James Benning
Directing
1942-12-28 · Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
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.
Filmography
Eight Bridges
2026 · Movie
Adulthood
2026 · Movie
Little Boy
2025 · Movie
Cuba, an Historical Romance
2024 · Movie
Breathless
2024 · Movie
Allensworth
2022 · Movie
TEN YEARS LATER
2022 · Movie
Exquisite Moving Corpse
2022 · Movie
The United States of America
2022 · Movie
Benning's Dream
2021 · Movie
In Process...
2021 · Movie
From Bakersfield to Mojave
2021 · Movie
Dancing in the Street, 11 grados de separación
2020 · Movie
On Paradise Road
2020 · Movie
PLACE
2020 · Movie
She Dies Tomorrow
2020 · Movie
Maggie's Farm
2020 · Movie
中孚 61. The Inner Truth
2019 · Movie
daylight
2019 · Movie
Two Moons
2019 · Movie
The Wrecker Kings
2019 · Movie
Telemundo
2018 · Movie
after Traylor. Thoreau cabin (2008-2018)
2018 · Movie
glory
2018 · Movie
Birth of a Nation
2018 · Movie
L. Cohen
2018 · Movie
SAM
2018 · Movie
Readers
2017 · Movie
Untitled Fragments
2017 · Movie
Ash 01
2016 · Movie
scorched earth
2016 · Movie
thinking of red
2016 · Movie
Fall Equinox
2016 · Movie
wavelength
2016 · Movie
Spring Equinox
2016 · Movie
Measuring Change
2016 · Movie
Fresh Air
2016 · Movie
Santa Teresa & Other Stories
2015 · Movie
Perimeter
2015 · Movie
52 Films
2015 · Movie
Concord Woods
2014 · Movie
Natural History
2014 · Movie
HF
2014 · Movie
signs
2014 · Movie
US 41
2014 · Movie
FUCK ME (orange)
2014 · Movie
FUCK ME (green)
2014 · Movie
Coming to Terms
2013 · Movie
Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater
2013 · Movie
BNSF
2013 · Movie
The War
2012 · Movie
One Way Boogie Woogie
2012 · Movie
Easy Rider
2012 · Movie
Stemple Pass
2012 · Movie
Postscript
2012 · Movie
Nightfall
2012 · Movie
20 Little Films
2012 · Movie
All That She Surveys
2012 · Movie
Maintenance
2012 · Movie
After Warhol
2011 · Movie
Faces
2011 · Movie
Small Roads
2011 · Movie
Two Cabins
2011 · Movie
YouTube Trilogy: 4 Songs, History, Asian Girls
2011 · Movie
Twenty Cigarettes
2011 · Movie
The Great Gatsby in Five Minutes
2011 · Movie
Tulare Road
2010 · Movie
Pig Iron
2010 · Movie
Reforming the Past
2010 · Movie
Faces 1973
2010 · Movie
Among Enemies: Jeonju Digital Project 2010
2010 · Movie
John Krieg Exiting the Falk Corporation in 1971
2010 · Movie
Ruhr
2009 · Movie
Fire & Rain
2009 · Movie
Lunch Break
2008 · Movie
RR
2007 · Movie
Casting a Glance
2007 · Movie
Water Spell
2007 · Movie
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later
2005 · Movie
74.78
2005 · Movie
Ten Skies
2004 · Movie
13 Lakes
2004 · Movie
James Benning: Circling the Image
2003 · Movie
Sogobi
2002 · Movie
Los
2001 · Movie
El Valley Centro
2000 · Movie
Utopia
1998 · Movie
Four Corners
1997 · Movie
Panama: Exploring the Panama Canal
1995 · Movie
Deseret
1995 · Movie
North on Evers
1992 · Movie
Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord
1989 · Movie
Used Innocence
1989 · Movie
TABLE TOP
1988 · Movie
Landscape Suicide
1987 · Movie
O Panama
1985 · Movie
American Dreams (Lost and Found)
1984 · Movie
Pascal's Lemma
1984 · Movie
Him and Me
1982 · Movie
Grand Opera: An Historical Romance
1979 · Movie
11 x 14
1977 · Movie
One Way Boogie Woogie
1977 · Movie
Chicago Loop
1976 · Movie
9-1-75
1975 · Movie
The United States of America
1975 · Movie
3 Minutes on the Dangers of Film Recording
1975 · Movie
Michigan Avenue
1974 · Movie
8½ x 11
1974 · Movie
I-94
1974 · Movie
Time and a Half
1972 · Movie
Did You Ever Hear That Cricket Sound?
1971 · Movie
Two Skies
Movie