A brake, in particular for motor vehicles, has a friction member (1) which can be pressed an actuator (15) against or released from the friction face of an element (3) which is to be braked. The brake is equipped with a particularly simple and reliable readjustment device (7) and with an emergency release device (12), wherein the readjustment device has a spindle (9) which drives an adjustable element (8) which is connected thereto, and the emergency release device (12) has two cam disks (13, 14) which are rotatable relative to one another, one (14) of which cam disks is rotationally fixedly connected to the spindle (9).