Encounters at the End of the World
Discovery Films | Release Date: June 11, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
80
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
A supremely cranky and lyrical feat. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The stunning images aren't enough for Herzog, though. He wants us to see how these quirky researchers, in their lust to explore, are acting out a drive as primitive as nature: the need to break away from the world in order to find it. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is a poem of oddness and beauty. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Werner Herzog is a stranger in a strange land as soon as he gets out of bed in the morning: in this travelogue of Antarctica, his perverse curiosity and zest for the harshest extremes of nature transform what might have been a standard TV special into an idiosyncratic expression of wonder. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Like many of Mr. Herzog's movies, fiction and nonfiction, Encounters at the End of the World itself has the quality of a dream: it's at once vivid and vague, easy to grasp and somehow beyond reach. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
A deranged penguin is seen racing toward his certain doom amid the crags of a mountain range. It may not be "Happy Feet," but Herzog has made a penguin movie after all. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
All this is as fascinating as it is humbling, even when Herzog ventures a little too far down eccentricity's back alley. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Does Antarctica attract dreamers or create them? It's a thread that runs throughout the film. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Takes you places an ordinary documentary filmmaker might’ve gone to yet missed completely. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Through Herzog's eyes it is a desolate, strangely beautiful frozen Edenish hell where the planet, having shaken out its pockets, lets the loners, fanatics and cosmologist-crackpots fall to bottom. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
An engaging and generous profile of the fascinating folks who have chosen to live at the end of the world. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMark Olsen
The images captured by Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger are dazzling all on their own, finding the disorienting psychedelia that is nature at its weirdest. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It's as much fun to anticipate what he's (Herzog) going to say as it is to appreciate the snowy landscapes, belching volcanoes and mustachioed seals before his lens. And what could have been a conventional travelogue becomes a sort of ruminative odyssey of the mind. Read full review
80
Film ThreatDon R. Lewis
I also think Herzog is making a case for those crazy enough to follow their dreams, even when they take you to the end of the earth. Literally. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
A sort of distracted, freewheeling form of inquiry and observation drives Encounters At The End Of The World, a loosely constructed documentary that seems to have been made on a whim. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Encounters may lack the power of, say, the Herzog doc "Grizzly Man," because it has no bigger-than-life character at its nexus, but it does confirm the filmmaker as an iconoclastic master. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
An enjoyable example of this extraordinary director's documentary work. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Midway through, an eerier theme creeps in, all the more powerful for Herzog's lack of insistence. By the "end of the world" he means the end of the world. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Retains considerable entertainment value on the strength of Herzog's never-dull, very personal narrating style. Read full review
70
VarietyScott Foundas
Resultant picture -- one of Herzog's best and most purely enjoyable -- may lack the built-in curio factor of "Grizzly Man." Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Perhaps because Herzog is approaching old-master status, Encounters at the End of the World skews toward the observational. As in "Grizzly Man," his 2005 portrait of a deranged bear lover, Herzog seems at least as fascinated with other people's obsessions as his own. Read full review
70
SlateDana Stevens
It's a loosely bound collection of miscellany filmed at the McMurdo Station, a 1,000-person settlement of researchers in Antarctica, during the five-month "austral summer" of round-the-clock sunlight. Herzog was sent to Antarctica by the National Science Foundation with carte blanche to make whatever movie he wanted--all he could tell them for sure was that it wouldn't involve penguins. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
You get the impression that Herzog believes wholeheartedly the planet will be better off without us. Nosferatu that we have proven ourselves to be, he may be right. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's Herzog-light, in a way -- more travelogue than dissection. But it's filled with small riches, not least of which is the director's amazing narration. Can't you just imagine him reading "Green Eggs and Ham"? Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Creating a hypnotically digressive travelogue, Herzog wanders from soul to soul, asking deceptively mild questions to potent effect. Read full review
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