James Benning
Known for: Directing
Born: December 28, 1942
Place of birth: 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.
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Filmography
112 movies · 0 TV shows, newest first
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Eight Bridges
2026
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Adulthood
2026
6.0
Little Boy
2025NR
Cuba, an Historical Romance
2024
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Breathless
2024
8.0
Allensworth
2022
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TEN YEARS LATER
2022
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Exquisite Moving Corpse
2022
5.5
The United States of America
2022
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Benning's Dream
2021
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In Process...
2021
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From Bakersfield to Mojave
2021NR
Dancing in the Street, 11 grados de separación
2020
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On Paradise Road
2020
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PLACE
2020
5.1
She Dies Tomorrow
2020
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Maggie's Farm
2020
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中孚 61. The Inner Truth
2019
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daylight
2019
5.0
Two Moons
2019
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The Wrecker Kings
2019
3.5
Telemundo
2018
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after Traylor. Thoreau cabin (2008-2018)
2018
8.0
glory
2018NR
Birth of a Nation
2018
5.2
L. Cohen
2018NR
SAM
2018
4.5
Readers
2017NR
Untitled Fragments
2017NR
Ash 01
2016NR
scorched earth
2016NR
thinking of red
2016
6.0
Fall Equinox
2016NR
wavelength
2016
6.0
Spring Equinox
2016
5.7
Measuring Change
2016NR
Fresh Air
2016
5.4
Santa Teresa & Other Stories
2015
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Perimeter
2015
5.0
52 Films
2015NR
Concord Woods
2014
5.4
Natural History
20144.0
HF
2014NR
US 41
2014
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signs
2014NR
FUCK ME (green)
2014NR
FUCK ME (orange)
2014
7.2
Coming to Terms
2013
6.4
Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater
2013
5.5
BNSF
2013
2.3
The War
2012
7.5
One Way Boogie Woogie
2012
6.8
Easy Rider
2012
7.9
Stemple Pass
2012
4.0
Postscript
2012
6.2
Nightfall
2012
6.0
20 Little Films
2012
3.0
Maintenance
2012
NR
All That She Surveys
2012
5.0
After Warhol
2011
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Faces
2011
6.8
Small Roads
2011
7.0
Two Cabins
2011
5.7
YouTube Trilogy: 4 Songs, History, Asian Girls
2011
3.0
Twenty Cigarettes
2011
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The Great Gatsby in Five Minutes
2011
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Tulare Road
2010
7.3
Pig Iron
2010NR
Reforming the Past
20105.0
Faces 1973
2010
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Among Enemies: Jeonju Digital Project 2010
2010
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John Krieg Exiting the Falk Corporation in 1971
2010
6.6
Ruhr
2009
10.0
Fire & Rain
20097.4
Lunch Break
2008
7.0
RR
2007
7.4
Casting a Glance
2007
6.5
Water Spell
2007
6.6
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later
2005
NR
74.78
2005
7.2
Ten Skies
2004
6.4
13 Lakes
2004
9.0
James Benning: Circling the Image
2003
6.8
Sogobi
2002
6.6
Los
2001
7.4
El Valley Centro
2000
7.0
Utopia
1998
6.3
Four Corners
1997
5.6
Deseret
1996
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Panama: Exploring the Panama Canal
1995
7.5
North on Evers
1992
4.2
Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord
1989
6.0
Used Innocence
1989
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TABLE TOP
1988
7.4
Landscape Suicide
1987
6.0
O Panama
1985
7.4
American Dreams (Lost and Found)
1984NR
Pascal's Lemma
1984
8.0
Him and Me
1982
7.5
Grand Opera: An Historical Romance
1979
7.4
11 x 14
1977
6.1
One Way Boogie Woogie
1977
8.0
Chicago Loop
1976
8.0
9-1-75
1975
7.8
The United States of America
197510.0
3 Minutes on the Dangers of Film Recording
1975
5.6
Michigan Avenue
1974
10.0
8½ x 11
1974
5.3
I-94
1974
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Time and a Half
197210.0
Did You Ever Hear That Cricket Sound?
1971NR
Two Skies
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