James Benning Movies

Seven entirely static shots make up James Benning's quiet reflection on existence in the Ruhr Valley.

Named after the Shoshonean word for "Earth", this is the third and final part of Benning's "California Trilogy" and his approach to the Californian...

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

A stretch of highway blanketed by snow becomes the stage for one accident after another in US 41, perhaps Benning’s first disaster movie, or a...

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...

[...] And then there’s the largest and fastest growing archive of all time, the Internet, and in particular YouTube. I started here playfully...

A narrative film concerning an investigation of two women in time and space, to the point where the investigation becomes the narrative.

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...

Four landscape shots containing a replica of Ted Kaczynski’s cabin, one shot per season. On the soundtrack, Benning reads extracts from...

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

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...

"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...

A view of an Oregon farm field, observing a solar eclipse and incorporating a Leonard Cohen song.

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

James Benning watches tv with a young girl.

Los Angeles is depicted in 35 stationary shots, each 2½ minutes long, in this non-narrative film, part 2 of Benning's "California Trilogy".

Shots of 8 bridges from the continental United States - the Golden Gate Bridge from Sausalito, California; the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge from Arroyo...

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...

Maintenance is filmmaker Adele Horne’s exploration and meditation on house cleaning. Cleaning is one of the most private things we do in our...