Ross McElwee Movies

Hailed by some as a cinematic genius, a feminist voice and a true maverick of American cinema, dismissed by others as a voyeuristic fraud and the...

Ross McElwee travels through the North Carolina tobacco belt in search of the ancient southern traditions associated with tobacco growing and use,...

This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in...

Ross McElwee sets out to make a documentary about the lingering effects of General Sherman's march of destruction through the South during the Civil...

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, Sweetgrass follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana's...

In 1986, Ross McElwee (Sherman's March) and Marilyn Levine were making a film about the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall, when the imposing...

After documentarian Ross McElwee gets married, a series of misfortunes follow: his grandmother dies, his wife miscarries, and then his father dies...

Filmmaker Ross McElwee trails characters whose stories have been fodder for television news and takes their tales of loss and longing further than...

Distressed over his teenaged son's addiction to the Internet and fearful that the developing boy has grown detached from the real world, documentary...

In Charleen, documentarian Ross McElwee looks at the life of a North Carolina poet and teacher who acts as a muse to a motley crew of artists and...

Focusing on three residents of Cape Canaveral, Florida this film puts forward the thesis that a decline in NASA's space program after the moon...

Documentary feature. 16mm; color; sound.

Vladimir is an impeccably dressed student who wants to become a spy. In pursuit of this goal he learns all he can about espionage, learning codes and...

Early documentary short by Ross McElwee. 16mm; color; sound.

Documentary film maker Ross McElwee returns to his family home in Charlotte NC. In filming his family, he captures a microcosm of Southern society.

Early documentary short by Ross McElwee. 16mm; color; sound.

Documentary film by Ross McElwee.

This short film, made with my friends and filmmaking partners, Michel Negroponte and Alex Anthony, was commissioned by PBS's innovative TV Lab in...

For nearly forty years, Ross McElwee has made closely observed and profoundly subjective documentaries about how his personal life intersects with...