James Benning Movies

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

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

A found footage remake of Michael Snow's Wavelength

Six soldiers wandering in search of enemies in the forest where they can't see an inch ahead. While gathering on the island to prepare Shakespeare's...

"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...

James Benning's forthcoming film features 2 skies, one shot from Spiral Jetty in Corinne, Utah and the other from the Sun Tunnels in Wendover, Utah.

James Benning watches tv with a young girl.

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

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...

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

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)’...

Last week I made a film of 49 of my T-shirts called Fresh Air. It was to be purely structural. For sound I recorded (in sync) the quiet ambience of...

O Panama features a man confined to his apartment on a winter day as he suffers through an illness. Built on the polarity between hot and cold, the...

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

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...

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

A document of one of the most famous 66 miles of railroad track in the world including the Tehachapi Loop.

HF is Benning’s tribute in miniature to legendary filmmaker Hollis Frampton, known for his materialist dissection of the cinema apparatus and...

James Benning, USA, 1988, 3m.

One day, father makes a shocking decision in a family gathering. The family disagrees with it and against him in the very beginning. However, they...