Sofia Coppola and the BTS footage of her 2006 film Marie Antoinette

A trip down memory lane

If you're a fan of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 cult classic Marie Antoinette, you’re about to be fed. A new documentary titled Making Marie Antoinette just dropped at the New York Film Festival, and it’s giving us a raw, fly-on-the-wall look at the production. The project was compiled by Sofia herself—with help from editor Aaron Matthews—using 80 hours of footage filmed by her late mother, Eleanor Coppola, during the movie's original shoot at the Palace of Versailles.

The vibes on set

Eleanor, who passed away in 2024 at age 87, always wanted this footage to be a film. It’s narrated by Diane Lane, who reads from Eleanor’s personal diaries from 20 years ago. Sofia admitted that watching her younger self on screen was a bit of a moment. “It’s embarrassing for me,” she said at the NYFF premiere. “When I’m in the trailer complaining that I don’t want to talk to my mom and being not nice… but it’s important to show all the sides, and I’m crabby sometimes!”

The doc captures everything: Jason Schwartzman (who is Sofia’s cousin) messing around on the harpsichord, Kirsten Dunst serving looks, and a tense confrontation scene where Asia Argento accidentally hit Dunst a little too hard. We even get to see the first time Sofia’s now-husband, Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars, met her mother.

Standing her ground

Real talk: the documentary also shows Sofia’s main character energy on set. One scene features a disagreement with cinematographer Lance Acord, who wanted more shots centered on King Louis XVI. Sofia, then 34, pushed back to keep the focus on Marie Antoinette. “It’s hard to believe twenty years ago that the female point-of-view was so unusual,” she noted. “I was still trying to find my way of being assertive on set about what I wanted.”

Why it matters

Beyond being a deep dive into cinema history, the documentary is a total love letter from mother to daughter. It honors costume designer Milena Canonero’s Oscar-winning work and shows the grit it takes to pull off a period piece. You can catch the doc when it drops on Mubi on October 23.