Ken Jacobs

Known for: Directing
Born: May 25, 1933, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Died: October 5, 2025
Movies: 314

A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists.

A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.

Upcoming Ken Jacobs Movies

Sky Dive

Release date TBA

Depth for One Eye or Two

Release date TBA

Spotted Fever

Release date TBA

Best-Known Movies

7.8

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

2000

3.0

Blonde Cobra

1963

7.3

Diaries, Notes, and Sketches

1968

6.4

What Is Cinema?

2013

7.1

Lost, Lost, Lost

1976

4.4

Scotch Tape

1963

5.8

Little Stabs at Happiness

1963

4.9

Capitalism: Slavery

2007

6.2

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

1969

6.2

Momma's Man

2008

Filmography

2025	Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse	Self
2023	Ken Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art	Self
2023	Art-House America: Austin Film Society	Self
2023	Up the Illusion
2022	Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
2022	Fragments of Paradise	Self
2016	Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
2013	What Is Cinema?	Self
2013	The Eternal Courtship
2012	Emma's Dilemma	Himself
2011	Sleepless Nights Stories	Self
2011	Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film	Himself
2011	Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin	Himself
2011	Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman
2010	Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?	Himself
2010	Lavender	Self
2008	Momma's Man	Dad
2007	365 Day Project	Self
2007	Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis	Self
2004	Star Spangled to Death	Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor
2003	Nervous Ken
2002	Shorts From the Underground	Self
2001	Flo and Ken Jacobs
2000	As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty	Self
1999	Laboratorium Anthology
1997	Birth of a Nation	Self
1994	Jonas in the Desert	Self
1991	Quartet Number One
1986	He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life	Self (archive footage)
1985	Home Movies 1971-81
1976	Lost, Lost, Lost	Self
1973	Horizons
1973	Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”
1968	Huge Pupils	Himself
1968	Diaries, Notes, and Sketches	Self
1967	Bill's Hat
1963	Blonde Cobra
1963	Scotch Tape

