"For the past twenty-five years, Ross McElwee has given new meaning and flair to first-person non-fiction cinema. Always wise and irreverent, ever the unreliable narrator, McElwee makes the grandest themes of human comedy his artistic province: love and death, chance and fate, memory and denial, the marvelous and the appalling." (from The Museum of Modern Art)

"Accept no imitations: A film by Ross McElwee could be made by no other. Since his hilarious autobiographical breakthrough, Sherman's March, the profound artist-philosopher has been using his own life as a springboard to examine humankind's biggest issues, and tiniest. McElwee makes movies the way life might, ideally, be lived." (from Entertainment Weekly)

Titles included in this collection:

Charleen (59 minutes, color, 1978)
One month in the life of Charleen Swansea, North Carolina poet, mother, beloved teacher, eccentric, romantic, and complex star of McElwee's Sherman's March. "Charleen is an irresistible force caught beautifully on the run."
- The New York Times

Backyard ( 40 minutes, color, 1984)
The result of McElwee turning his camera on his family and their neighbors, the film is a humorous and poignant look at odd moments in a genteel Southern town. "Backyard is equal parts Samuel Beckett, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog." - Boston Globe

Sherman's March (155 minutes, color, 1986)
Chosen by the Library of Congress as a "historically significant American motion picture," Sherman's March, one of the first high grossing documentaries ever, is “an autobiographic quest for true romance: filmmaker Ross McElwee, camera in hand and eros on his mind after an old girlfriend deserts him, trains his lens with phallic resolve on every accessible women he meets along the original route of General Sherman's Civil War March." (Pat Graham, Chicago Reader's Circle) "A wonderfully goofy movie! "- Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Time Indefinite (117 minutes, color, 1993)
McElwee, Charleen Swansea, and several other memorable characters you met in Sherman's March invite you to pick up their story in Time Indefinite, McElwee's hilariously profound sequel to his much-beloved, critically acclaimed hit. "The best film of the year! Glorious! A sequel that eclipses his cult hit Sherman's March. Profoundly stirring, bittersweet and uplifting!" - Washington Post

Six O'Clock News (103 minutes, color, 1997)
Made after McElwee becomes a father and finds himself at home watching a lot more TV, he becomes obsessed with the nightly tales of calamity reported on by the local news."Another disarming, quirky cinematic journal from Ross McElwee." -The New York Times

Bright Leaves (105 minutes, color, 2004)
McElwee family legend has it that the Hollywood melodrama Bright Leaf starring Gary Cooper as a 19th century tobacco grower, is based on McElwee's great-grandfather who created the famous "Bull Durham” brand. Using this legacy as a jumping off point, McElwee reaches back to his roots in this wry, witty rumination on American History, the tobacco business, and the myth of cinema. "Brilliantly amusing. . . just sings along!- Washington Post