Ken Jacobs
male
Born on May 25, 1933 (92 years old)
Passed Away on October 05, 2025
From Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Known for Directing
Biography
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.
Cast Credits
- 2025
- 2023
- 2022
- 2016
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2008
- 2007
- 2004
- 2003
- 2002
- 2000
- 1997
- 1994
- 1991
- 1986
- 1985
- 1976
- 1973
- 1968
- 1967
- 1963
- 1962
Crew Credits
- 2025
- 2023
Spasm
as
Director
2023
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
as
Director
2023
Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three
as
Director
2023
Up the Illusion
as
Director
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 15
as
Director
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 1
as
Director
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 5
as
Director
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 20
as
Director
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 10
as
Director
2023
Book of Eternalisms 1-6
as
Director
2023
Other Urban Lives
as
Director
2023
From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight
as
Director
2023
Writhing City
as
Director
2023
- 2022
- 2021
Double Wow
as
Director
2021
Abstract Eternalism
as
Director
2021
Cartoonish 1-10
as
Director
2021
XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX
as
Editor
2021
A Small Misunderstanding
as
Director
2021
Adventures of Cookie Truck
as
Director
2021
Hoffman Student
as
Director
2021
Eternal Beach
as
Director
2021
XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX
as
Director
2021
Aspiring To Music
as
Director
2021
- 2020
Rubble
as
Director
2020
Rain Clouds
as
Director
2020
PAINTED POSTER
as
Director
2020
Ken and Flo
as
Director
2020
Red Green
as
Director
2020
RECIPROCAL
as
Director
2020
DR. TOOTHY
as
Director
2020
Barber
as
Director
2020
Foliage in Moving Car Window
as
Director
2020
Facade with Face
as
Director
2020
DeKooning Passed
as
Director
2020
Doyer Street
as
Director
2020
Sleeping American
as
Director
2020
Waiting Room Window
as
Director
2020
Natural Collage
as
Director
2020
Reading Society
as
Director
2020
Lazy City
as
Director
2020
Roots of Manhattan
as
Director
2020
Friendly Building
as
Director
2020
Bison
as
Director
2020
Working Girls (short)
as
Director
2020
Broadway Buildings II
as
Director
2020
Bargains
as
Director
2020
City Foliage
as
Director
2020
Broadway Buildings III
as
Director
2020
Chinese New Years
as
Director
2020
Chinese New Years II
as
Director
2020
Broadway Building
as
Director
2020
Duck
as
Director
2020
Fire Escape
as
Director
2020
Brick Building with Red and Green Windows
as
Director
2020
Street Commerce
as
Director
2020
Resting Merchant
as
Director
2020
Neon Sign
as
Director
2020
Flowers and Bike
as
Director
2020
Street Commerce II
as
Director
2020
Water Balloon
as
Director
2020
Halley’s Comet
as
Director
2020
Spaceworks
as
Director
2020
Period Piece
as
Director
2020
Another Day in Days of Yore
as
Director
2020
- no image
Bandit
as
Director
2020
Garage Wall
as
Director
2020
Hubble II
as
Director
2020
Whirlpool
as
Director
2020
Storefront
as
Director
2020
Spiky
as
Director
2020
Transparent Apartments
as
Director
2020
Municipal Building Passage
as
Director
2020
Clouds and Trees
as
Director
2020
Movie That Invites Pausing
as
Director
2020
- 2019
Cartoon
as
Director
2019
Chaos Is Order Misunderstood
as
Director
2019
Nervous Magic Lantern: 3D for One or Two Naked Eyes
as
Director
2019
Dimsum and Dragons
as
Director
2019
Details of Pollock's White Light
as
Director
2019
Joan Mitchell: Departures
as
Director
2019
Once Upon a Planet
as
Director
2019
Above the Rain
as
Director
2019
The Sky Socialist: The Environs
as
Director
2019
THE WHOLE SHEBANG
as
Director
2019
Things to Come
as
Director
2019
Sebastian and Jonas Leaving the Party
as
Director
2019
Failure
as
Director
2019
CRUSH
as
Director
2019
Figures I - V
as
Director
2019
MOVING ROAD
as
Director
2019
PAPPY SEES 3D, TOO
as
Director
2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
Reichstag 9/11
as
Director
2016
Mosco Street 2
as
Director
2016
Mosco Street 3: Attack of The Perfect Camera (Fuji W3)
as
Director
2016
- no image
I'm Telling You
as
Director
2016
Hydroelectric Dam
as
Director
2016
- no image
Molten Landscape
as
Director
2016
- no image
Lurking
