Nicole Kidman

Robert Pattinson

Christian Bale

Carl Weathers

Documentary presents a comprehensive portrait of an iconic artist of our time.

Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer

Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (2022)

John Krasinski

Will Arnett

Barack Obama

Werner Herzog

In 2010, rock band The National were about to embark on the biggest tour of their career. After ten years as a band, and five critically acclaimed albums, they were finally enjoying wider recognition. Lead singer Matt Berninger invited his younger brother, Tom, to join the tour's crew. A budding horror filmmaker, Tom - who is nine years younger than Matt and listens exclusively to heavy metal - decided to bring his camera along. Tom's at sea in the world of indie rock, and living in his brother's shadow brings out the younger sibling in him - he drinks, complains, and struggles to balance his ambition with his tour responsibilities. The result is a film about brothers and about making something of your own.—Anonymous

Mistaken for Strangers

Mistaken for Strangers (2013)

Ronald Reagan

Vladimir Putin

Mikhail Gorbachev

The life of Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final President of the Soviet Union in chronological order.

Meeting Gorbachev

Meeting Gorbachev (2018)

Amanda West

Delbert Burkett

Jared Talbert

Into the abyss explores a triple murder which occurred in the small Texas City of Conroe in 2001. Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, murdered a middle-aged housewife; they then gunned down her stepson and his friend. The film features Conversations with the two inmates and those affected by their crime. Unlike many of the films that deal with crimes, into the abyss isn't concerned with figuring out exactly what happened, but rather serves as an examination of why people - and the state - kill.—Brad

Into the Abyss

Into the Abyss (2011)

This film surveys the disaster of the Kuwaiti oil fields in flames, with little narration and scarcely any interviews. Hell on Earth is presented in such transcendent visions and music that one can only be fascinated by it.

Lessons of Darkness

Lessons of Darkness (1992)

Chishû Ryû

Chris Marker

Yûharu Atsuta

Wim Wenders travels to Japan in search of the Tokyo seen in the films of Yasujirô Ozu. Ozu's own Tokyo Story (1953) is a helpful (but not mandatory) pre-requisite to seeing Tokyo-Ga (1985).—Anonymous

Tokyo-Ga

Tokyo-Ga (1985)

Katia Krafft

Maurice Krafft

Harry Glicken

Maurice and Katia Krafft dedicated their lives to exploring the world's volcanoes. Their legacy consists of groundbreaking footage of eruptions and their aftermath, composed in this visual stunning collage.

The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft

The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022)

