Congratulations you have made it to the final Blog in my Werner Herzog series!
Before I list my recommendations I just wanted to make as much of a comprehensive list of Herzog's director credits since I did abbreviate things in the blog and I didn't want to sell him short. This is the best way to see just how prolific this man has been.
1. Herakles (1962) Short Film
2. The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1966) Short Film
3. Game in the Sand (1964) Short Film
4. Signs of Life (1968) Feature Film
5. Precautions Against Fanatics (1969) Short Film
6. The Flying Doctors of East Africa (1969)
TV Documentary
7. Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) Feature Film
8. Handicapped Future (1971) TV Documentary
9. Fata Morgana (1971) Documentary Film
10. Land of Silence and Darkness (1971)
Documentary Film
11. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) Feature Film
12. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974) TV Documentary
13. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) Feature Film
14. No One Will Play with Me (1976) Short Film
15. How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976) TV Documentary
16. Heart of Glass (1976) Feature Film
17. Stroszek (1977) Feature Film
18. La Soufriere: Waiting for an Inevitable Catastrophe (1977) Short Documentary Film
19. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Feature Film
20. Woyzeck (1979) Feature Film
21. God's Angry Man (1981) TV Documentary
22. Huie's Sermon (1981) TV Documentary
23. Fitzcarraldo (1982) Feature Film
24. Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) Feature Film
25. Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)
TV Documentary
26. The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)
TV Documentary
27. Portrait: Werner Herzog (1986)
Short Documentary
28. Cobra Verde (1987) Feature Film
29. The French as seen by... (1988)
Short Film
30. The Gauls (1988) Short Film
31. Giovanna d'Arco (1989)
Filmed Stage Production of an Opera
32. Herdsmen of the Sun (1989)
TV Documentary
33. Lohengrin: Bayreuth Festival (1990)
a Wagner film project 215 min
34. Echoes from a Sombre Empire (1990)
Documentary Film
35. Scream of Stone (1991) Feature Film
36. Jag Mandir (1991) Documentary Film
37. Film Lesson (1991) Documentary Film
38. Lessons of Darkness (1992)
Short Documentary Film
39. Bells from the Deep (1993)
Documentary Film
40. Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995)
TV Documentary
41. The Transformation of the World into Music (1996) Documentary Film
42. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
Documentary Film
43. My Best Fiend (1999) Documentary Film
44. Christ and Demons in New Spain (1999)
TV Episode
45. Wings of Hope (2000)
Documentary Film
46. Pilgrimage (2001)
Short Documentary Film
47. Invincible (2001) Feature Film
48. Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002)
Short Film
49. Ten Thousand Years Older (2002)
Short Film
50. Wheel of Time (2003)
Documentary Film
51. The White Diamond (2004)
Documentary Film
52. Grizzly Man (2005)
Documentary Film
53. The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
Feature Film
54. Rescue Dawn (2006) Feature Film
55. Encounters at the End of the World (2007) Documentary Film
56. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) Feature Film
57. La Boheme (2009) Short Film
58. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) Feature Film
59. Plastic Bag (2009) Short Film
60. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
Documentary Film
61. Happy People: A Year in the Taigan (2010) Documentary Film
62. Into the Abyss (2011) Documentary Film
63. The KIllers: Unstaged (2012)
Documentary Film
64. From One Second to the Next (2013)
Short Documentary Film
65. Queen of the Desert (2015)
Feature Film
66. Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Documentary Film
67. Salt and Fire (2016) Feature Film
68. Into the Inferno (2016) Documentary Film
69. Meeting Gorbachev (2018)
Documentary Film
70. Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019) Documentary Film
71. Family Romance, LLC (2019) Feature Film
72. Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020) Documentary Film
73. The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft (2022)
Documentary Film
74. Theatre of Thought (2022)
Documentary Film
My Recommendations!
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Herzog's third feature length narrative film that has become a stone cold cinema classic.
The film ranks 118th on the "Sight & Sound" top 250 films, Critics Poll.
and it features on the Precious
"1001 films to see before you die" list.
To watch this film you can subscribe to the
BFI Player streaming service for £6.99 p/m
You can rent the film for £3.49 on Apple TV
The film is available to purchase on a BFI release DVD from HMV for £17.99.
Or look on Ebay used dvds range from £4.24-£20+ and you could even find it on Blu-ray if you are lucky.
**Adding this Later**
I have just read that the Shout Factory label are releasing,
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972) on 4K UHD and I imagine a standard Blu-ray. Date TBC.
"Stroszek" (1977)
Herzog's sixth feature length narrative film.
A real gem of a film it is innocent, eccentric, melancholy & joyful and features a dancing chicken!
To watch this film you can subscribe to the
BFI Player streaming service for £6.99 p/m
It appears to currently be out of print on physical media but it is available to buy used online.
"Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979)
Werner Herzog's remake of F. W. Murnau 1922 masterpiece.
