James Benning
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Not enough rated films yet to compute a weighted score.
Roles are weighted by involvement: director 1.0, screenwriter 0.7, lead 0.8, supporting 0.4, crew 0.1.
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.
Known for
Credits
Grand Opera: An Historical Romance (1979)
Director
20 Little Films (2012)
Director
North on Evers (1992)
Director
Landscape Suicide (1987)
Director
Ten Skies (2004)
Director
O Panama (1985)
Director
Faces (2011)
Director
Eight Bridges (2026)
Director
YouTube Trilogy: 4 Songs, History, Asian Girls (2011)
Director
Pig Iron (2010)
Director
Two Moons (2019)
Director
Twenty Cigarettes (2011)
Director
On Paradise Road (2020)
Director
13 Lakes (2004)
Director
Telemundo (2018)
Director
11 x 14 (1977)
Director
Birth of a Nation (2018)
Director
Deseret (1995)
Director
Los (2001)
Director
Stemple Pass (2012)
Director
Little Boy (2025)
Director
Used Innocence (1989)
Director
Among Enemies: Jeonju Digital Project 2010 (2010)
Director
Four Corners (1997)
Director
One Way Boogie Woogie (1977)
Director
El Valley Centro (2000)
Director
Nightfall (2012)
Director
Michigan Avenue (1974)
Director
Sogobi (2002)
Director
The United States of America (1975)
Director
Maggie's Farm (2020)
Director
Panama: Exploring the Panama Canal (1995)
Director
The United States of America (2022)
Director
Small Roads (2011)
Director
Readers (2017)
Director
Two Skies (—)
Director
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later (2005)
Director
Natural History (2014)
Director
Did You Ever Hear That Cricket Sound? (1971)
Director
52 Films (2015)
Director
The War (2012)
Director
daylight (2019)
Director
One Way Boogie Woogie (2012)
Director
Postscript (2012)
Director
Measuring Change (2016)
Director
Dancing in the Street, 11 grados de separación (2020)
Director
I-94 (1974)
Director
Easy Rider (2012)
Director
RR (2007)
Director
Allensworth (2022)
Director
American Dreams (Lost and Found) (1984)
Director
Him and Me (1982)
Director
L. Cohen (2018)
Director
PLACE (2020)
Director
Exquisite Moving Corpse (2022)
Director
8½ x 11 (1974)
Director
BNSF (2013)
Director
Faces 1973 (2010)
Director
Breathless (2024)
Director
Ruhr (2009)
Director
Ash 01 (2016)
Director
thinking of red (2016)
Director
Two Cabins (2011)
Director
scorched earth (2016)
Director
74.78 (2005)
Director
Casting a Glance (2007)
Director
Time and a Half (1972)
Director
after Traylor. Thoreau cabin (2008-2018) (2018)
Director
Pascal's Lemma (1984)
Director
Fresh Air (2016)
Director
Utopia (1998)
Director
SAM (2018)
Director
In Process... (2021)
Director
From Bakersfield to Mojave (2021)
Director
3 Minutes on the Dangers of Film Recording (1975)
Director
Tulare Road (2010)
Director
TABLE TOP (1988)
Director
Fall Equinox (2016)
Director
Reforming the Past (2010)
Director
HF (2014)
Director
FUCK ME (orange) (2014)
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signs (2014)
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Fire & Rain (2009)
Director
Cuba, an Historical Romance (2024)
Director
Untitled Fragments (2017)
Director
wavelength (2016)
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After Warhol (2011)
Director
Chicago Loop (1976)
Director
Concord Woods (2014)
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Perimeter (2015)
Director
John Krieg Exiting the Falk Corporation in 1971 (2010)
Director
Spring Equinox (2016)
Director
TEN YEARS LATER (2022)
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glory (2018)
Director
FUCK ME (green) (2014)
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US 41 (2014)
Director
9-1-75 (1975)
Director