German Qoheleth

Kwon Sung An

Sarmin

An exploration of active volcanoes in Indonesia (Mount Sinabung), Iceland, North Korea and Ethiopia (Erta Ale), Herzog follows Volcanologist and co-director Clive Oppenheimer, who hopes to minimize the volcanoes' destructive impact. Herzog's quest is to gain an image of our origins and nature as a species. He finds that the volcano is mysterious, violent, and rapturously beautiful and instructs that "there is no single one that is not connected to a belief system."Vanuatu Archipelago, Ambrym Island. 1000 miles from Northern Australia. A string of active volcanoes. The Island bears the brunt of tropical storms as well as volcanic eruptions.
Village of Endu, chief Mael Moses. The last big eruption was in 1968. The villagers believe spirits keep the fires of the volcanoes burning. The Spirits recognize the villagers but not the tourists. So tourists were banned for 3 yrs after the eruption.
The lava expresses the anger of the devil. All villagers who die, go to the volcano. The ancient rituals of the villagers are being gradually lost.Mount Erebus 12500 ft above sea level. Active volcano in Antarctica. This is where Herzog met Oppenheimer for the first time 10 yrs ago. They discuss the primary philosophy behind the fascination with volcanoes. Volcanoes created life and that nothing is permanent, not even life.
Herzog was on La Soufriere in 1976 on the Caribbean island of Gaudeloupe. The volcano was expected to erupt and 70,000 people were evacuated. 1 man refused to go. This man slept and sang as the volcano spewed lava.. but this was his home and he didn't want to leaveKatia and Maurice Kraft are a French couple who study volcanoes. They photograph eruptions and get very close to danger in doing so. They were killed by a lava flow in Japan. The super-heated gases released traveled at 100 miles per hour and heated to 800 degrees F..
Lake Toba, Indonesia. Oppenheimer first came here when he was 19. Indonesia has the most volcanoes in the world. Mount Sinabung erupted in 2010. Herzog and his team visited 6 yrs later, and the captured a live eruption, when it was least expected. Many monitoring stations have been set up to monitor active volcanoes in Indonesia. Babatan observatory monitors Mount Merapi, the most dangerous volcano in the world. If the volcano erupts, the observers will have no option but to retire into a bunker, that is provisioned with food and oxygen for a month.
Merapi last erupted in 2010. the monitoring saved 20,000 lives. First indicators are seismic earthquakes, then distance measurements (the summit expands as the lava flows up), and the the content of sulfur Di oxide in the gases around the volcano.Indonesian royals perform ceremonies to reconcile the Goddess of the ocean with the Demon of the volcano. Annual rituals are carried out to appease the volcano and the ocean.
A local farmer built a church shaped like a dove, pointing towards the Merapi, to appease the volcano. Every volcano in Indonesia is connected to a local belief system.Lake Toba is the biggest volcanic lake in the world. Formed in an eruption 74,000 yrs ago. The eruption ejected 15000 cubic Kms of ash and pumice. The biggest eruption recorded ever in Earth's history. It darkened skies globally. It almost wiped the humans out as a species, as it destroyed all tropical vegetation. Maybe 600 humans survived.
To find human fossils from this period the team travels to Danakil depression in Ethiopia, 300 m below sea level, the hottest place on the planet. Temp of 120 degrees F. The depression is part of a rift travelling across East Africa. Eventually, this rift will widen and a part of Africa will detach from the mainland and drift into the ocean. Volcanoes will form.Erta Ale, is one of the 3 in the world where magma is directly exposed. A large amount of Obsidian (Volcanic glass) was ejected around the crater. Till 1980, optical surgeries were conducted with Obsidian blades, sharper than any steel. This area has attracted hominids for millions of yrs. The paleontologists working on the site have found the remains of a hominid believed to be 100,000 yrs old. The team finds bone fragments all over the desert and using computer algorithms, they triangulate a site likely to host a human skeleton. At the site, the team unearth's many skeletal pieces, coming one step closer to solving the mystery.Westman Island, Iceland. All of Iceland is volcanic and was settled just 1200 yrs ago. Volcano erupted in Heimaey in 1973. Since then there have been eruptions every yr. In 2010 Eyjafjallajökull erupted. The eruption melted the ice around the volcano, which created huge floods. Air traffic from ash clouds was disrupted for weeks. In 1783, 40 km long fissures open up in lake Laki pouring lava all over the Icelandic landscapes. The Icelanders wrote a single manuscript, embodying the significance of volcanoes in their lives. The codex was presented to the King of Denmark by an Icelandic Bishop in 17th century. Later, Denmark returned it to Iceland by putting it on their most powerful battleship and escorting it with their entire fleet.Mt Paektu, North Korea. Dormant for 1000 yrs, and on the border with China. Considered the birthplace of the Korean nation. New army recruits graduate by singing on top of Mt Paektu. North Korea invited the team for a joint exploration of Mt Paektu, but subjected them to closely controlled propaganda. The mountain itself is 5000 yrs old. It erupted 1100 yrs ago and created a crater 3 miles wide. enough pumice came out to bury the entire new York city. the entire mountain top blew up, spewing rock across China, Japan, Russia and Korea itself.
Kim-Il Sung, the founding father of North Korea, established his secret police HQ at the base of the mountain, thereby appropriating its power and dynamism. The team witnesses great parades and huge dances in large stadiums, but the society itself seems empty and hollow. There are no international phone lines or internet available to the public. No radio or TV from the outside world. No cell phones and no ads anywhere. Instead govt propaganda everywhere. Everywhere, there are pics of the leaders in the vicinity of the volcano.Tanna Island, Mount Tasur in the Vanuatu archipelago. Active volcano. 3rd one exposed to magma. The volcano is worshiped as a deity by the locals. The deity is known as John Frum who is said to use the volcano as a portal to travel from Tanna to North America. the village flies the American flag and its church already had factions of the faith.
The locals believe that the volcanoes with destroy the world one day.

