There isn’t any doubt about it: Werner Herzog is among the biggest documentary filmmakers of all time and has been blessing the world with unusual, distinctive, and compelling documentary options for greater than half a century now. He is additionally made loads of nice non-documentary function movies, together with classics of German cinema like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Nosferatu the Vampyre, in addition to newer English-language movies like Rescue Daybreak and Dangerous Lieutenant: Port of Name – New Orleans.
However of his 77 directing credit on Letterboxd, 51 are for documentaries, so it is the style he is spent essentially the most time crafting movies inside. What follows are a few of his biggest documentary options, with all being worthwhile for these eager to expertise the singular, odd, awe-inspiring, and generally disturbing documentaries this nice filmmaker made. The most effective of the perfect are ranked beneath, beginning with the good and ending with the best.
10 ‘Cave of Forgotten Desires’ (2010)
One of many extra relaxed documentaries about nature/the outside that Werner Herzog’s made, Cave of Forgotten Desires is all about Southern France’s Chauvet Cave, and the traditional work contained inside. Herzog basically takes his digicam inside, captures these cave work that date again greater than 30,000 years, and interviews numerous scientists and specialists about what the cave accommodates.
In comparison with different documentaries from Herzog, there’s little right here that is morbid or disturbing, however there stays one thing eerie in regards to the stunning photos captured all through. It was additionally notable for being filmed in 3D, and for the truth that only a few folks have been allowed to view these work, given the cave will not be accessible to most people.
9 ‘The Nice Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner’ (1974)
A number of of Werner Herzog’s early documentaries are brief movies that clock in at below 45 minutes, together with the quietly disturbing La Soufrière, which is a few volcano that is set to erupt and trigger catastrophic harm. However given The Nice Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner is precisely three-quarters of an hour lengthy, it simply sneaks into feature-length territory, no less than in accordance with some definitions of the phrases.
The topic is a carpenter named Walter Steiner, although the documentary spends a lot of its time exploring what drives him to compete within the harmful sport of ski leaping. It is an early instance of Herzog exploring an uncommon and decided particular person in a subject that may be probably lethal and options some beautiful (and generally hard-to-watch) footage of the game in query, together with what can go improper for individuals who participate in it.
8 ‘Into the Abyss’ (2011)
In a post-Netflix world, it could actually really feel like crime documentaries are a dime a dozen, and sometimes simply made in a trend that feels by-product and uninspired at greatest or cheesy and exploitative at worst. The rise on this sub-genre makes a movie like Into the Abyss all of the simpler to admire as a result of this one gives real perception right into a tough story and largely feels empathetic and thoroughly constructed.
The documentary begins as an exploration into inmates on Loss of life Row and the way they really feel in regards to the destiny that is been determined for them, however because it goes alongside, progressively focuses extra on a triple murder case from 2001, interviewing folks associated to the case and people from the justice system. It is a robust watch at occasions however very absorbing, and it does really feel like Herzog offers consideration and time to all sides/events, which might really feel uncommon in documentaries as of late.
7 ‘My Finest Fiend’ (1999)
Werner Herzog made 5 function movies starring notorious German actor Klaus Kinski, together with the aforementioned Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Nosferatu the Vampyre. The pair made nice movies collectively however had a tumultuous and fiery partnership, which is what My Finest Fiend explores and recounts.
These options have been made between 1972 and 1987, and as Kinski handed away in 1991, My Finest Fiend additionally features as a tribute (of kinds) to the fascinating actor’s physique of labor and legacy. It is a documentary that is bittersweet, uncommon, and generally darkly humorous, with Herzog reflecting actually on his work as a filmmaker and the issues he achieved along with his titular greatest “fiend.”
6 ‘Little Dieter Must Fly’ (1997)
Barely awkward title apart, Little Dieter Must Fly is a remarkably well-made documentary that tells a exceptional true story. It is a few pilot and Vietnam Warfare veteran named Dieter Dengler, and is especially centered on how in the course of the Vietnam Warfare, Dengler’s airplane was shot down over Laos, he was imprisoned and tortured for six months, after which escaped, spending over three weeks on the run earlier than getting rescued.
