An archival turn has recently been noted in twenty-first-century literature, as the construction of the archive has become central to the narrative of many acclaimed works of fiction (Chadwick, Collins). This turn goes beyond a thematic concern with the archive to include the visual insertion of archival material, such as photographs, documents, and other clippings, into the narrative discourse (Davis; Ivansson and Gibbons). This article addresses the convergence of this latest archival turn with metamodernism as an influential cultural mode by analysing how contemporary multimodal archival fiction’s interest in the archive compares with and expands on earlier modernist and postmodernist engagements with the archive as well as its critiques. I propose that multimodal archival fiction offers a new, complementary perspective to previous accounts of metamodern culture’s concern with historicity, depth, and sincerity. By analysing Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive, James Elkins’ Weak in Comparison to Dreams, and Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X as metamodern archival fiction, I show how contemporary archival fiction’s multimodal, stylistic, and thematic engagement with the archive not only returns to but expands on modernist and postmodern aesthetic strategies and concerns with history, authenticity, and identity.