled kid, but one that has so much more about the making of art, its joys and its dishonesties. It lingers in the mind long after the tears have dried.

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Max Copeman

Radio Times

Oct 9, 2026

5/5

Celebrated American film-maker Ross McElwee mines his personal life like never before with this breathtakingly sad and searching documentary.

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Sarah Manvel

Movies We Texted About

Sep 28, 2026

Remake is therefore not an act of love but an act of control, and because of how technology now twists so many personal relationships, not enough people these days can tell the difference.

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William Stottor

Loud and Clear Reviews

Sep 21, 2026

4/5

It is comments like these that cause Remake to not just be an intensely personal memory piece, but also something bigger and universal.

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Chris V

@RT67356260 3 days ago

Exploiting your own child's death for a documentary is a new low. This film raises serious concerns about consent. I can see why the ex-wife wanted no part of this "documentary."

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Conor D

@Conor_D Oct 13, 2026

A masterpiece, and I do not use that term lightly. Never has art captured life so thoroughly and at this level of detail. Art imitates life, life imitates art. In this case, art is being used to capture life, life is being used to make art, but upon reviewing and retelling, art is being used to reveal a life- their decisions, motives, problems, thoughts, and dreams as best it can. A unique film, that, ironically, given the name, cannot and should not be tried again.

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Tamika A

@Tamikin Sep 3, 2026

Such an unusual little movie. It's not always easy to figure out what it's trying to say, but I found myself thinking about it long after the credits.

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B P

@Bradster69 Aug 30, 2026

Definitely Recommend It

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Robert S

@rodash Jul 16, 2026

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, 2026

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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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): $61.3K
Runtime: 1h 54m

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