Benoit was born in Nanterre in the west suburb of Paris in 1961 and spent his childhood in Cherbourg, in Normandy. He started to study cinema in 1980 at the Paris Sorbonne University and at the Ecole Louis Lumiere where he specialized in cinematography mentored by Robert Bresson's favorite camera operator.

Benoit's early breakthrough as a director of photography came with the movie he shot for the Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung « The Scent of Green Papaya », a poetic recreation of the 1950's Saigon entirely shot on stage in Paris. The film won the Camera d'Or Award in Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film. Following that success, Benoit re-teamed with the same director for «Cyclo »,a violent tale of contemporary Vietnam all shot in the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City and was awarded a Golden Lion in Venice Film Festival by president of the jury Abbas Kiorastami.

Since then Benoit established himself as a very international cinematographer. He loves nothing more than jumping from one universe to another.

« The Loss of Sexual Innocence », a fearless collage of bold images shot in three weeks in three different countries on Ektachrome for Academy Award winning director Mike Figgis was Benoit's first English speaking movie quickly followed by « The Winslow Boy », a very painterly adaptation of an Edwardian play directed by David Mamet. Then a biopic of the scandalous Marquis de Sade during the french Revolution directed by Benoit Jacquot ( « Sade » ) followed by a ghost story in the streets of Tapei with revered Taiwanese director Tsai Ming Liang ( « What Time is it There » ). An adaption of Shakespeare's « Merchant of Venice » starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons shot in a dilapidated Venice back lot in Luxembourg followed by a brutal and extremely stylish western shot in the Australian Outback, written by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat ( « The Proposition » ) A love story between Jude Law and Juliette Binoche directed by Academy award winner Anthony Minghella and set in London's Kings Cross new development ( « Breaking and Entering » ) followed by a tragic love story between the son of a concentration camp's commander and a Jewish boy ( « The Boy in Striped Pyjamas » ) A very experimental film adapted from Oscar Wilde's « Salome » directed by Al Pacino. Al directs and acts with Jessica Chastain and Benoit helps him to mix abruptly the play and real life in a small stage in Los Angeles followed by a post 9-11 spy story adapted from a John Le Carré's novel and shot in the warehouses of Hamburg's harbor and directed by the legendary dutch photographer Anton Corbijn and starring Philipp Seymour Hoffman ( « A Most Wanted Man » ) A biopic of the cosmologist Stephen Hawking fighting with motor neuron disease shot on the campus of Cambridge University and directed by Academy Award winning director James Marsh and starring Eddie Redmayne who won an Oscar for best actor for this performance ( « The Theory of Everything » ) followed by the last two years of the life of Vincent Van Gogh shot entirely handheld by Benoit in Provence under the direction of the « painter director » Julian Schnabel. Willem Dafoe plays Vincent and gets and academy award nomination for best actor ( At Eternity's Gate ). Benoit is also developing a parallel career as a painter. His first show « My Hollywood » opened in New York in march 2017.