Recent advancements in large-scale video-language models have shown significant potential for real-time planning and detailed interactions. However, their high computational demands and the scarcity of annotated datasets limit their practicality for academic researchers. In this work, we introduce VideoLLaMB, a novel and efficient framework for long video understanding that leverages recurrent memory bridges and temporal memory tokens to enable seamless encoding of entire video sequences with preserved semantic continuity. Central to our approach is a SceneTiling algorithm that segments videos into coherent semantic units, facilitating robust understanding across tasks without requiring additional training. VideoLLaMB achieves state-of-the-art performance, surpassing existing models by 4.2 points on four VideoQA benchmarks and by 2.06 points on egocentric planning tasks. Notably, it maintains strong performance under extreme video length scaling (up to 8 times) and excels at fine-grained frame retrieval on our proposed Needle in a Video Haystack (NIAVH) benchmark. With linear GPU memory scaling, VideoLLaMB processes up to 320 frames using a single Nvidia A100 GPU, despite being trained on only 16 frames-offering an unprecedented balance of accuracy, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. This makes it highly accessible and practical for the academic community.