Directing, Writing & Producing

2026	Downtown Loft with Skylights	Director
2026	A Date with Shirley	Director
2026	BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 43	Director
2026	BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 41	Director
2026	BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 42	Director
2025	BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 40	Director
2025	Book of Eternalisms 39	Director
2025	BMT	Director
2024	Riverbed	Director
2024	Tourists of the Familiar 70	Director
2023	Book of Eternalisms 8	Director
2023	Book of Eternalisms 7	Director
2023	For James Otis	Director
2023	Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	Director
2023	Up the Illusion	Director
2023	Writhing City	Director
2023	From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight	Director
2023	Other Urban Lives	Director
2023	Book of Eternalisms 1-6	Director
2023	Spasm	Director
2023	Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three	Director
2023	Tourists of the Familiar 1	Director
2023	Tourists of the Familiar 5	Director
2023	Tourists of the Familiar 10	Director
2023	Tourists of the Familiar 15	Director
2023	Tourists of the Familiar 20	Director
2023	Manhattan is an Island	Director
2023	Hobgoblin Ball	Director
2022	Real Action Figures	Director
2022	When Timofeev Moves Everything Moves	Director
2022	Sergei Eisenstein Embossed	Director
2022	Buster Keaton Embossed	Director
2022	One Dozen Roses	Director
2022	America Lets Her Hair Down 1905	Director
2022	Eat the Rich: Aligning Perspectives and Other Challenges to Viewers	Director
2021	Eternal Beach	Director
2021	Abstract Eternalism	Director
2021	Double Wow	Director
2021	XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX	Director
2021	Cartoonish 1-10	Director
2021	A Small Misunderstanding	Director
2021	Adventures of Cookie Truck	Director
2021	Hoffman Student	Director
2021	Aspiring To Music	Director
2021	In Front of Anthology	Director
2020	Movie That Invites Pausing	Director
2020	Storefront	Director
2020	Transparent Apartments	Director
2020	Spiky	Director
2020	Municipal Building Passage	Director
2020	Clouds and Trees	Director
2020	Bandit	Director
2020	Hubble II	Director
2020	Whirlpool	Director
2020	Halley’s Comet	Director
2020	Water Balloon	Director
2020	Spaceworks	Director
2020	Another Day in Days of Yore	Director
2020	Garage Wall	Director
2020	Period Piece	Director
2020	Street Commerce II	Director
2020	Street Commerce	Director
2020	Resting Merchant	Director
2020	Broadway Buildings II	Director
2020	Broadway Buildings III	Director
2020	Neon Sign	Director
2020	Flowers and Bike	Director
2020	Brick Building with Red and Green Windows	Director
2020	Broadway Building	Director
2020	Fire Escape	Director
2020	Duck	Director
2020	Chinese New Years	Director
2020	Chinese New Years II	Director
2020	Doyer Street	Director
2020	Sleeping American	Director
2020	DeKooning Passed	Director
2020	Waiting Room Window	Director
2020	Natural Collage	Director
2020	Reading Society	Director
2020	Roots of Manhattan	Director
2020	Lazy City	Director
2020	Bison	Director
2020	Friendly Building	Director
2020	Working Girls (short)	Director
2020	Bargains	Director
2020	City Foliage	Director
2020	Barber	Director
2020	Foliage in Moving Car Window	Director
2020	Facade with Face	Director
2020	RECIPROCAL	Director
2020	Red Green	Director
2020	Ken and Flo	Director
2020	Rain Clouds	Director
2020	PAINTED POSTER	Director
2020	DR. TOOTHY	Director
2020	Rubble	Director
2019	CRUSH	Director
2019	PAPPY SEES 3D, TOO	Director
2019	Failure	Director
2019	Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party	Director
2019	Things to Come	Director
2019	MOVING ROAD	Director
2019	Figures I - V	Director
2019	THE WHOLE SHEBANG	Director
2019	ABSTRACT	Director
2019	Chaos Is Order Misunderstood	Director
2019	Above the Rain	Director
2019	The Sky Socialist: The Environs	Director
2019	Joan Mitchell: Departures	Director
2019	Once Upon a Planet	Director
2019	Details of Pollock's White Light	Director
2019	Cartoon	Director
2019	Nervous Magic Lantern: 3D for One or Two Naked Eyes	Director
2019	Dimsum and Dragons	Director
2018	The Moments: Evening Boat Ride	Director
2018	Tree Stump	Director
2017	Swee’pea’s Favorite Eternalisms	Director
2017	Shelley Duvall is Olive Oyl	Director
2017	Get Up and Go	Director
2017	A Spin Through Night City	Director
2017	Along the Elevated	Director
2017	Beautiful Dreamer	Director
2017	Ulysses in the Subway	Director
2017	Windbreaker	Director
2017	Capitalism Defeats Life on Earth, Cab in Rain	Director
2016	Central Park	Director
2016	Snow in Headlights II	Director
2016	Reichstag 9/11	Director
2016	BMT Canal Street	Director
2016	Mosco Street 3: Attack of The Perfect Camera (Fuji W3)	Director
2016	Mosco Street 2	Director
2016	Lurking	Director
2016	Molten Landscape	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / Victoria Keddie @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / Tom Chiu of Flux Quartet @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / Rick Reed & Tara Bhattacharya @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / Robert Poss @The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / diNMachine @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	Ken Jacobs / JG Thirlwell @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival	Director
2016	I'm Telling You	Director
2016	Hydroelectric Dam	Director
2015	Empty Seats	Director
2015	Batchellor’s Dog and Beach	Director
