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Encounters at the End of the World (2007)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 108
Fresh: 101 | Rotten: 7

Encounters at the End of the World offers a poignant study of the human psyche amid haunting landscapes.

100

Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 23
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 0

Encounters at the End of the World offers a poignant study of the human psyche amid haunting landscapes.

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Movie Info

Werner Herzog, director of such acclaimed documentaries as Grizzly Man and Little Dieter Needs to Fly, offers his unique perspective on the South Pole in this film profiling the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station. Located on Ross Island, McMurdo Station is the headquarters of the National Science Foundation. Whether offering a detailed study of the unique survival training regimen that newcomers to McMurdo are obligated to endure or pondering the majestic beauty of a landscape where the

G, 1 hr. 39 min.

Documentary

Directed By: Werner Herzog

Written By: Werner Herzog

In Theaters: Sep 1, 2007 Wide

On DVD: Nov 18, 2008

Box Office:$0.7M

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Critic Reviews for Encounters at the End of the World

All Critics (110) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (103) | Rotten (7) | DVD (7)

Herzog is one of a kind. His new doc is an event you watch in awe as you marvel at its wonders.

August 14, 2008 Comment

Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

Top Critic

[Herzog is] a filmmaker ideally suited to recognize and celebrate...deep irony.

July 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune

| Comment

Colin Covert

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Top Critic

A poem of oddness and beauty. Herzog is like no other filmmaker, and to return to him is to be welcomed into a world vastly larger and more peculiar than the one around us. The underwater photography alone would make a film, but there is so much more.

July 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times

| Comment

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

A contrarian spiritual journey as provocative as it is hypnotic, Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World literally treks to planet's end.

July 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

| Comment

Carrie Rickey

Philadelphia Inquirer

Top Critic

Werner Herzog is a magnet for obsessives, and his lovely new film, Encounters at the End of the World, takes you places an ordinary filmmaker might've gone to yet missed completely.

July 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune

| Comment

Michael Phillips

Chicago Tribune

Top Critic

It's one of the best documentaries of the year, no doubt about it.

June 30, 2008 Comment (1)

Richard Roeper

Ebert & Roeper

Top Critic

Damnably frustrating and fascinating, Herzog's questions deconstruct Earth's DNA in a scientific process going beyond statistics to ancestry or spirituality - an idea that we're witnesses and valets who are here and, sooner than we think, will be gone.

September 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com

| Comment

Nick Rogers

Suite101.com

Respect for the environment is not a moral issue for Herzog, but a common sense issue of survival. In the harsh environs of the polar regions, his point is made with crystalline clarity.

June 12, 2010 Full Review Source: DCist

| Comment

Ian Buckwalter

DCist

The footage is breathtaking. We also are privileged to watch seals feeding their young, but the revelations about penguin 'prostitutes' are perhaps the film's most extraordinary. Gay penguins? Insane penguins?

September 10, 2009 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile

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Louise Keller

Urban Cinefile

The package is nothing short of exhaustive, especially when you consider this is not a mainstream Hollywood film.

September 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Eye for Film

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Amber Wilkinson

Eye for Film

Caustically enchanting

August 26, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion

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Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

...May not have the shock and drive of Grizzly Man, but it's a poignant and even haunting work nonetheless

July 30, 2009 Full Review Source: GreenCine

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Craig Phillips

GreenCine

This documentary about life in and around a vast scientific research centre in Antarctica. None of these meetings, however, is as interesting as the interspersed footage of the pole's natural wonders.

April 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK]

| Comment (1)

Edward Porter

Times [UK]

His best film for years.

April 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Observer [UK]

| Comment

Philip French

Observer [UK]

This Oscar-nominated gem reveals far more than the traditional documentary by coming at the subject from an unexpected angle to reveal a myriad of unvarnished truths.

April 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Sky Movies

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Tim Surette

Sky Movies

Too loose and aimless to sit with Herzog's best, Encounters drifts along on its filmmaker's frostbitten humour and his ever-searching eye for weirdness and wonder.

April 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Total Film

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Jonathan Crocker

Total Film

Herzog is baffled, amused and fascinated by them all, exults in their palpable strangeness, draws us deep into their unique world and, via Henry Kaiser's extraordinary underwater photography, what looms often unnervingly beneath it.

April 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Uncut Magazine [UK]

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Allan Jones

Uncut Magazine [UK]

Nature at its most mysterious, brutal and implacable - just as Herzog likes it.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: Film4

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Leigh Singer

Film4

Seemingly off-hand, cumulatively imposing, utterly masterful.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: Time Out

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Trevor Johnston

Time Out

As a nature doc alone, Encounters at the End of the World would stand as one of the year's best. But it is the people who choose to live and work at the very ends of the Earth that are Herzog's real subject.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK]

| Comment

Dominic Wells

Times [UK]

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Audience Reviews for Encounters at the End of the World

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Existential angst gets a huge power-up thanks to Herzog's cranky eye. Fears and sorrows previously limited to mere individuals now apply equally to whole civilizations, species, planets, Gods and universes. Killer beauty movie.

February 5, 2009

Bob Stinson

Super Reviewer

Quite possibly one of the most fascinating and well-constructed documentaries of its time, Encounters at the End of the World combines hauntingly majestic and beautiful visuals, an eerily chilling and engrossing musical score, and intriguing humanist concepts on language, environmental effects, the lives of the many

September 27, 2011

Matthew Roe

Super Reviewer

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Latest News for Encounters at the End of the World

February 16, 2009:

Werner Herzog Looks Back
Werner Herzog has a reputation for populating his documentaries with larger-than-life personalities,...

March 13, 2008:

Werner Herzog Taking Audiences on Antarctic Adventures
Throughout his career, Werner Herzog has shown a fascination with protagonists in impossible...

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