Into the Inferno

Into the Inferno (2016)

Elon Musk

Nicol Caplin

Simon Dubé

Rudolph and Werner Herzog take us on an unforgettable journey into space and living beyond Earth as they look to answer the big question: How close are we to fulfilling our dream of becoming space colonists? Over 7 billion humans walk this earth. Our resources are dwindling. Since time immemorial, we have looked up into the night sky wondering what's out there in the vast distance of space. There are over 100 billion planets in the Milky way alone. Could one of them be our future home?

Last Exit: Space

Last Exit: Space (2022)

Reinhold Messner

Christian Bianco

Neil McGarry

The great successes and tragedies in the life and work of Hans Kammerlander, the renowned mountaineer.

Manaslu - Berg der Seelen

Manaslu - Berg der Seelen (2018)

Claudia Cardinale

Klaus Kinski

Jason Robards

In the 1950s, an adolescent Werner Herzog was transfixed by a film performance of the young Klaus Kinski. Years later, they would share an apartment where, in an unabated, forty-eight-hour fit of rage, Kinski completely destroyed the bathroom. From this chaos, a violent, love-hate, profoundly creative partnership was born. In 1972, Herzog cast Kinski in Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972). Four more films would follow. In this personal documentary, Herzog traces the often violent ups and downs of their relationship, revisiting the various locations of their films and talking to the people they worked with.—L.H. Wong

My Best Fiend

My Best Fiend (1999)

Manfred Klell

Ven. Geshe

Madhureeta Anand

Wheel of Time is Werner Herzog's photographed look at the largest Buddhist ritual in Bodh Gaya, India.

Wheel of Time

Wheel of Time (2003)

Tim Roth

Jouko Ahola

Udo Kier

The film is based on the true story of Zishe Breitbart, a Jewish blacksmith's son from Poland who becomes a sensation in Weimar, Berlin as a mythical strongman. His employer Hanussen dreams of establishing an all-powerful Ministry of the Occult in Hitler's government. Yet as Hitler's hold on power grows more sure, and Berlin erupts in a ferment of anti-Semitism, Zishe must decide how he will use his strength. Plagued by nightmares, he takes counsel from a local rabbi. He becomes convinced that he has been chosen by God to warn his people of the grave danger they face.—Sujit R. Varma

Invincible

Invincible (2001)

Tony Buba

Richard Waddingham

Sal Carollo

Tony Buba, a film maker from Braddock, Pennsylvania, tells the story of his hometown's decline (along with the rest of the steel mill towns along the Monongahela River) while he dreams of making higher budget films. The picture documents, in a lighthearted way, the community anxiety and activism that accompanied the failure of the steel industry around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Sweet Sal the street hustler tries to make it big in Tony's movies.—Martin Lewison

Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy

Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy (1988)

A documentary on the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's epic Fitzcarraldo (1982), showing how the film managed to get made despite problems that would have floored a less obsessively driven director. Not only does he have major casting problems, losing both Jason Robards (health) and Mick Jagger (other commitments) halfway through shooting, but the crew gets caught up in a war between Peru and Ecuador, there are problems with the weather and the morale of cast and crew is falling rapidly.—Michael Brooke

Burden of Dreams

Burden of Dreams (1982)