This 1979 film stars Klaus Kinski in the titular role. Herzog's reimagining highlights the misery of being immortal.
To watch this film you can subscribe to the
BFI Player streaming service for £6.99 p/m
You can buy the film on DVD from The BFI shop online for £12.99.
"Fitzcarraldo" (1982)
Some call this Herzog's magnum opus. It is a classic of cinema and is widely regarded as the most difficult and challenging production of all time. That aside it is an epic story told in a wonderfully crafted film and for all his high jinx Kinski was only tolerated because he was a great actor who gave 110%.
To watch this film you can subscribe to the
BFI Player streaming service for £6.99 p/m
You can rent the film from Apple TV for £3.49
You can buy the film on DVD from The BFI shop online for £12.99.
"Little Dieter Needs to Fly" (1997)
The film tells the story of the life of Dieter Dengler, A man who was shot down during the Vietnam War, captured, imprisoned, escaped and rescued. Dengler is the real life man who Herzog's film Rescue Dawn (2006) is based on.
It is a fascinating story told by the man himself and Herzog allows Dengler to communicate his story in an unconventional way for a survivor of such trauma to recreate his ordeal.
This film is NOT available on a streaming service
The film is available to purchase from HMV for £8.99
It is also worth a search on YouTube it may pop up.
"Rescue Dawn" (2006)
This is a fantastic 2006 epic war drama written and directed by Herzog based on the real life story of the German-American pilot Dieter Dengler capture and escape during the American military campaign in Vietnam. Christian Bale gives a power house performance as Dengler.
This film is NOT available on a streaming service.
You can rent the film for £3.49 from Microsoft, £5.49 Google Play & Youtube £5.49.
You can buy the film on Blu-ray from HMV for £7.99.
"My Best Fiend" (1999)
Truly a harrowing, insightful and funny insight into one of the most turbulent and unorthodox relationships between actor and director perhaps ever.
This film is NOT available on a streaming service.
This film is NOT available to rent online.
To get this film you need to look on Ebay unfortunately.
This is part of the BFI 18 film Herzog box set that is £34.99 on dvd of £69.99 on Blu-ray
Available from the BFI online shop
"Grizzly Man" (2005)
The 2005 American documentary film by Werner Herzog that chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast and conservationist Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard.
The film is a stark reminder that bears are killing machines. This is a must see film!
Currently you can watch "Grizzly Man" on the Prime Video streaming service with a subscription.
You can rent it via AppleTV for £3.49 or
You can buy the dvd from HMV for £5.99
or look on Ebay for a Blu-ray.
"Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (2010)
Herzog's stunning documentary film about the Chauvet Cave in Southern France, which contains some of the oldest human-painted images yet discovered—some of them were crafted around 32,000 years ago.
It is such an amazing piece of work exploring such a fascinating subject.
This film is NOT available on a streaming service.
This film is NOT available to rent online.
This film is currently out of print on physical media.
Second hand Blu-rays sell on Ebay for anything from £16-£35. (Bummer!) I have it on Blu-ray!
"The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft" (2022)
This documentary film by Werner Herzog Is a tribute to the French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who were killed in 1991, by a pyroclastic flow. This film celebrates the imagery captured by the husband and wife team. Herzog has assembled their stunning footage and photographs set to music and narration by Herzog. It is a fascinating and moving tribute.
This film is available to stream via the BBCi player if you have a TV licence.
This film is NOT available to rent online.
It was kind of a streaming release and finding it on physical media seems very tricky.
"Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer" (2022)
Not directed by Herzog but it is a fascinating documentary that shows you everything you would ever need to know about the great director.
To watch this film you can subscribe to the
BFI Player streaming service for £6.99 p/m
or you can buy it on physical media from the BFI online shop.
As well as being a director with this vast filmography Werner Herzog is also an actor and is the kind of personality or you could say "Celebrity" that can make cameo appearances in things .
He has 12 feature film credits including " What Dreams May Come" (1998), He plays a villain in "Jack Reacher" (2012) where Tom Cruise shoots him in the head... He also voiced a "Documentary filmmaker " character in "Penguins of Madagascar" (2014)
must have been a stretch!
Herzog played "The Client" in the hit Star Wars TV show "The Mandalorian" and he is brilliant in the role!
Although he is deadpan and deliberate he is deeply self aware and has a fantastic sense of humour and is more than willing to lampoon the image he projects and his place in popular culture.
He has voiced a character in The Simpsons and had a hilarious cameo in the TV show
"Parks & Recreation"
Here is a video clip from YouTube of Herzog on the Team CoCo podcast "Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend" discussing his Jack Reacher, Mandalorian and Simpsons experiences.
Here is his Cameo in "Parks & Recreation"
In his interview with Conan O'Brien Herzog expresses his pride in his writing.