Herzog advised this story in a function movie format with the aforementioned 2006 movie Rescue Daybreak, however Little Dieter Must Fly is much more emotionally highly effective and haunting, regardless of its decrease funds and fewer slick nature. It could be that listening to the story from the person is what makes it additional compelling as a result of as a documentary, that is undoubtedly fascinating.
5 ‘The Hearth Inside: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft’ (2022)
The Hearth Inside: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft will not be Werner Herzog’s first documentary regarding volcanoes by any means. He made a brief documentary in 1977 known as La Soufrière, after which additionally made a strong feature-length documentary in 2016 known as Into the Inferno. This 2022 movie, nevertheless, might be the perfect of those.
It, sadly, got here out the identical yr because the additionally superb Hearth of Love, which tells the identical tragic story about volcanologist/filmmaker husband-and-wife duo Maurice and Katia Krafft however does so in a extra accessible, narrative-focused trend. Herzog’s effort is absorbing for different causes; it is extra haunted, generally confronting, and — even when not fairly as emotional — maybe extra more likely to linger in a viewer’s thoughts after watching.
4 ‘Classes of Darkness’ (1992)
Werner Herzog documentaries are sometimes offbeat and unusual, however few really feel fairly as uncompromisingly experimental as Classes of Darkness. Herzog narrates it the best way he does a lot of his documentaries, however his musings are vaguer and fewer frequent than standard, and interviews are additionally not used typically all through.
It goals to depict Kuwait shortly after being devastated by the Gulf Warfare in a nightmarish, maybe even hellish approach, with many panorama photographs of oil fields ravaged by destruction and combating. It is bleak and disquieting, however such qualities additionally make it one in every of Herzog’s boldest documentary movies and one in every of his hardest to neglect.
3 ‘Encounters on the Finish of the World’ (2007)
Encounters on the Finish of the World sees Werner Herzog going to Antarctica and exploring the continent along with his personal singular observations heard all through. He undeniably captures some beautiful imagery all through, and his interviews carried out with the individuals who reside and work there are equally absorbing.
He additionally gives some very unusual perception into Antarctica’s animal inhabitants, together with, at one level, observing a penguin leaving his colony and venturing off alone into the wilderness, seemingly to its loss of life. It is an odd but devastating sequence that maybe is essentially the most Werner Herzog scene in any Werner Herzog documentary, and as such, is of course a excessive level of his complete filmography.
2 ‘Land of Silence and Darkness’ (1971)
On account of its age, Land of Silence and Darkness sadly appears to get neglected all too typically, when folks focus on the movies of Werner Herzog. It was simply his third feature-length documentary, however stays one in every of his best to today, following a girl named Fini Straubinger, and the challenges that come from her residing life whereas being each deaf and blind.
It appears on the isolation that deaf-blind folks expertise on account of their situations but additionally paperwork the methods they adapt and nonetheless handle to reside life, even with the struggles they face. It is a documentary that may be each unhappy and provoking and is total probably the most empathetic movies of all time, displaying that even when he was simply 29 years outdated, Herzog was already a grasp documentary filmmaker.
1 ‘Grizzly Man’ (2005)
Deservedly standing as one of many highest-rated movies from the 2000s on Letterboxd, Grizzly Man is a masterful documentary and the perfect amongst many nice ones Werner Herzog has made. Its topic is a person named Timothy Treadwell, who spent a lot of his time placing his life in danger by residing amongst grizzly bears in Alaska and documenting his experiences on movie for greater than a decade. In the end, he and his accomplice died in a bear assault, forsaking footage/video diaries, in addition to many unanswered questions.
It is these questions that Herzog makes use of this movie to attempt to reply, delving into why Treadwell did what he did and extra broadly, what would drive an individual to reside so riskily. It is a disturbing, unhappy, near-perfect, and perplexing documentary, and positively one which solely Werner Herzog may’ve made.