2015	Afternoon Tide	Director
2015	Zazie Learns About Money	Director
2015	Aimless Sightseeing, Seoul	Director
2015	Chrysalis	Director
2015	Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies	Director, Writer
2015	The Lackadaisical Speed of Light	Director
2015	Granular	Director
2015	Floral	Director
2014	Wire Fence	Director
2014	Canopy	Director
2014	Celestial Bodies	Director
2014	Pygmalion Cubed	Director
2014	The Guests	Director
2014	Popeye Sees 3-D	Director
2013	A Primer in Sky Socialism	Director
2013	Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2	Director
2013	Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #1	Director
2013	Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #3	Director
2013	Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #4	Director
2012	Blankets for Indians	Director
2012	Street Vendor	Director
2012	20 Little Films	Director
2011	60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero	Director
2011	OCCUPY WALL STREET, THE 99% JOIN IN	Director
2011	Seeking the Monkey King	Director
2011	The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street	Director, Writer
2011	America at War, The Home Front: Film Opening	Director
2011	Revolving Door	Director
2011	Turbulent Waters	Director
2011	The Roses	Director
2011	The Green Wave	Director
2011	Another Occupation	Director, Writer
2011	DAY AND NIGHT	Director
2011	Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman	Director
2010	A Loft	Director
2010	Sensoriums at Sea: Dr. Toothy's New Entranceway	Director
2010	Sensoriums at Sea: Toothy Two	Director
2010	The Near-Collision	Director
2010	Fair And White: Parts I, II, III and Extra	Director
2009	Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days	Director
2009	Excerpt From THE SKY SOCIALIST Stratified	Director
2009	Walkway	Director
2009	Brook	Director
2009	Bob Fleischner Dying	Director
2009	Brain Operations	Director
2009	"Slow is Beauty"-Rodin	Director
2009	Berkeley To San Francisco	Director
2009	What Happened on 23rd Street in 1901	Director
2009	Hot Dogs At The Met	Director
2009	Ronald Gonzales, Sculptor	Director
2009	Gravity Is Tops	Director
2009	The Day Was a Scorcher	Director, Writer
2009	The Signing	Director
2008	Return to the Scene of the Crime	Director
2008	Elbow Dance	Director
2008	Amorous Interludes: His Favorite Wife Improved (or The Virtue Of Bad Reception)	Director
2008	Alone at Last	Director
2008	The Discovery	Director
2008	The Scenic Route	Director
2008	Love Story	Director
2008	Anaglyph Tom (Tom with Puffy Cheeks)	Director
2007	Gift of Fire: Nineteen (Obscure) Frames That Changed The World	Director
2007	Hanky Panky January 1902	Director
2007	Nymph	Director
2007	We Are Charming	Director
2007	Popeye Sees 3-D, TOO	Director
2007	Mosco Street Rapture	Director
2007	Titles	Director
2007	Capitalism: Slavery	Director
2007	Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World	Director
2007	Nervous Lantern at Kill Your Timid Notion Festival	Director
2007	New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903	Director, Producer
2007	Capitalism: Child Labor	Director
2006	Pushcarts of Eternity Street	Director
2006	The Surging Sea of Humanity	Director
2006	Two Wrenching Departures	Director
2005	Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise	Director, Producer
2005	Insistent Clamor	Director
2005	Le Prince: Leeds Bridge 1888	Director
2005	Ontic Antics Starring Laurel and Hardy: Bye Molly	Director
2005	Let There Be Whistle Blowers	Director
2005	Krypton Is Doomed	Director
2005	Spiral Nebula	Director, Writer
2004	Mountaineer Spinning	Director
2004	Star Spangled to Death	Director, Writer
2003	Keeping an Eye on Stan	Director
2003	The Whirled	Director
2002	Circling Zero: Part One, We See Absence	Director
2002	A Tom Tom Chaser	Director
2002	The Sky Socialist: Flight	Director
1999	New York Street Trolleys 1900	Director
1999	Flo Rounds a Corner	Director
1996	Disorient Express	Director
1996	The Georgetown Loop	Director
1995	Looting For Rodney	Director
1995	Make Light On Film	Director
1994	Bitemporal Vision: The Sea	Director
1991	Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896	Director, Writer
1991	Keaton's Cops	Director, Writer
1990	Chronometer	Director
1986	The Alps and The Jews	Director
1985	Perfect Film	Director
1977	The Doctor's Dream	Director
1977	Book of Splendors, Part Two, Book of Levers: Action at a Distance	Director
1976	Spaghetti Aza	Director
1975	Urban Peasants	Director
1975	Jerry Takes A Back Seat, Then Passes Out Of The Picture	Director
1973	Changing Azazel	Director
1970	Binghamton, My India	Director
1969	Nissan Ariana Window	Director
1969	Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son	Director
1969	Globe	Director
1968	Soft Rain	Director
1967	For Life, Against the War	Director
1967	Airshaft	Director
1966	The Sky Socialist	Director
1965	Lisa and Joey in Connecticut	Director
1965	Naomi Is A Dream of Loveliness	Director
1964	1st Window	Director
1964	Window	Director, Producer
1964	We Stole Away	Director
1964	The Winter Footage	Director
1964	Winter Sky	Director
1964	Artie and Marty Rosenblatt’s Baby Pictures	Director
1963	Little Stabs at Happiness	Director
1963	TV Plug	Director
1963	Blonde Cobra	Director
1962	Baud'larian Capers	Director
1961	The Death of P'town	Director
1956	Saturday Afternoon Blood Sacrifice	Director
1956	Little Cobra Dance	Director
1955	Orchard Street	Director

Data from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.