James Benning Movies

James Benning appropriates a 14-second excerpt from his own film Time and a Half (second entry in his filmography), dissects the scene into its...

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".

Ten shots of skies.

A found footage remake of Michael Snow's Wavelength

Experimental filmmaker James Benning returns with this abstract documentary about California's Central Valley, part 1 of his "California Trilogy"....

James Benning returns to the location of his 2012 film Nightfall, this time at daybreak.

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

The portrait of an art institution: James Benning explores the building and grounds of the California Institute of Art. Each image creates a tension,...

Filmed on November 21 and 22, 2018 in Valencia, California. A gibbous and full moon rising.

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

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

Grand Opera marks a stock-taking of Benning's work and his life, presenting a personal and artistic autobiography woven together with a series of...

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...

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

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

Lunch Break features 42 workers as they take their midday break in a corridor stretching nearly the entire shipyard.

signs is a sobering continuation of Benning’s career-long interest with the written word as image, text as vision: a silent parade of stills...

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

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)’...

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...