Sherman's March (Ross McElwee)
Top Films of 2025
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2h 37m
Directed by Ross McElwee • Documentary • 1986 • 155 minutes
When First Run released Ross McElwee's Sundance Award winning Sherman's March in 1986, it went on to become one of the largest grossing documentaries ever. Audiences and critics alike fell in love with McElwee's "quirky, funny and fascinating" (Newsweek) first-person narratives that would help define a new era of personal documentaries.
After his girlfriend leaves him, McElwee takes a voyage along the original route followed by General William Sherman - but rather than cutting a swath of destruction designed to force the Confederate South into submission, as Sherman did, McElwee searches for love, camera in hand.
In 2000, Sherman' March was chosen for preservation by the Library of Congress National Film Registry as a "historically significant American motion picture." It has won best documentary awards at numerous film festivals, been cited by the National Board of Film Critics as one of the five best films of its year, selected for a Cinéma du Réel retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and chosen as "One of the Top 20 Documentaries of All Time" by the International Documentary Association.
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