Directed by Sierra Urich • 2023 • United States

In this moving first-person documentary, a young filmmaker delves into her mother and grandmother’s complicated pasts and her own fractured Iranian identity. Having grown up in rural Vermont, far removed from the homeland of her mother, Mitra, and ...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1974 • West Germany
Starring Bruno S., Walter Ladengast, Brigitte Mira

Based on real events, THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER tells the story of a young man imprisoned in a basement dungeon for the first seventeen years of his life, devoid of human contact, until his capto...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1979 • West Germany
Starring Klaus Kinski, Eva Mattes, Wolfgang Reichmann

Werner Herzog ventured into the dark depths of madness once again with this adaptation of the unfinished stage play by Georg Buchner, the story of a real-life nineteenth-century barber turned...

Directed by Rob Nilsson and John Hanson • 1980 • United States

A strikingly shot work of documentary as historical corrective, John Hanson and Rob Nilsson’s PRAIRIE TRILOGY chronicles the story of early North Dakota socialists through a portrait of Henry Martinson, a ninety-seven-year-old ex-org...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1989 • Germany

Werner Herzog travels to the Sahel region of central Africa to document the unique courtship rituals of the nomadic Wodaabe tribe, whose men paint themselves in makeup and engage in an elaborate beauty pageant in hopes of attracting a mate. With rare in...

Directed by Jafar Panahi • 2011 • Iran
Starring Jafar Panahi

The first work fearless auteur Jafar Panahi made after being officially banned from filmmaking by the Iranian government, this clandestine documentary—shot partially on an iPhone and smuggled into France in a cake for a last-minute sub...

Directed by Jia Zhang-Ke • 2016 • China
Starring Han Sanming, Jindong Liang, Yuan Wenqian

Jia Zhang-Ke finds wry tragicomedy and sharp social insight in the story of unemployed Shanxi coal miners whose search for work leads them to surprising places.

Directed by Jafar Panahi • 2018 • Iran
Starring Behnaz Jafari, Jafar Panahi, Marziyeh Rezaei

Iranian master Jafar Panahi’s fourth feature since he was officially banned from filmmaking is a courageous act of antipatriarchal defiance from an artist who has refused to be silenced. This playful doc...

Directed by Tony Gilroy • 2007 • United States
Starring George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton

Attorney Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a fixer, the go-to guy when his powerful New York law firm wants a mess swept under the rug. But now he’s handed a crisis even he may not be able to f...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1990 • Germany, France

One of director Werner Herzog’s most unsettling explorations of the madness that can seize men’s hearts, this haunting documentary recounts the reign of Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who ruled for eleven years as the self-declared emperor of the Central A...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1984 • West Germany

Focusing on a group of Nicaraguan Miskito Indians embroiled in a civil war against the Sandinistas they once called allies, BALLAD OF THE LITTLE SOLDIER takes an intimate look at the conflict from the perspective of the children being used by the M...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1976 • West Germany
Starring Josef Bierbichler, Stefan Güttler, Clemens Scheitz

In the late eighteenth century, a Bavarian village succumbs to madness as the townsfolk search for the secret to creating the unique ruby glass that is their lifeblood, lost to them whe...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1981 • West Germany

Werner Herzog’s fascination with both religious mysticism and American subcultures leads him to a Black church in Brooklyn, where he documents a fire-and-brimstone sermon by the minister Huie L. Rogers. As Rogers’s explosive oratorical style reache...

Directed by Francis Lee • 2017 • United Kingdom
Starring Josh O’Connor, Alec Secǎreanu, Gemma Jones

A by turns raw, tender, and sexy tale of queer longing plays out against the bleak beauty of the Yorkshire countryside in this earthy, strikingly naturalistic feature debut from director Francis L...

Directed by Mathieu Amalric • 2021 • Germany, France
Starring Vicky Krieps, Arieh Worthalter, Anne-Sophie Bowen-Chatet

Directed by renowned actor and frequent filmmaker Mathieu Amalric, this virtuosic, daringly fluid portrait of a woman in crisis stars the ever-riveting Vicky Krieps as Clarisse,...

Directed by Michael Roemer • 1984 • United States
Starring Brooke Adams, Jon DeVries, Ari Meyers

Like director Michael Roemer’s prior features—the powerful civil-rights-era landmark NOTHING BUT A MAN and the offbeat mob comedy THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY—this continuously surprising, cuttingly incisi...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1971 • West Germany

Considered by many to be the quintessential masterpiece among Werner Herzog’s early works, FATA MORGANA can be described as an expressionist documentary. Consisting of three parts, the film is an absorbing collection of images shot in an around the...

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich • 2018 • United States

The final film by renowned director and cinema historian Peter Bogdanovich is an affectionate, illuminating celebration of the life, career, and artistry of pioneering filmmaker and comedian Buster Keaton, whose ambition, daring, and technical...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 2005 • United Kingdom, France, Germany
Starring Brad Dourif, Donald Williams, Ellen Baker

Werner Herzog’s ability to find otherworldly wonder wherever he points his camera is on display in this sublime experimental science-fiction odyssey, in which he makes striking u...

Directed by Kirsten Tan • 2017 • Singapore, Thailand
Starring Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Penpak Sirikul, Chaiwat Khumdee

With immense heart and a splash of surrealism, this wonderfully eccentric road movie traces a journey across Thailand like no other. When Thana (Thaneth Warakulnukroh), a successf...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1971 • West Germany

Werner Herzog’s first feature-length documentary follows Fini Straubinger, a woman who has lost her hearing and sight, as she travels to visit others without the use of those two senses. Through her interactions and the incredible stories of the pe...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1982 • West Germany
Starring Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale

Werner Herzog’s infamously arduous productions were already legendary when he outdid himself with FITZCARRALDO, a feat as utterly quixotic and improbable as its protagonist. Klaus Kinski stars as the wild-ey...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1968 • West Germany
Starring Peter Brogle, Wolfgang Reichmann, Athina Zacharopoulou

Made when he was only twenty-six years old, the first feature film by Werner Herzog already displays many of his signatures—moments of odd, idiosyncratic poetry in a story of men livin...

Directed by Werner Herzog • 1985 • West Germany

Werner Herzog’s career-long concern with individuals who test the limits of human achievement receives one of its most extraordinary expressions in this portrait of mountaineers Hans Kammerlander and Reinhold Messner. Following the pair as they emb...