Elephant is the second film in Van Sant's "Death Trilogy"—the first is Gerry (2002) and the third Last Days (2005)—all three of which are based on actual events.

Although Elephant was controversial for its subject matter and allegations of influence on the Red Lake shootings, it was generally praised by critics and received the Palme d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

Bulimics Nicole, Brittany, and Jordan gripe about their parents and squabble while popular athlete and lifeguard Nathan meets with his girlfriend, Carrie.

Their motives for the shooting appear vague; the film provides evidence suggesting bullying, neglect, violent video games, and Nazism.

Alex enters the cafeteria, which is strewn with overturned chairs, backpacks, several dead bodies, and numerous abandoned half-eaten lunches, and sits down.

The film began as a documentary that Van Sant had intended to make about the Columbine High School massacre; eventually, the idea of a factual account was dropped.

The script was "written" to its final form during shooting, with cast members improvising freely and collaborating in the direction of scenes.

[4] Van Sant originally believed Clarke's title referred to the parable of the blind men and an elephant, in which several blind men try to describe an elephant, and each draws different conclusions based on which body part they touched, and Van Sant's film uses that interpretation, as the same general timeline is shown multiple times from multiple viewpoints.

[5] Later, Van Sant discovered Clarke's film referred to the phrase "elephant in the room" (the collective denial of some obvious problem).

[6] Also, Gus Van Sant named Chantal Akerman's film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) as an inspiration.

[10] Roger Ebert praised the film and gave it 4 out of 4 stars writing "Gus Van Sant's Elephant is a violent movie in the sense that many innocent people are shot dead.

Van Sant has made an anti-violence film by draining violence of energy, purpose, glamor, reward and social context.

Much more than the insipid message movies shown in social studies classes, it might inspire useful discussion and soul-searching among high school students.

[21] The Red Lake shootings that occurred in 2005 were briefly blamed on the film, as it was viewed by gunman Jeff Weise 17 days prior to the event.