He has written 9 books including his autobiography "Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir", "Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo" and in 2022 he published "The Twilight World" a fictional novel based on the real life story of
Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who had refused to surrender for decades while hiding in the jungle of a Philippine island.
Herzog said his novel was a fictional account of Hiroo Onoda's ordeal of being stranded in a jungle fighting a war that had officially ended. He has said, "Most details are factually correct; some are not".
A lesser known fact about Herzog is he has also had a successful career directing stage operas
these are large complex live performances with many moving parts and some major egos and embarking on one is not for the faint of heart and between 1986 and 2013 Werner directed 14 different Operas at 28 locations worldwide.
He has also Directed three theater productions,
Varété (1992, Hebbel-Theater, Berlin)
Floresta Amazonica (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
(1992, Teatro João Caetano, Rio de Janeiro)
Specialitaeten (1993, Etablissement Ronacher, Vienna)
Super strange to me is that Werner Herzog directed a stage concert by the band "The Killers" in 2012 for a series of filmed concerts called Unstaged funded by American Express.
Herzog is famously critical of film schools and the whole concept of film schools but Herzog has still managed to teach filmmakers by giving back and sharing his skills.
From 2009 to 2016, he organized the Rogue Film School, in which young directors spent a few days with him in evocative locations.
What exactly goes on at the rogue film school has been cloaked in secrecy, but director and writer Kristoffer Hegnsvad report from his stay there in his book Werner Herzog – Ecstatic Truth and Other Useless Conquests:
"The first thing you notice is his enormous presence. His self-confidence sends shockwaves through a room every time he opens his mouth or make eye contact; he adopts a stance of exalted calm, as though he has achieved some kind of mastery – not just over his own mind, but over the capriciousness of the world" ".
Lessons ranged from "How does music function in film?" to "The creation of your own shooting permits".
In 2018, he held "Filming in Peru with Werner Herzog", a twelve-day workshop in the Amazonian rainforest, close to the locations for Fitzcarraldo, for new filmmakers from around the world. Each made a short film under Herzog's supervision.
Herzog is also on the website MasterClass, where he presents a course on filmmaking, entitled
"Werner Herzog teaches filmmaking".
Some random facts and incidents.
Herzog is an atheist.
He speaks standard German as well as his native Bavarian, he also speaks English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish.
Although he does not like speaking French!
“I do understand French, but I refuse to speak it. It’s the last thing I would ever do. You can only get some French out of me with a gun pointed at my head”
He can also read Latin and Ancient Greek.
After a series of incidents occurred during the filming of his 1970 film "Even Dwarfs Started Small" Herzog agreed to jump into a cactus patch when filming was complete as an apology for the physical discomfort his cast had endured so he didn't leave unscathed.
The story goes that Herzog had become frustrated with his friend Errol Morris who was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley studying philosophy who was trying to make a film called "Gates of Heaven".
What obviously was grinding Herzog's gears was the very traditional way Morris was pursuing securing funding from producers for the project.
Herzog said to Morris "Stop complaining about the stupidity of producers, just start with one roll of film tomorrow... the day I see the finished work I am going to eat my shoe."
Morris went on to secure funding and make his film "Gates of Heaven" (1978)
So Herzog being Herzog he had his shoes cooked at the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. He claims the shoes are the same shoes that he was wearing when he made the bet. Herzog was assisted by chef Alice Waters. The shoes were boiled with garlic, herbs, and stock for 5 hours.
He then ate one of the shoes before an audience at the premiere of "Gates of Heaven" in 1979 at the nearby UC Theater. He did not eat the sole of the shoe explaining,
"that one does not eat the bones of the chicken"
In 2006 Mark Kermode interviewed Werner Herzog outdoors in the Hollywood hills for the BBC's The Culture Show.
During the chat the pair were discussing that Herzog feels nobody cares about his films' in his home country of Germany... you then hear the whistle of something flying past.
Herzog says "What was that?" casually while looking down.
The moment he was shot, Below... the wound
Kermode goes on to say that 'some whacko took a pot shot at us with an air rifle'. I came off unscathed, but Herzog had been hit.
Despite having been shot, Herzog wants to continue the interview.
The pair then retreat and Herzog displays the injury he had just sustained in his lower abdomen.
"You're bleeding!" exclaimed Kermode in the interview.
"Somebody shot at you and created a wound in your abdomen."
Remaining cool, calm and collected about it all, Herzog simply went on to say:
"It's not significant." What a Guy!!
I hope you have enjoyed this series of blogs and has given you an insight into the vast and unique career of the great Werner Herzog. Perhaps it has made you aware of some of his work that you may have missed or you have found out something you didn't know about the man himself.
In my opinion Herzog is one of the most prolific and driven filmmakers in the history of cinema who has not only given us some of the best narrative feature films that regularly appear in "Greatest of all time" lists but also became one of the most preeminent documentary filmmakers of the last 40 years...
The End
