Eleanor Coppola's Unused Footage Becomes Making Marie Antoinette
A documentary built from years-old footage of a film's set opens in cinemas on 23 October 2026. Making Marie Antoinette is the work of Sofia Coppola, who edited it from material her mother shot while she made her 2006 film Marie Antoinette.
Eleanor Coppola filmed her daughter at work at Versailles and elsewhere in France, and she shot almost 100 hours that were never used in the 2006 film, according to Variety. The new film is a "making-of" documentary, meaning a film about how another film was made. Sofia Coppola was in her mid-30s and had two features behind her when she directed the earlier picture.
The idea came during the COVID pandemic. Eleanor told her daughter she wanted to do something with the footage. Eleanor died in 2024, and Sofia Coppola went on to cut the material into a feature. Diane Lane reads Eleanor's diary observations in voice-over. Lane starred in Paris Can Wait, Eleanor Coppola's 2016 feature debut as a director.
The family has form in this area. Eleanor Coppola's 1991 film Hearts of Darkness documented the troubled shoot of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and it remains one of the best-known films about making a film.
The earlier picture also has a notable creative credit. Costume designer Milena Canonero won her third of four Oscars for her work on Marie Antoinette, the company said in its listing for the film. Sofia Coppola had already won an Oscar for writing Lost in Translation before she made it.
Distribution is in the hands of Mubi, the streaming service and film distributor. It has acquired worldwide rights to the documentary, as The Hollywood Reporter reported in July 2026. AMC Theatres lists the running time at 1 hour 26 minutes and the film as not rated, which means it has not received an official rating from the US classification body.
The film also has an early mark of recognition. The Alliance of Women Film Journalists chose it as its Movie of the Week for 23 October 2026.
Sofia Coppola has said she plans to return to narrative filmmaking after this release, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her next fiction feature has not been announced.
For audiences, the film offers a second look at a shoot that most viewers only know from the finished picture. It shows the daily work of a set through the eyes of a family member with a camera, and it does so with a film that is now 20 years old.
