Benny Safdie
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“There’s an Opera Out On the Turnpike”: Benny Safdie on The Smashing Machine
Benny Safdie’s mixed martial arts drama The Smashing Machine, currently in theaters from A24, is brutal and tender, and both in surprising ways. Working with blockbuster actor Dwayne Johnson, who, shapeshifting into the role of fighter Mark Kerr, is even more bulked up than usual, Safdie dramatizes an early 2000s time when MMA was in a transitional phase, with its fighters touring internationally on a loosely regulated circuit where the purses weren’t so huge, there was still a camaraderie among fighters, and the rules felt a bit slippery. Drawing from John Hyams’s 2002 documentary, The Smashing Machine: The Life and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 27, 2025 -
All Day and a Night: Josh and Benny Safdie on Good Time
I’m in the Safdie brothers’ office in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, looking at a giant Japanese King of New York poster, and we’re talking about fired FBI director James Comey, whose awkward dinner with Donald Trump has just hit the news. “The guy is 6 foot, 8 inches,” Benny says. Or maybe it’s Josh. My tape recorder isn’t turned on yet, and the two talk rapid-fire, trading sentence fragments and out-exclaiming each other. “And he refused to play basketball with Obama! The one president who played basketball, Comey would be the tallest guy on the court, and he didn’t want […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2017 -
DP Sean Price Williams on Shooting 2-Perf 35mm for the Cannes Competition Film Good Time
“Hey, it’s me,” said Sean Price Williams as he walked up to me at the after-party for Josh and Benny Safdie’s simply fantastic Good Time in Cannes last week. It did take me a second to recognize Williams — cleanly shaven, in a spiffy tux and strolling around a Dior-sponsored event for a film in the Main Competition of the Cannes Film Festival. If Williams seemed like a bit of a happy anomaly there, it’s because, like Good Time itself, the DP has ascended to cinema’s most revered platform with work that’s wholly of a piece with the raw, street-level […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2017 -
Trailer Watch: Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time, Starring Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie
One of my most anticipated films of the summer is Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time, which premieres in a few days in the Main Competition of the Cannes Film Festival. The first trailer has just dropped from A24, and it shows Robert Pattinson as a bank robber trying to get his accomplice — his brother, played by Benny Safdie — sprung from Rikers Island. Jennifer Jason Leigh appears as well as Buddy Duress, who co-starred in the Safdies’ previous Heaven Knows What. It’s a heartbreaker of a trailer scored to an original song by Oneohtrix Point Never and Iggy […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 16, 2017 -
Trailer Watch: Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What
Timed to the SXSW debut of Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What is the film’s latest trailer from Radius. With stark, declarative titles attesting to the authenticity of the film’s storyline — Heaven Knows What is based on a memoir by the film’s star, Arielle Holmes, detailing her life on the streets while addicted to heroin — the trailer is a bold edit capturing the movie’s beguiling blend of underground romance and urban nightmare. Heaven Knows What opens later this Spring.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2015 -
Tribeca 2013 Critic’s Notebook #3: On The Margins
It’s easy to feel cheated at film festivals, especially ones that charge $18 per ticket. (Does Tribeca still do that?) You couldn’t get into this screening or you missed that party or the awards because you couldn’t find a cab or had to file some copy. The publicist you have a crush on just isn’t that into you. Cry me a river. And then the awards have been given, the parties have been had, the distribution panel nameplates thrown in the trash. The clock is ticking, always, and you can never see or do everything. Funny, when you’re young, you […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 29, 2013 -
Josh and Benny Safdie Take On the Illegal Wildlife Trade
Directors Josh and Benny Safdie (Daddy Longlegs) take on the illegal wildlife trade in The Trophy Hunter, a PSA made for the Turtle Conservancy and supporting Traffic.org. Here’s how the group describes the video: This year we are sending out a video whose content may be difficult for some viewers. However, the video highlights an important issue: the illegal wildlife trade and its role in the global extinction crisis. This holiday we are supporting TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade-monitoring network (traffic.org). The illegal wildlife trade is the third largest illicit trade after drugs and arms and is responsible for the extinction […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 6, 2013 -
DISPOSABLE MEMORIES FROM SXSW
I pack quickly the night before leaving for SXSW. Not only do I forget to bring business cards, I don’t even pack my digital camera. I pop into a CVS once I’ve landed in Austin and pick up a two-pack of disposable cameras. I’m surprised they still sell them. My five day jaunt across SXSW is a flurry of rain, movies, tacos, friends, panels, and long lines. I watch Purple Rain on VHS. I watch V/H/S in a movie theater. I’m asked by multiple people if I’ve heard what this year’s Tiny Furniture is. I hear a big-four agent tell […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Mar 16, 2012 -
A Day at the Sundance Shortslab
A few weeks ago I attended the third Sundance ShortsLab, a day-long event about short filmmaking organized and conducted by the folks from Sundance (primarily, from what I could see, from the festival side of the house.) Sundance has previously put on two other Shortslabs, one in LA and one in Chicago. This was their first event in New York, and those of us in attendance spent the day in an auditorium at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as a variety of speakers and panels unfolded, and several short films were shown. The day started with Trevor Groth, Sundance’s director […]
by Marc Maurino on Aug 4, 2011 -
JOSH AND BENNY SAFDIE EXIST!!!
Jamie Stuart and I visited Josh and Benny Safdie at their Red Bucket Films studio on Tuesday to talk about their new film Daddy Longlegs, guerrilla marketing, and other things. He shot and edited, I interviewed, and this is our conversation. Click here to download through Jamie’s site.
by Scott Macaulay on May 14, 2010
