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
Ten Skies (2004)
Director
Landscape Suicide (1987)
Director
YouTube Trilogy: 4 Songs, History, Asian Girls (2011)
Director
Twenty Cigarettes (2011)
Director
O Panama (1985)
Director
Small Roads (2011)
Director
Telemundo (2018)
Director
North on Evers (1992)
Director
11 x 14 (1977)
Director
13 Lakes (2004)
Director
Deseret (1995)
Director
Exquisite Moving Corpse (2022)
Director
Faces (2011)
Director
Tulare Road (2010)
Director
Ruhr (2009)
Director
Eight Bridges (2026)
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Michigan Avenue (1974)
Director
Maggie's Farm (2020)
Director
American Dreams (Lost and Found) (1984)
Director
Used Innocence (1989)
Director
Spring Equinox (2016)
Director
The War (2012)
Director
The United States of America (1975)
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Time and a Half (1972)
Director
I-94 (1974)
Director
Two Cabins (2011)
Director
Pascal's Lemma (1984)
Director
Among Enemies: Jeonju Digital Project 2010 (2010)
Director
Sogobi (2002)
Director
Los (2001)
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Utopia (1998)
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One Way Boogie Woogie (1977)
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Easy Rider (2012)
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RR (2007)
Director
HF (2014)
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Pig Iron (2010)
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Four Corners (1997)
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Did You Ever Hear That Cricket Sound? (1971)
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52 Films (2015)
Director
Little Boy (2025)
Director
signs (2014)
Director
scorched earth (2016)
Director
Ash 01 (2016)
Director
US 41 (2014)
Director
Cuba, an Historical Romance (2024)
Director
Concord Woods (2014)
Director
wavelength (2016)
Director
FUCK ME (green) (2014)
Director
Two Moons (2019)
Director
Him and Me (1982)
Director
BNSF (2013)
Director
Chicago Loop (1976)
Director
Casting a Glance (2007)
Director
The United States of America (2022)
Director
Fire & Rain (2009)
Director
El Valley Centro (2000)
Director
PLACE (2020)
Director
Nightfall (2012)
Director
thinking of red (2016)
Director
Measuring Change (2016)
Director
Faces 1973 (2010)
Director
TABLE TOP (1988)
Director
Fall Equinox (2016)
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After Warhol (2011)
Director
Breathless (2024)
Director
One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later (2005)
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Stemple Pass (2012)
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One Way Boogie Woogie (2012)
Director
Birth of a Nation (2018)
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TEN YEARS LATER (2022)
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Untitled Fragments (2017)
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In Process... (2021)
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SAM (2018)
Director
John Krieg Exiting the Falk Corporation in 1971 (2010)
Director
Natural History (2014)
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8½ x 11 (1974)
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3 Minutes on the Dangers of Film Recording (1975)
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Dancing in the Street, 11 grados de separación (2020)
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Allensworth (2022)
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daylight (2019)
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Panama: Exploring the Panama Canal (1995)
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Readers (2017)
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Two Skies (—)
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Postscript (2012)
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From Bakersfield to Mojave (2021)
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74.78 (2005)
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Reforming the Past (2010)
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On Paradise Road (2020)
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glory (2018)
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FUCK ME (orange) (2014)
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Perimeter (2015)
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Fresh Air (2016)
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L. Cohen (2018)
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9-1-75 (1975)
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after Traylor. Thoreau cabin (2008-2018) (2018)
Director