Heinz Usener

Achmed Hafiz

Julio Pinheiro

A wounded German paratrooper named Stroszek is sent to the quiet island of Kos with his wife Nora, a Greek nurse, and two other soldiers recovering from minor wounds. Billeted in a decaying fortress, they guard a munitions depot. There's little to do: Becker, a classicist, translates inscriptions on ancient tablets found in the fortress, Meinhart devises traps for cockroaches, Nora helps Stroszek make fireworks using gunpowder from grenades in the depot. Slowly, in the heat and torpor, Stroszek goes mad, drives the others from the fortress, and threatens the city with blowing up the depot. With care, the German command must figure out how to get him down.—

Signs of Life

Signs of Life (1968)

Les Blank

Don Ed Hardy

'Calamity Jane' Nemhauser

Tattoo Uprising, more than forty years in the making, is a sweeping overview of tattooing, from Biblical references and early Christian practices to the voyages of Captain James Cook and the ever-evolving image of the tattoo in the Western world. Alan Govenar began work on this film in 1980 while finishing his documentary Stoney Knows How. Tattoo Uprising features some of the most extraordinary people of the tattoo world: including Ed Hardy, Stoney St. Clair, Cynthia Witkin, Calamity Jane, and more, as well as an unforgettable appearance by filmmaker Werner Herzog, allowing a rare glimpse at his Ed Hardy tattoo. The film was shot in part by the late legendary filmmaker Les Blank, who also appears on camera. From antiquity to the present, Tattoo Uprising reveals the artistic and historical roots of today's tattoo explosion.

Tattoo Uprising

Tattoo Uprising (2019)

Bruce Spence

Hugh Keays-Byrne

Ray Barrett

The geologist Lance Hackett is employed by an Australian mining company to map the subsoil of a desert area covered with ant hills prior to a possible uranium extraction. His work is impeded by some aborigines who explain that this is the place where the green ants dream. Disturbing their dreaming will destroy humanity they claim. Hackett informs the company which offers various "solutions" such as a large amount of money or a percentage of a possible revenue. Invited on a trip to a city some of the aborigines sees a military aeroplane and express the wish to own it. The company buys it and gives it to the aborigines as a sign of good will. A runway is made in the desert and the plane is flown to the location. All negotiations concerning the area fail and the dispute goes to a court of the Commonwealth. Parties and experts are heard, obstacles are met such as an aborigine who is the sole survivor of his tribe (and language) and therefore no-one understands what he is saying. Two of the aborigines take off in the plane despite that there is very little fuel left. The mining company wins legally and the aborigines morally. Some aborigines arrive from the mountains and tell about a big winged ant that had fallen from the sky.—Frank Dabelstein

Where the Green Ants Dream

Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)

David Letterman

Jewel Palovak

Sven Haakanson Jr.

A docudrama that centers on amateur grizzly bear expert Timothy Treadwell. He periodically journeyed to Alaska to study and live with the bears. He was killed, along with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, by a rogue bear in October 2003. The films explores Treadwell's compassionate life as he found solace among these endangered animals.—Sujit R. Varma

Grizzly Man

Grizzly Man (2005)

Denis Reichle

The film focuses on a group of Miskito in Nicaragua who used child soldiers in their resistance against the Sandinistas.

Ballad of the Little Soldier

Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)

7.1 / 10

Action
Biography

7.3 / 10

Comedy
Documentary

7.2 / 10

Biography
Documentary

7.3 / 10

Crime
Documentary

8 / 10

Documentary
War

7.3 / 10

Documentary

7.6 / 10

Action
Documentary

7.2 / 10

Action
Documentary

5.9 / 10

Action
Documentary

7.2 / 10

Action
Biography

7.8 / 10

Action
Biography

7.1 / 10

Action
Documentary

6.4 / 10

Action
Drama

7.4 / 10

Documentary

7.9 / 10

Action
Documentary

7 / 10

Action
Drama

6.4 / 10

Action
Documentary

6.9 / 10

Action
Drama

7.8 / 10

Action
Biography

7.2 / 10

Action
Documentary