Ken Jacobs
Directing
Born May 25, 1933 · Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA
A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists. A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.
Directed (267)
Downtown Loft with Skylights
2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 43
2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 41
2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 42
2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 40
2025
Book of Eternalisms 39
2025
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2023
Up the Illusion
2023
Writhing City
2023
Other Urban Lives
2023
From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight
2023
Book of Eternalisms 1-6
2023
Spasm
2023
Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 15
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 1
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 5
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 20
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 10
2023
Real Action Figures
2022
When Timofeev Moves Everything Moves
2022
Sergei Eisenstein Embossed
2022
Buster Keaton Embossed
2022
One Dozen Roses
2022
America Let's Her Hair Down 1905
2022
Eternal Beach
2021
Abstract Eternalism
2021
Double Wow
2021
XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX
2021
Cartoonish 1-10
2021
A Small Misunderstanding
2021
Adventures of Cookie Truck
2021
Hoffman Student
2021
Aspiring To Music
2021
Movie That Invites Pausing
2020
Storefront
2020
Spiky
2020
Transparent Apartments
2020
Municipal Building Passage
2020
Clouds and Trees
2020
Bandit
2020
Hubble II
2020
Whirlpool
2020
Water Balloon
2020
Halley’s Comet
2020
Spaceworks
2020
Another Day in Days of Yore
2020
Garage Wall
2020
Period Piece
2020
Street Commerce II
2020
Street Commerce
2020
Resting Merchant
2020
Broadway Buildings II
2020
Broadway Buildings III
2020
Neon Sign
2020
Flowers and Bike
2020
Chinese New Years
2020
Chinese New Years II
2020
Broadway Building
2020
Duck
2020
Fire Escape
2020
Brick Building with Red and Green Windows
2020
DeKooning Passed
2020
Doyer Street
2020
Sleeping American
2020
Waiting Room Window
2020
Natural Collage
2020
Reading Society
2020
Lazy City
2020
Roots of Manhattan
2020
Friendly Building
2020
Bison
2020
Working Girls (short)
2020
Bargains
2020
City Foliage
2020
Barber
2020
Foliage in Moving Car Window
2020
Facade with Face
2020
RECIPROCAL
2020
Ken and Flo
2020
Red Green
2020
Rain Clouds
2020
PAINTED POSTER
2020
DR. TOOTHY
2020
Rubble
2020
CRUSH
2019
PAPPY SEES 3D, TOO
2019
Failure
2019
Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party
2019
Things to Come
2019
MOVING ROAD
2019
Figures I - V
2019
THE WHOLE SHEBANG
2019
ABSTRACT
2019
Chaos Is Order Misunderstood
2019
Above the Rain
2019
The Sky Socialist: The Environs
2019
Joan Mitchell: Departures
2019
Once Upon a Planet
2019
Details of Pollock's White Light
2019
Cartoon
2019
Nervous Magic Lantern: 3D for One or Two Naked Eyes
2019
Dimsum and Dragons
2019
The Moments: Evening Boat Ride
2018
Tree Stump
2018
Swee’pea’s Favorite Eternalisms
2017
Get Up and Go
2017
A Spin Through Night City
2017
Along the Elevated
2017
Shelley Duvall is Olive Oyl
2017
Ulysses in the Subway
2017
Windbreaker
2017
Central Park
2016
Snow in Headlights II
2016
Reichstag 9/11
2016
BMT Canal Street
2016
Mosco Street 2
2016
Mosco Street 3: Attack of The Perfect Camera (Fuji W3)
2016
Molten Landscape
2016
Lurking
2016
Ken Jacobs / Victoria Keddie @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
Ken Jacobs / Tom Chiu of Flux Quartet @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
Ken Jacobs / Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
Ken Jacobs / Rick Reed & Tara Bhattacharya @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
Ken Jacobs / Robert Poss @The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
Ken Jacobs / diNMachine @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
Ken Jacobs / JG Thirlwell @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
2016
I'm Telling You
2016
Hydroelectric Dam
2016
Empty Seats
2015
Batchellor’s Dog and Beach
2015
Afternoon Tide
2015
Zazie Learns About Money
2015
Aimless Sightseeing, Seoul
2015
Chrysalis
2015
Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies
2015
The Lackadaisical Speed of Light
2015
Granular
2015
Floral
2015
Wire Fence
2014
Canopy
2014
Pygmalion Cubed
2014
Celestial Bodies
2014
The Guests
2014
Popeye Sees 3-D
2014
A Primer in Sky Socialism
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #1
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #4
