Brilliantly, unexpectedly, breathtakingly. Luhrmann has pulled off something that shouldn’t function on paper,  a concert documentary that feels like a séance, a restoration project that reads like a resurrection, and a biographical portrait told entirely by a long-dead man who somehow becomes more alive with every frame. For Elvis devotees, whether you’ve made pilgrimages to Graceland or just consider yourself a loyal citizen of Las Vegas, this is the film you didn’t know you needed.

Let’s start with the origin story, because it’s almost too perfect. Fifty hours of previously unseen Elvis footage was excavated from a Kansas salt mine, where it had been sitting in the dark for decades, waiting for its moment like a rhinestone jumpsuit in a storage unit. (Yes, Kansas. The man performed nearly a thousand shows in Vegas and his legacy was buried in the Midwest. The universe has a sense of humor.) The audio had been separated from the film, requiring a two-year synchronization effort that makes Peter Jackson’s Get Back look like a weekend of casual editing. The same restoration team that made you feel like you were personally hanging out with The Beatles in 1969 has worked their considerable magic here, rendering Elvis in crystalline clarity so sharp you’ll swear it was shot on digital yesterday rather than on film during the Nixon administration.

Here’s Luhrmann’s cleverest move: there are no modern-day witnesses. No celebrity friends. No music historians squinting into the camera. No retrospective commentary from people who met him once at a party. The narrator is Elvis himself, assembled from interview audio, and the effect is simultaneously intimate and genuinely eerie. It’s like receiving a voicemail from someone you’ve been missing for decades. For fans who feel they know Elvis — who have spent years with his music, his films, his mythology, this approach lands differently than it would for casual viewers. It feels earned.

This is Elvis reading “Burning Love” lyrics off a piece of paper at its live debut, workshopping emotional beats with his band like a method actor still finding the character, and wearing ladies’ underwear on his head after overzealous fans pelted the stage. It is, in the best possible way, profoundly humanizing. This isn’t the marble monument. This is the working musician, cracking jokes, recovering from stumbles, genuinely connecting with his band and his audience.

For Las Vegas regulars, EPiC carries a particular resonance that visitors might only partially grasp. The International Hotel — now The Westgate — is where Elvis staged his legendary 1969 return, where he performed for four consecutive weeks to sold-out crowds, where he essentially invented the modern Las Vegas residency as we understand it. Nearly a thousand shows at this venue. The building has Elvis in its bones. Watching this film and then stepping back into that space is something genuinely strange and moving, the kind of experience that makes you understand why people describe certain places as haunted, and mean it as a compliment.

EPiC is not a complicated film in terms of its intentions. Luhrmann is celebrating, not interrogating. He’s not interested in the appropriation debates or the pharmaceutical dependency that ultimately claimed Elvis’s life, and the film is lighter for those omissions in ways that are both understandable and occasionally noticeable. But a concert documentary is allowed to simply be a window into artistry, and what EPiC offers is exactly that: an astonishing, clarifying, visceral reminder that before Elvis was a cultural symbol, a tabloid fixture, a Halloween costume, or a Las Vegas institution, he was an artist of staggering genius.

See it in IMAX. See it with the biggest, loudest sound system you can find. Then walk down the hall at The Westgate and look at the lobby where it all happened, and let the city remind you, as it so often does, that some stories don’t end. They just find new stages.

If EPiC rekindles your devotion — or ignites a new one — The Westgate has assembled a 2026 calendar that reads like a fan’s dream itinerary:

Priscilla Presley, Live and In Person (May 2, 2026, 1:00 PM): The International Westgate Theater hosts Priscilla Presley herself for an intimate afternoon of personal storytelling. She published her own autobiography, Softly As I Leave You, in 2025, and she’s had plenty of time to reflect since Sofia Coppola put her life story on screen. If anyone can add complexity, warmth, and a firsthand perspective to the Elvis mythology, it’s her. Think of it as a companion piece to EPiC.

Viva! Elvis Tribute Festival (July 28–31, 2026): Four days of world-class tribute artists, elite performance competitions spanning Elvis’s entire career, and immersive fan experiences at what the resort correctly and without a trace of irony calls “the house Elvis built.” If you’re visiting Vegas that week, adjust your itinerary accordingly.

1969 LIVE! — The King Returns (July 31, 2026): Tribute artist Travis Powell takes the stage to commemorate the anniversary of Elvis’s original debut at this exact venue. If you’ve just watched EPiC and want to feel that energy without a time machine, this is your best available option.

1970 LIVE! — That’s The Way It Was (October 24, 2026): Powell returns to perform the full setlist from the 1970 documentary filmed right here at The Westgate. For the historically minded Elvis fan, this is essentially interactive cinema.