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / diNMachine @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / JG Thirlwell @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / Rick Reed & Tara Bhattacharya @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / Robert Poss @The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / Victoria Keddie @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Ken Jacobs / Tom Chiu of Flux Quartet @ The Nervous Magic Lantern Festival
as
Director
2016
Snow in Headlights II
as
Director
2016
- 2015
Chrysalis
as
Director
2015
- no image
Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies
as
Writer
2015
- no image
Cyclops Observes the Celestial Bodies
as
Director
2015
Afternoon Tide
as
Director
2015
Batchellor’s Dog and Beach
as
Director
2015
Empty Seats
as
Director
2015
The Lackadaisical Speed of Light
as
Director
2015
- no image
Zazie Learns About Money
as
Director
2015
- no image
Aimless Sightseeing, Seoul
as
Director
2015
Granular
as
Director
2015
- 2014
- 2013
- no image
A Primer in Sky Socialism
as
Director
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2
as
Technical Supervisor
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2
as
Director
2013
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #1
as
Director
2013
- no image
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #4
as
Director
2013
- no image
Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #3
as
Director
2013
- 2012
- 2011
Seeking the Monkey King
as
Director
2011
DAY AND NIGHT
as
Director
2011
- no image
America at War, The Home Front: Film Opening
as
Director
2011
The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street
as
Writer
2011
The Pushcarts Leave Eternity Street
as
Director
2011
Another Occupation
as
Director
2011
Another Occupation
as
Writer
2011
The Green Wave
as
Director
2011
Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman
as
Director
2011
The Roses
as
Director
2011
- no image
Revolving Door
as
Director
2011
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero
as
Director
2011
Turbulent Waters
as
Director
2011
- 2010
- 2009
The Day Was a Scorcher
as
Director
2009
The Day Was a Scorcher
as
Writer
2009
The Signing
as
Director
2009
- no image
“Slow is Beauty”—Rodin
as
Director
2009
- no image
Berkeley To San Francisco
as
Director
2009
- no image
What Happened on 23rd Street in 1901
as
Director
2009
Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days
as
Director
2009
Bob Fleischner Dying
as
Director
2009
Brain Operations
as
Director
2009
- no image
Hot Dogs At The Met
as
Director
2009
Walkway
as
Director
2009
- no image
Ronald Gonzales, Sculptor
as
Director
2009
Excerpt From THE SKY SOCIALIST Stratified
as
Director
2009
Brook
as
Director
2009
Gravity Is Tops
as
Director
2009
- 2008
Return to the Scene of the Crime
as
Director
2008
Anaglyph Tom (Tom with Puffy Cheeks)
as
Director
2008
- no image
Elbow Dance
as
Director
2008
The Scenic Route
as
Director
2008
- no image
The Discovery
as
Director
2008
Amorous Interludes: His Favorite Wife Improved (or The Virtue Of Bad Reception)
as
Director
2008
- no image
Alone at Last
as
Director
2008
- no image
Love Story
as
Director
2008
- 2007
Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World
as
Director
2007
New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903
as
Director
2007
Capitalism: Slavery
as
Director
2007
New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903
as
Producer
2007
Gift of Fire: Nineteen (Obscure) Frames That Changed The World
as
Director
2007
Nymph
as
Director
2007
Hanky Panky January 1902
as
Director
2007
We Are Charming
as
Director
2007
- no image
Titles
as
Director
2007
- no image
Mosco Street Rapture
as
Director
2007
- no image
Popeye Sees 3-D, TOO
as
Director
2007
Nervous Lantern at Kill Your Timid Notion Festival
as
Director
2007
- 2006
- 2005
Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise
as
Director
2005
Let There Be Whistle Blowers
as
Director
2005
Krypton Is Doomed
as
Director
2005
Spiral Nebula
as
Director
2005
Spiral Nebula
as
Writer
2005
Ontic Antics Starring Laurel and Hardy: Bye Molly
as
Director
2005
Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise
as
Editor
2005
Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise
as
Producer
2005
- no image
Insistent Clamor
as
Director
2005
Le Prince: Leeds Bridge 1888
as
Director
2005
- 2004
- 2003
- 2002
- 1999
- 1996
- 1995
- 1994
- 1991
- 1990
- 1986
- 1985
- 1977
- 1976
- 1975
- 1973
- 1970
- 1969
- 1968
- 1967
- 1965
- 1964
- 1963
- 1962
- 1961
- 1956
- 1955
