In recent years, Werner Herzog has become best known as a documentarian due to the success of work such as Grizzly Man (2005) and Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010). His distinctive voice and persona has led, somewhat bizarrely, to a firmly established place in pop culture, and unlikely appearances on The Simpsons and in the Star Wars universe. However, as a prolific filmmaker with over 70 directorial credits to his name, this success has had something of an adverse effect on recognition of his achievements in the early decades of his career, particularly his extraordinary work as a pioneer of the New German Cinema movement of the 1970s.
During this period, highlighted in this selection, Herzog was known for favouring methods that might charitably be characterised as extreme, as best exemplified by a series of notorious collaborations with actor Klaus Kinski, that nonetheless resulted in a remarkable body of work.