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #3
2013
Blankets for Indians
2012
Street Vendor
2012
20 Little Films
2012
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero
2011
OCCUPY WALL STREET, THE 99% JOIN IN
2011
Seeking the Monkey King
2011
The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street
2011
America at War, The Home Front: Film Opening
2011
Revolving Door
2011
Turbulent Waters
2011
The Roses
2011
The Green Wave
2011
Another Occupation
2011
DAY AND NIGHT
2011
Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman
2011
A Loft
2010
Sensoriums at Sea: Dr. Toothy's New Entranceway
2010
The Near-Collision
2010
Sensoriums at Sea: Toothy Two
2010
Fair And White: Parts I, II, III and Extra
2010
Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days
2009
Walkway
2009
Excerpt From THE SKY SOCIALIST Stratified
2009
Brook
2009
Bob Fleischner Dying
2009
Brain Operations
2009
“Slow is Beauty”—Rodin
2009
Berkeley To San Francisco
2009
What Happened on 23rd Street in 1901
2009
Hot Dogs At The Met
2009
Ronald Gonzales, Sculptor
2009
Gravity Is Tops
2009
The Day Was a Scorcher
2009
The Signing
2009
Return to the Scene of the Crime
2008
Elbow Dance
2008
The Discovery
2008
Amorous Interludes: His Favorite Wife Improved (or The Virtue Of Bad Reception)
2008
Alone at Last
2008
The Scenic Route
2008
Love Story
2008
Anaglyph Tom (Tom with Puffy Cheeks)
2008
Gift of Fire: Nineteen (Obscure) Frames That Changed The World
2007
Nymph
2007
Hanky Panky January 1902
2007
We Are Charming
2007
Titles
2007
Mosco Street Rapture
2007
Popeye Sees 3-D, TOO
2007
Capitalism: Slavery
2007
Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World
2007
Nervous Lantern at Kill Your Timid Notion Festival
2007
New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903
2007
Capitalism: Child Labor
2007
Pushcarts of Eternity Street
2006
The Surging Sea of Humanity
2006
Two Wrenching Departures
2006
Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise
2005
Insistent Clamor
2005
Le Prince: Leeds Bridge 1888
2005
Ontic Antics Starring Laurel and Hardy: Bye Molly
2005
Let There Be Whistle Blowers
2005
Krypton Is Doomed
2005
Spiral Nebula
2005
Let There Be Whistleblowers
2005
Mountaineer Spinning
2004
Star Spangled to Death
2004
Keeping an Eye on Stan
2003
Circling Zero: Part One, We See Absence
2002
A Tom Tom Chaser
2002
The Sky Socialist: Flight
2002
New York Street Trolleys 1900
1999
Flo Rounds a Corner
1999
Disorient Express
1996
The Georgetown Loop
1996
Looting For Rodney
1995
Make Light On Film
1995
Bitemporal Vision: The Sea
1994
Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896
1991
Keaton's Cops
1991
Chronometer
1990
The Alps and The Jews
1986
Perfect Film
1985
The Doctor's Dream
1977
Book of Splendors, Part Two, Book of Levers: Action at a Distance
1977
Spaghetti Aza
1976
Urban Peasants
1975
Jerry Takes A Back Seat, Then Passes Out Of The Picture
1975
Changing Azazel
1973
Binghamton, My India
1970
Nissan Ariana Window
1969
Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son
1969
Globe
1969
The Sky Socialist
1968
Soft Rain
1968
For Life, Against the War
1967
Airshaft
1967
Lisa and Joey in Connecticut
1965
Naomi Is A Dream of Loveliness
1965
1st Window
1964
Window
1964
We Stole Away
1964
The Winter Footage
1964
Winter Sky
1964
Artie and Marty Rosenblatt’s Baby Pictures
1964
Little Stabs at Happiness
1963
TV Plug
1963
Blonde Cobra
1963
Baud'larian Capers
1962
The Whirled
1961
The Death of P'town
1961
Saturday Afternoon Blood Sacrifice
1956
Little Cobra Dance
1956
Orchard Street
1955
Sky Dive
Depth for One Eye or Two
Spotted Fever
Acting (34)
Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
2025
Ken Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art
2023
Art-House America: Austin Film Society
2023
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
2022
Fragments of Paradise
2022
Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
2016
What Is Cinema?
2013
The Eternal Courtship
2013
Emma's Dilemma
2012
Sleepless Nights Stories
2011
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
2011
Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
2011
Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?
2010
Lavender
2010
Momma's Man
2008
365 Day Project
2007
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
2007
Star Spangled to Death
2004
Nervous Ken
2003
Shorts From the Underground
2002
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
2000
Birth of a Nation
1997
Jonas in the Desert
1994
Quartet Number One
1991
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
1986
Home Movies 1971-81
1985
Lost, Lost, Lost
1976
