James Benning
Directing
Born December 28, 1942 · 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.
Directed (96)
Eight Bridges
2026
Little Boy
2025
Cuba, an Historical Romance
2024
Breathless
2024
Allensworth
2022
TEN YEARS LATER
2022
Exquisite Moving Corpse
2022
The United States of America
2022
In Process...
2021
From Bakersfield to Mojave
2021
Dancing in the Street, 11 grados de separación
2020
On Paradise Road
2020
PLACE
2020
Maggie's Farm
2020
daylight
2019
Two Moons
2019
Telemundo
2018
after Traylor. Thoreau cabin (2008-2018)
2018
glory
2018
Birth of a Nation
2018
L. Cohen
2018
SAM
2018
Readers
2017
Untitled Fragments
2017
Ash 01
2016
scorched earth
2016
Fall Equinox
2016
wavelength
2016
thinking of red
2016
Spring Equinox
2016
Measuring Change
2016
Fresh Air
2016
Perimeter
2015
52 Films
2015
Concord Woods
2014
Natural History
2014
HF
2014
US 41
2014
signs
2014
FUCK ME (green)
2014
FUCK ME (orange)
2014
BNSF
2013
The War
2012
One Way Boogie Woogie
2012
Easy Rider
2012
Stemple Pass
2012
Postscript
2012
Nightfall
2012
20 Little Films
2012
After Warhol
2011
Faces
2011
Small Roads
2011
Two Cabins
2011
YouTube Trilogy: 4 Songs, History, Asian Girls
2011
Twenty Cigarettes
2011
Tulare Road
2010
Pig Iron
2010
Reforming the Past
2010
Faces 1973
2010
Among Enemies: Jeonju Digital Project 2010
2010
John Krieg Exiting the Falk Corporation in 1971
2010
Ruhr
2009
RR
2007
Casting a Glance
2007
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later
2005
74.78
2005
Ten Skies
2004
13 Lakes
2004
Sogobi
2002
Los
2001
El Valley Centro
2000
Utopia
1998
Four Corners
1997
Deseret
1996
Panama: Exploring the Panama Canal
1995
North on Evers
1992
Used Innocence
1989
TABLE TOP
1988
Landscape Suicide
1987
O Panama
1985
American Dreams (Lost and Found)
1984
Pascal's Lemma
1984
Him and Me
1982
Grand Opera: An Historical Romance
1979
11 x 14
1977
One Way Boogie Woogie
1977
Chicago Loop
1976
9-1-75
1975
The United States of America
1975
3 Minutes on the Dangers of Film Recording
1975
Michigan Avenue
1974
8½ x 11
1974
I-94
1974
Time and a Half
1972
Did You Ever Hear That Cricket Sound?
1971
Two Skies
Acting (16)
Benning's Dream
2021
On Paradise Road
2020
She Dies Tomorrow
2020
中孚 61. The Inner Truth
2019
Telemundo
2018
L. Cohen
2018
thinking of red
2016
Coming to Terms
2013
Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater
2013
Stemple Pass
2012
The Great Gatsby in Five Minutes
2011
James Benning: Circling the Image
2003
Four Corners
1997
Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord
1989
Used Innocence
1989
The United States of America
1975