We Heart Herzog
A titan of New German Cinema whose adventures in filmmaking now span six decades, Werner Herzog has always been voracious in his quest for “ecstatic truth.” He has ventured deep into the Amazon, traversed the Sahara, and scaled active volcanoes—prepared to risk life and limb (his own and sometimes those of others, too) in the name of art. This collection brings together a number of his most powerful and hypnotic—and beloved—works.
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Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Directed by Werner Herzog | 94 mins | 1972
The first collaboration between Herzog and Klaus Kinski cast the notoriously unhinged actor as the even more unhinged 16th-century conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre—nicknamed “El Loco” or “The Madman”—found embarking on his final mission: a frantic search... -
Fitzcarraldo
Directed by Werner Herzog | 157 mins | 1982
The making of Herzog’s epic film about the endeavors of Irish entrepreneur Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) to build an opera house in the Amazon jungle is perhaps as fascinating as "Fitzcarraldo" itself, as was stunningly documented in Les Blank... -
Nosferatu the Vampyre
Directed by Werner Herzog | 107 mins | 1979
Herzog brashly took up the mantle of German Expressionism in revisiting the unhallowed soil of Murnau’s masterpiece, with old foe and collaborator Klaus Kinski as the pestilent Count and Isabelle Adjani as the owner of the pale, slender neck that he so ... -
Cobra Verde
Directed by Werner Herzog | 110 mins | 1997
The last film to emerge from the long, tumultuous five-movie collaboration/death struggle between Herzog and Klaus Kinski, "Cobra Verde" features Kinski as a disgraced, priapic plantation worker sent to almost certain death by his employer on a mission ... -
My Best Fiend
Directed by Werner Herzog | 99 mins | 1999
Amidst insults hurled, tantrums thrown, and some literal shots fired, Herzog’s collaboration with the notoriously explosive Klaus Kinski produced five indelible films, from 1972’s "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" to 1987’s "Cobra Verde". “Every gray hair on m... -
Woyzeck
Directed by Werner Herzog | 80 mins | 1979
An unfinished but influential play by the terribly short lived 19th century author Georg Büchner provides the basis for this tale of a soldier—played by vitriolic diva Klaus Kinski—driven to psychological ruin by an errant lover and a diet of only peas. ... -
Lessons of Darkness
Directed by Werner Herzog | 54 mins | 1992
Saddam Hussein ordered the withdrawal from Kuwait at the end of February, 1991, bringing the Gulf War to a nominal close—but the Iraqi troops would wreak a trail of destruction in their retreat: implementing a scorched earth policy, they set fire to arou... -
Little Dieter Needs To Fly
Directed by Werner Herzog | 77 mins | 1997
In the German-born U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, Herzog seems to have met his match: Dengler too is a wily, tenacious adventurer, a skilled raconteur-philosopher, and a dreamer of dangerous dreams. This gripping documentary has Dengler recount—and reen... -
Heart of Glass
Directed by Werner Herzog | 95 mins | 1976
As in "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972), Herzog here combines images of misty mountains majesty and the haunting sounds of Popol Vuh with the story of a descent into madness—tripped in this 18th century Bavarian village by the death of the master glassb... -
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
Directed by Werner Herzog | 110 mins | 1974
After spotting self-taught outsider artist Bruno S. in a documentary about street musicians, Herzog was determined to work with him, and proceeded to cast this troubled man with zero acting experience who’d been raised in mental institutions as the lead... -
Stroszek
Directed by Werner Herzog | 108 mins | 1977
Herzog’s longstanding fascination with cannibal killer Ed Gein drew him to shoot his devastating film of American dreams deferred in wild, wonderful Wisconsin, where a West Berlin street musician, Stroszek—played by Bruno S., the oft-institutionalized b... -
Even Dwarfs Started Small
Directed by Werner Herzog | 96 mins | 1970
The New York Times’ Vincent Canby called Werner Herzog’s mutinous second feature a work of “perverse, uninvolved intelligence”; Harmony Korine has called it “the greatest film ever made.” When a gaggle of little folk run riot at the correctional facility... -
Fata Morgana
Directed by Werner Herzog | 76 mins | 1971
Herzog’s idea of turning the Sahara and Sahel Deserts into the setting for a kind of sci-fi docu-fiction was nixed upon his arrival, but after a long and perilously high-stakes production—with the director subject briefly to imprisonment and then a nasty... -
Land of Silence and Darkness
Directed by Werner Herzog | 85 mins | 1971
After a childhood accident caused her an eventual loss of vision at 15 and hearing at 18, Fini Straubinger spent the next 30 years of life bedridden. But by age 56, when she became the subject of Herzog’s documentary feature, she had found her inner stre...
