James Benning Movies

"On November 28, 2023 I woke up early and drove down to the Upper Kern River. I came to film a tree. It's leaves were orange. The shot would be 87...

Data Entry (2014) extends Benning’s interest in the complex cipher systems Kaczynski developed to encrypt his journals. The video focuses on...

In this short black and white study Benning uses dissolves, shifting camera angles and cross-fades to experiment with narrative structure.

This three-channel video installation by James Benning shows three scenes from David Wark Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). The...

Intercourse between two people who never appear on the screen at the same time. An exploration of sex and male/female identities.

61. La Verdad Interior reveals the creative process behind TELEMUNDO [screened in the New Visions section], a collaborative film directed by James...

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

Between July, 2007 and June, 2008, veteran independent film-maker,James Benning built replicas of two iconic American Cabins in a remote part of the...

In three virtuosic sequences created entirely in-camera, Benning alternates contrary camera movements in a trio of Chicago locations with increasing...

Stills from a trip in Cuba.

Towards the end of 2015, James Benning made one of his occasional expeditions to Utah, to the place where Robert Smithson's colossal land-sculpture...

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

James Benning, USA, 1988, 3m.

In 54 static shots, Benning provides a picture of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. With the exception of the first three shots, he chooses areas...

Composed of just four shots in which Clara McHale-Ribot, Rachel Kushner, Richard Hebdige, and Simone Forti read quietly to themselves, the film...

A filmic paean to artist Robert Smithson's legendary "earthwork" sculpture, the Spiral Jetty. Created in 1970, the Jetty is a 1,500-foot long...

A filmed homage to Sam Shepard, in a single fixed frame where the treetops sway under a moving cloud cover. Orchestrated by the camera in this forest...

A view of an Oregon farm field, observing a solar eclipse and incorporating a Leonard Cohen song.

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

One man's journey through the American landscape as he has experienced it since the 1950s.