James Benning Movies

Benning's 18-minute study of moonfall in the morning sky-- A close cousin to his film "two moons". A lovely rendition of 'Moon River' accompanies the...

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...

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

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

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...

glory is a film about the present, about America and its history of abuse.

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...

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

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

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

James Benning, USA, 1988, 3m.

Twenty-two minute tracking shot through campgrounds in Southern Wisconsin

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

This is multifaceted look at the landscape and history of Utah (or Deseret, as the Mormon Church prefers to call it). Benning condenses 93 news...

Benning shot Tulare Road on a highway in California’s Central Valley, an area that the director had previously explored in his film El Valley...

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

Celebrated for his minimal, monumental landscape studies, James Benning turns to the intimacy of the portrait in his latest film, TWENTY CIGARETTES....

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

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

Looping, chugging and barreling by, the trains in Benning's latest monumental film map a stunning topography and a history of American development....