Benny Safdie

Benny Safdie (birthname: Benjamin Safdie) has been one half (with brother Josh) of one of the most exciting American indie filmmaking teams since 2007, when—after making several short films together in various capacities since 2004--the brothers Safdie made their first feature, The Pleasure of Being Robbed, co-edited by Benny with Josh as director/co-writer/producer/co-editor/cast member, and released by IFC Films after premiering at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Benny made his feature debut as co-director/co-writer/co-editor with the comedy-drama, Daddy Longlegs (2009)—originally titled Get Some Rosemary—starring Ronald Bronstein (who was also co-writer and co-editor), premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight parallel selection in the Cannes Film Festival and released by IFC Films.

Benny was director/editor of his only non-fiction film with Josh (who was co-director and cinematographer), Lenny Cooke (2013), profiling former high school basketball player of the same name, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival and released by distributor Under the Milky Way. Benny returned to narrative filmmaking as co-director (with Josh), and co-editor (with Ronald Bronstein, who also co-wrote) of Heaven Knows What (2014), based on Mad Love in N.Y.C., the unpublished memoir of lead actor Arielle Holmes, with Caleb Landry Jones as co-lead, premiering in the Venice Film Festival’s Orrizonte section and released by RADiUS.

Benny Safdie was once again co-director (with Josh) and co-editor (with Ronald Bronstein) as well as co-lead actor opposite lead Robert Pattinson in the tense crime drama, Good Time (2017), with Buddy Duress, Taliah Lennice Webster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Barkhad Abdi, launching in the Palme d’Or competition at the Cannes Film Festival and released by A24 to a $4 million gross. Benny was co-director (with Josh)/co-writer (with Josh and Bronstein)/co-editor (with Bronstein) of their most successful and highest acclaimed comedy-drama, Uncut Gems (2019), starring Adam Sandler in arguably his career-best performance with LaKeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, and Eric Bogosian, premiering in the Telluride Film Festival and released by A24 (in the U.S.) and Netflix (international).

Benny made his first feature as a solo filmmaker apart from Josh (as director/writer/producer/editor), The Smashing Machine (2025), based on the life of wrestler and mixed martial artist Mark Kerr, portrayed by Dwayne Johnson, co-starring Emily Blunt and Ryan Bader, produced for $40 million and released by A24. Benny Safdie was also a producer (with Josh) on director/writer/co-editor Owen Kline’s black comedy, Funny Pages (2022), starring Daniel Zolghadri and Matthew Maher, and which premiered in Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight parallel section and was produced/distributed by A24.

Benny has also maintained a developing career as an actor, often in supporting roles with world-class filmmakers: in director/writer/editor Dustin Guy Defa’s Person to Person (2017); in Hungarian director/co-writer Kornél Mundruczó’s and co-writer Kata Weber’s Pieces of a Woman (2020); as Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs in filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson’s comedy-drama, Licorice Pizza (2021); as a CIA agent in French filmmaker Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon (2022); in the Kelly Fremon Craig-directed Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023); as Edward Teller in filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) and reuniting with Nolan as part of the cast of the big-screen version of Homer’s The Odyssey (2026).