James Benning Movies

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

"Sandy Ding's WATER SPELL is a bold, abstract journey that takes us into the psychic interior of our very cellular structure... and back. For me,...

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...

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

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 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

The Surrealist, "Exquisite Corpse" was a French Café parlor game. "Exquisite Moving Corpse" is more of an artist chain letter. 60 artists...

One of the films I remade was a film that used two faces in it from a short little three-minute film that I made for the Henry Mancini television...

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

James Benning's "Four Corners" uses a specific geographical location to pose larger questions about the United States. Here, the geographic and...

A stretch of highway blanketed by snow becomes the stage for one accident after another in US 41, perhaps Benning’s first disaster movie, or a...

For his performance Reforming the Past, James Benning turns towards his own film North on Evers, shot in 1991. After seeing Andy Warhol's Screen...

One-hour-documentation of James Benning's participation in the Moving Billboard project.

Using experimental narrative structure as his vehicle, Benning recreates the sensationalized and controversial circumstances surrounding Lorencia...

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

Filmed in Sierra Nevada, just like Benning's Spring Equinox, but this time during a different season. Consists of static shots of the actual...

Los Angeles is depicted in 35 stationary shots, each 2 1/2 minutes long, in this non-narrative film, part 2 of Benning's "California Trilogy".

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

Ten shots of skies.

A crisscross through the USA, carving it up into a series of static shots of just under two minutes, one for each state, presented alphabetically,...