In 2005, complete retrospectives of McElwee’s films were presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and later in Paris, Brussels, Milan, Lisbon, New Zealand, Seoul, Quito, and Nyon, Switzerland. Four of his films were featured in a selection of western documentaries shown for the first time in Tehran, and in 2015, McElwee presented his films in Changchun, Guangzhou, and Beijing, China.

McElwee has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Film Institute, the LEF Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival’s Career Award in 2007.  He is currently working on a documentary about the cable television remake of Sherman’s March.