James Benning
Over the past thirty-five years James Benning (b. 1942) has played a central role in the history of American independent cinema by offering his rigorously structured yet wonderfully graceful films as extended meditations on the American landscape and its social and environmental histories. Benning’s life and work have been shaped by his passionate wanderlust—born in Milwaukee, he lived for intervals in Colorado, the Missouri Ozarks, Illinois and Oklahoma before settling in Val Verde, California in 1987, with car and motorcycle journeys around the country generating such films as I-94 (1975) and Four Corners (1997). His career has been equally restless, ranging from his early experimentation with an avant-garde aesthetic to his embrace, during the 1980s and 90s, of explicitly autobiographical elements and increased human content. With his “California Trilogy” (2000-2001) Benning entered a new phase, refining his formalist style and political concerns while distilling his abiding interest in place and exacting organizational structures.
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Films (115)
Eight Bridges
2026 · Director
Adulthood
2026 · Writer
Little Boy
2025 · Director
Cuba, an Historical Romance
2024 · Director
Breathless
2024 · Director
Allensworth
2022 · Director, Producer
TEN YEARS LATER
2022 · Director
Exquisite Moving Corpse
2022 · Director
The United States of America
2022 · Director, Writer
Benning's Dream
2021 · Self (voice)
In Process...
2021 · Director
From Bakersfield to Mojave
2021 · Director
Dancing in the Street, 11 grados de separación
2020 · Director
On Paradise Road
2020 · Director
PLACE
2020 · Director
She Dies Tomorrow
2020 · Leatherman
Maggie's Farm
2020 · Director, Editor, Writer, Director of Photography
中孚 61. The Inner Truth
2019
daylight
2019 · Director
Two Moons
2019 · Director
The Wrecker Kings
2019 · Thanks
Telemundo
2018 · Himself, Director, Producer
after Traylor. Thoreau cabin (2008-2018)
2018 · Director
glory
2018 · Director
Birth of a Nation
2018 · Director
L. Cohen
2018 · Himself, Director
SAM
2018 · Director
Readers
2017 · Director
Untitled Fragments
2017 · Director
Ash 01
2016 · Director
scorched earth
2016 · Director
thinking of red
2016 · Director
Fall Equinox
2016 · Director
wavelength
2016 · Director
Spring Equinox
2016 · Director
Measuring Change
2016 · Director
Fresh Air
2016 · Director
Santa Teresa & Other Stories
2015 · Thanks
Perimeter
2015 · Director
52 Films
2015 · Director
Concord Woods
2014 · Director
Natural History
2014 · Director
HF
2014 · Director
US 41
2014 · Director
signs
2014 · Director
Data Entry
2014 · Director
FUCK ME (green)
2014 · Director
FUCK ME (orange)
2014 · Director
Coming to Terms
2013 · The Father
Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater
2013 · Self
BNSF
2013 · Director
The War
2012 · Director
One Way Boogie Woogie
2012 · Director
Easy Rider
2012 · Director, Director of Photography, Writer, Producer, Editor
Stemple Pass
2012 · Ted Kaczynski (voice), Director, Producer, Editor, Director of Photography
Postscript
2012 · Director
Nightfall
2012 · Director
20 Little Films
2012 · Director
Maintenance
2012 · Himself
All That She Surveys
2012 · Writer
After Warhol
2011 · Director
Faces
2011 · Director
Small Roads
2011 · Director
Two Cabins
2011 · Director
YouTube Trilogy: 4 Songs, History, Asian Girls
2011 · Director
Twenty Cigarettes
2011 · Director, Writer
The Great Gatsby in Five Minutes
2011 · Owl Eyes
Tulare Road
2010 · Director
Pig Iron
2010 · Director, Writer, Producer, Director of Photography
Reforming the Past
2010 · Director
Faces 1973
2010 · Director
Among Enemies: Jeonju Digital Project 2010
2010 · Director
John Krieg Exiting the Falk Corporation in 1971
2010 · Director
Ruhr
2009 · Director, Editor, Sound Editor, Director of Photography, Writer
Fire & Rain
2009 · Director
Lunch Break
2008 · Editor
RR
2007 · Director
Casting a Glance
2007 · Director, Producer, Editor, Director of Photography, Sound
Water Spell
2007 · Thanks
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later
2005 · Director
74.78
2005 · Director
Ten Skies
2004 · Director, Producer
13 Lakes
2004 · Director
James Benning: Circling the Image
2003 · Himself
Sogobi
2002 · Director
Los
2001 · Director
El Valley Centro
2000 · Director
Utopia
1998 · Director
Four Corners
1997 · Narrator, Director
Deseret
1996 · Director
Panama: Exploring the Panama Canal
1995 · Director
North on Evers
1992 · Director
Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord
1989 · Thanks
Used Innocence
1989 · (voice), Director, Writer
TABLE TOP
1988 · Director
Landscape Suicide
1987 · Director, Writer, Director of Photography, Producer, Editor
O Panama
1985 · Editor, Sound, Director of Photography, Director
American Dreams (Lost and Found)
1984 · Director
Pascal's Lemma
1984 · Director
Him and Me
1982 · Director
Grand Opera: An Historical Romance
1979 · Director, Writer
11 x 14
1977 · Director, Editor, Producer, Writer, Director of Photography
One Way Boogie Woogie
1977 · Director, Writer
Chicago Loop
1976 · Director
9-1-75
1975 · Director
The United States of America
1975 · Director
3 Minutes on the Dangers of Film Recording
1975 · Director
Michigan Avenue
1974 · Director
8½ x 11
1974 · Director
I-94
1974 · Director
Time and a Half
1972 · Director
Did You Ever Hear That Cricket Sound?
1971 · Director
Two Skies
· Director
Hwy 1
· Director
Eden
· Director
Séries (0)
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