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1
How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976)
6.3/10on IMDb
Released
At the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship in New Holland, Pennsylvania, Herzog watches auctioneers turn prices and bids into a continuous stream of sound. Start here if you want a short documentary that is funny and attentive to an exacting skill.
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The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander set out to climb two Gasherbrum peaks in a single push. The interviews are as important as the ascent. Pick it when you want to hear climbers explain why they keep going back.
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Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
The music of Carlo Gesualdo gives Herzog a way to explore the composer’s reputation and the stories attached to his violence. Hear the madrigals alongside portraits of people who keep retelling his life. Some of the documentary’s stranger episodes are staged.
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On Death Row (2012)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
In the television series On Death Row, Herzog interviews people sentenced to death and others connected to their cases. The time spent on each case makes it a good starting point for his interview style, with room for the people speaking to complicate what you expected to hear.
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Herakles (1962)
5.6/10on IMDb
Released
Herzog’s first short cuts between bodybuilders posing and archival footage of the deadly Le Mans racing crash. The collision between the two kinds of images is the whole point. It’s a compact starting place for seeing how early he let editing make the argument.
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Last Words (1968)
6.0/10on IMDb
Released
A stubborn musician won’t say a word after being removed from his island home, so the people around him tell his story. Listen to the repetitions in their testimony. This early staged short gives the rhythm of an interview the force of a refrain.
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Precautions Against Fanatics (1969)
5.7/10on IMDb
Released
Men at a racetrack describe the elaborate precautions they take to protect the horses from supposed fanatics. Herzog presents their boasts with the straight face of a television report. Watch it with the livestock-auction film for two very different uses of an earnestly delivered interview.
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The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1970)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
One of Herzog’s earliest documentary assignments follows doctors who travel by plane to reach their patients in East Africa. Start here for a practical look at what it takes to get medical care to a remote place, and for a chance to see Herzog before his much more familiar narration style.
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No One Will Play with Me (1976)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
A boy left out by the other children begins to make a friend when a classmate takes an interest in his pet crow. Herzog drew partly on stories the preschoolers told him. Pick this little-seen short for an example of how he builds a story from the way children explain their own world.
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Handicapped Future (1971)
7.0/10on IMDb
Released
This early television short asks disabled children about everyday life and education, then looks at differences in how Germany and the United States include them. It’s a useful early example of Herzog organizing a film around the people affected by a public question.
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God's Angry Man (1983)
6.7/10on IMDb
Released
Herzog visits televangelist Gene Scott in the studio of Festival of Faith. Watch Scott move between fundraising demands on the broadcast and more reflective moments. Choose this if you want a documentary about how TV can turn one person’s conviction into a performance.
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Huie's Sermon (1983)
6.0/10on IMDb
Released
One sermon at a Brooklyn church gives this short its structure. Huie Rogers builds a rhythm with repetition, changes in volume and response from the congregation. Watch it alongside God’s Angry Man to see two very different ways religious speech works in front of a camera.
More about Huie's Sermon13
Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
Herzog and Denis Reichle speak with young Miskito fighters in the conflict in Nicaragua. A boy’s singing makes the subject harder to keep at the distance of a news report. This is a difficult watch about what war asks of children.
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Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
The film observes a Wodaabe gathering where young men paint their faces and dance as women watch and judge. Choose it for the concentration on gesture and presentation. It’s a short encounter with a specific ceremony through Herzog’s personal lens.
More about Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun15
Echoes from a Sombre Empire (1990)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
Journalist Michael Goldsmith goes back to the Central African Republic, where he was imprisoned under Jean-Bédel Bokassa. Herzog sets the journey among archival footage and interviews with Bokassa’s relatives. Pick it for the tension between what records can show and what people remember.
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Jag Mandir: The Eccentric Private Theatre of the Maharaja of Udaipur (1991)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
André Heller helps put together a large performance at the palace of the Maharana of Udaipur. Herzog spends time with musicians, dancers and other performers instead of following a single star. Try this if you like performance documentaries that let you watch a whole procession take shape.
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The Transformation of the World Into Music (1996)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
Herzog goes backstage at Bayreuth to see rehearsals and preparations for its Wagner productions. Pay attention to the people arranging the practical work behind what the audience sees. This is an inviting pick if you’re curious about opera as something people have to build together.
More about The Transformation of the World Into Music18
Portrait: Werner Herzog (1986)
6.6/10on IMDb
Released
For this self-portrait made for German television, Herzog talks with his friend and mentor Lotte Eisner and draws on footage from his own sets. Watch it when you know a few of his earlier films and want to see how he pieces together an account of his work.
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From One Second to the Next (2013)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
This public-service short follows people whose lives changed after crashes involving texting while driving. The interviews give survivors and other people affected time to describe what happened afterward. Pick it for a direct example of what Herzog can do when he lets people speak at length.
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Theater of Thought (2024)
7.2/10on IMDb
Released
Herzog meets researchers working on how the brain produces thought and what technology might reveal about it. The conversations, developed with neuroscientist Rafael Yuste, also raise questions about who could access that information. This is an entry point for viewers drawn to the limits of measurement and observation.
More about Theater of Thought21
Wheel of Time (2003)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
At a Buddhist gathering in Bodh Gaya, Herzog takes time to watch the making of a sand mandala. The work offers a rhythm of its own. Choose this when you want a film about devotion that lets small gestures and difficult journeys sit side by side.
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