Items22The creator’s order
  1. 1Fata Morgana (1972)Fata Morgana (1972) 6.6/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 1, 1972The purest dose of Herzog as image-maker. Shot across the Sahara and the Sahel, it turns desert mirages and heat haze into a three-part creation myth, with Lotte Eisner reading from the Mayan creation story over the top and Leonard Cohen songs drifting in. It began life as a science-fiction idea…0
  2. 2Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) 7.9/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 8, 1971Herzog's most tender documentary, and the proof that his curiosity was about people long before it was about volcanoes. He follows Fini Straubinger, a German woman who became deafblind early in life, as she visits others living the same way and tries to reach those even more cut off than she…0
  3. 3The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 1, 1974A short, sharp portrait of Walter Steiner, a carpenter by trade who happened to be one of the great ski flyers of his era. Herzog films him chasing a world record at Planica in 1974, and the flights themselves are some of the most beautiful sports footage you will see. What makes it Herzog is the…0
  4. 4La Soufrière: Waiting for an Inevitable Catastrophe (1977)La Soufrière: Waiting for an Inevitable Catastrophe (1977) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 1, 1977Herzog heard that Guadeloupe had been evacuated ahead of a predicted eruption, learned that someone had refused to leave, and flew straight to the volcano with a camera crew. That decision is the whole film, and it tells you more about him than any interview. The deserted streets, the man who…0
  5. 5Lessons of Darkness (1992)Lessons of Darkness (1992) 7.9/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 21, 1992The burning Kuwaiti oil fields after the first Gulf War, filmed as if by a visitor from another planet. Herzog names no country and explains no politics; instead he frames the footage through religion and science fiction and scores it with Wagner, Mahler and Arvo Pärt. It is overwhelming and…0
  6. 6Bells from the Deep (1993)Bells from the Deep (1993) 7.3/10 on IMDbReleased Sep 7, 1993The best place to see ecstatic truth in action, because Herzog has admitted the trick. This survey of faith and superstition in Russia turns in its second half to the legend of Kitezh, a city said to lie beneath a lake, and its famous image is of pilgrims lying on the ice, listening for the drowned…0
  7. 7Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) 8.0/10 on IMDbReleased Dec 1, 1997The great entry point to Herzog's people films. Dieter Dengler, a German-born US Navy pilot, crash-landed his Skyraider in Laos in 1966, was held in a prisoner camp, escaped and was eventually spotted and rescued. Herzog takes him back to Southeast Asia and has him retrace his steps, with hired…0
  8. 8My Best Fiend (1999)My Best Fiend (1999) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased May 17, 1999Herzog on Klaus Kinski, the volcanic actor he made five films with, starting with Aguirre. It is part memoir, part exorcism: Herzog revisits their tumultuous, productive partnership, including the oft-repeated story of threatening to shoot Kinski if he walked off the Aguirre shoot. It is very…0
  9. 9Wings of Hope (1999)Wings of Hope (1999) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 20, 1999Juliane Koepcke was the sole survivor of LANSA Flight 508, which broke apart over the Peruvian jungle after a lightning strike in 1971, and she made her own way out of the rainforest. Herzog had narrowly avoided taking that same flight, and here he takes her back to the scenes of the crash and her…0
  10. 10The White Diamond (2004)The White Diamond (2004) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Nov 13, 2004Aeronautical engineer Graham Dorrington has built a teardrop-shaped airship to drift over the rainforest canopy of Guyana, and Herzog comes along for the flights near Kaieteur Falls. Dorrington still carries a heaviness from the death of cinematographer Dieter Plage, which gives the adventure real…0