With his brother Josh, Benny Safdie made two of the most anxious thrillers of the last decade, hurrying a man from one bad decision to the next. Directing alone, he has slowed down and not yet worked out what to do with the quiet.
Fi1m perspective
In Good Time (2017) a bank robbery goes wrong, Connie Nikas's brother ends up in custody, and Connie spends the rest of the film making things worse to get him out. Nothing is allowed to finish. Benny Safdie and Ronald Bronstein cut it so that each difficulty arrives before the last is weighed, and Daniel Lopatin's electronic score makes the pressure almost physical. Uncut Gems (2019) does the same with Adam Sandler's Howard Ratner. We watched Good Time wanting Connie's next bad idea to come off and were uneasy at how easily the film had put us on his side.
He made films with his brother Josh from the late 2000s before Good Time and Uncut Gems brought them a wider audience. Their pictures put non-professionals beside stars and keep close to a man who cannot stop. Then Benny went off on his own. The Curse (2023), made with Nathan Fielder, kept the discomfort and spread it over a series. "I will direct on my own, and I will explore things that I want to explore," he said in 2024. The Smashing Machine (2025) is the result.
He is also a good actor, and a quiet one. Nick in Good Time is the one person we are allowed to feel simply about. Dougie Schecter in The Curse wants footage and does not much care what it costs the people in it. For other directors he goes smaller still: Joel Wachs in Licorice Pizza (2021) is quieter and sadder; Herb Simon in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023) is a father raising his daughter with no religion; he is Edward Teller in Oppenheimer (2023). He voices Bowser Junior in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026), a poor film in which his sulking scenes with Jack Black are the nearest thing to a story.
The Smashing Machine is the test of what he does without Josh, and the answer is: slower. Dwayne Johnson is unrecognisable and good as Mark Kerr, and Maceo Bishop shoots the bouts from outside the ropes, handheld and half a second late, so we hear the crowd before the knee lands. Scenes begin late and end early, as they always did, and yet nothing hurries. Once the film has established that Kerr is quiet, Dawn (Emily Blunt) is not and the pills are a problem, it spends forty minutes saying so again. Uncut Gems never let us sit still; this one asks us to and does not always give a reason.
He has said he wanted to make the most honest sports film. Honest it is, and careful, and Ryan Bader, a fighter rather than an actor, gets the same attention as Kerr. He has shown he can be quiet. We would like the next one to remember how good he was at noise.
Biography
Benny Safdie is an American filmmaker, actor, writer and editor. He frequently collaborates with his older brother Josh Safdie on independent films including Heaven Knows What (2015), Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019). He studied at Boston University.
Safdie has acted in several films, appearing as Herbert Simon in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023) and as Edward Teller in Oppenheimer (2023). He voiced Bowser Junior in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026). He co-created, co-wrote and starred in the television series The Curse (2023).
He made his solo directorial debut with The Smashing Machine (2025), which he also wrote and edited.
