James Benning Movies

James Benning’s "remake" of John Cassavetes’s Faces (1968) is an unexpected venture into the world of found footage filmmaking. As...

Lengthy static shots of various backroads, smaller interstates, quieter roads, and lonely highways.

An experimental film portraying different skies in very long takes.

Named after the Shoshonean word for "Earth", this is the third and final part of Benning's "California Trilogy" and his approach to the Californian...

Sixty one-minute shots with no camera movement. This tension between painterly and cinematic space is not only experienced as an intellectual...

Experimental filmmaker James Benning returns with this abstract documentary about California's Central Valley, part 1 of his "California Trilogy"....

At Northwestern University, where he teaches at the time, Benning gives a short interview to some student filmmakers. He then uses this material to...

Made over 15 years, Adulthood is a feature composed of six short films, each chapter following a couple as they grow older without necessarily...

A film looking at the past to warn about the future, from a little boy's point of view. A companion to ‘American Dreams (lost and found)’...

Benning's 18-minute study of moonfall in the morning sky-- A close cousin to his film "two moons". A lovely rendition of 'Moon River' accompanies the...

'After doing a re-make of John Cassevetes’ "Faces" [1968], I decided to re-make another American classic, Dennis Hopper’s "Easy Rider"...

Benning shot Tulare Road on a highway in California’s Central Valley, an area that the director had previously explored in his film El Valley...

A stunning study of real-time light changing from day to night which was filmed in a forest high up in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains

Filmed at Benning's home in Val Verde during the first month of the pandemic, the film is a portrait of that time.

A narrative film concerning an investigation of two women in time and space, to the point where the investigation becomes the narrative.

Shots of 13 great lakes in the USA, with each shot containing half water and half sky or land.

The 16mm test roll for James Benning's feature-length film TEN SKIES. 74.78 is part of Mike Plante's Lunchfilm series of commissioned shorts (made...

"Benning's landscape works, with their meticulous, reverential compositions, have been located in the history of American realist painting and...

Stills from a trip in Cuba.

Seven entirely static shots make up James Benning's quiet reflection on existence in the Ruhr Valley.