Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Nathan Rabin ★★★★

  They seem nice.

• 

  Review by Ethan Colburn ★★★★ 5

  Werner Herzog hates the world so much I don’t understand how he gets up in the morning.

  It’s a great tribute to someone he always had a love-hate relationship with. Herzog is remarkably honest, not letting his own horrible experiences entirely paint the audiences view of Klaus Kibaki. Its not at all a positive portrayal, but it does demonstrate his genius while giving credence to his enormous flaws. A fantastic doc about a fantastic man.

• 

  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★★

  Entertaining documentary about Werner Herzog reminiscing about his off and on again friendship and filming experiences with the late great Klaus Kinski!

  Klaus Kinski the enigma no one will truly understand but one thing is for certain.. he was an incredibly gifted actor!

  Personally I think Herzog and Kinski were both megalomaniacs! And together they produced some of the best cinema ever caught on film!

• 

  Review by Will Sloan 1

  Werner Herzog's meditation on Klaus Kinski feels to me more like a savvy piece of brand management than a sincere tribute. A suspicious amount of this movie feels like score-settling (we get a section where Herzog talks about Kinski's "highly fictitious" autobiography and claims -- dubiously, I think -- to have helped with the chapters where Kinski's trashes him), a lot of stories of what a temperamental monster he was, and how he was able to manipulate performances out of the raging Kinski. But because he can't merely be catty for 100 minutes, Herzog occasionally shows us The Softer Side Of Klaus™. At one point he interviews Woyzeck's Eva Mattes, who he describes as "one of the few women who…

• 

  Review by Terése Flynn ★★★★ 23

  For years I've read and heard stories about Klaus Kinski, and almost all of these stories comes from a friend of mine that have a fascination when it comes to this intriguing actor. He's actually not a big fan of his movies, he's just interested in Kinski as a person. And how could you not be? With this said I've known about this documentary for a long time but have never felt the need to watch it, until now.

  My Best Fiend is a documentary by Herzog about his experiences working with Kinski in 5 films. It becomes a story about an egomaniac that puts his soul into his acting, but not without risking the life of others on the…

• 

  Review by FilmsInSight ★★★★ 3

  “Every grey hair on my head, I call Kinski.”
  Werner Herzog

  An incredibly insightful documentary that examines the fluctuating relationship between Werner Herzog and his five-time collaborator and leading actor Klaus Kinski. We follow Werner as he tells incredible stories of their time together (that almost deserve a movie of their own) — while revisiting a multitude of important landscapes and locations used throughout filming with Kinski. Their rocky relationship eventually escalated to them threatening to kill each other, at one time Herzog could and would have had Klaus Kinski assassinated — thankfully he needed him to finish the picture (Fitzcaraldo (1982)). For most of the first half, we see Kinski’s “infamous temper tantrum’s” and the focus seems to portray…

• 

  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★★½

  It's really mostly about fear, I think. Those wild pivots in Kinski's personality. As Claudia Cardinale says, "He was afraid of many things."

  Fear and self-doubt are what drives ego. And so Kinski's flares of self-importance and over-compensation are like fireworks when confronted by a seemingly fearless individual like Herzog.

  Of course Herzog is not without ego, obviously, and so not truly without fear, but his kind of ego/fear is adaptive, sure-footed. Not so Kinski's, and that only triggers the manic-to-rage-to-stillness cycle in Kinski even further.

  And we shouldn't fail to mention that Kinski would obviously be diagnosable today.

  There's two minor bits in this film that disappoint me. One is Herzog's interview with the actor Justo González. González Speaks…

• 

  Review by {Todd} ★★★ 2

  "Yeah, a lot of these outbreaks of hatred were certainly authentic. And this applies to both of us. Nevertheless we worked together" -Herzog,
  AND
  "I don't see so much erotic, I see it more full of obsenity...it's just... and nature here is vile, it's base, I wouldn't see anything erotical here I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away... of course there is a lot of misery but it is the same misery that is all around us... the trees here are in misery and the birds are in misery...I don't think they sing they just screech in pain." -Werner Herzog on nature.
  AND
  "It's the harmony of overwhelming and…

• 

  Review by Leland Facepalmer ★★★½ 10

  Schrei ich oder schrei ich nicht? Und DU sagst es mir nicht! Ja, schrei doch mal nicht, ja leck mich doch am Arsch, Mensch! Der Moment ist überhaupt gekommen, wo ich dir in die Fresse haue! Diesmal schlag ich dir in die Fresse, darauf kannst du dich verlassen, du! Diesmal sitz ich nicht im Kostüm in deiner Scheißkarre in Holland! Aber schleunigst zusammen, du! Wenn du zu frech wirst!

  Euer Gewichse mit eurer Freundschaft interessiert mich einen Dreck! Wir brauchen einen Fotografen, verstehst du! Na mach doch deinen Scheiß! Mach doch deine eigenen Sachen! Hast genug zu tun! Es ist ein Schweinefraß! Was sagst du Vollidiot? Was sagst du? Ist ja hier schlimmer als im Zuchthaus da, du Arschloch! Du…

• 

  Review by Thomas ★★★★

  “My Best Fiend” is Werner Herzog´s tribute to his late friend, enemy, and star Klaus Kinski and the 5 films they made together. For fans of the actor and/or the movies, this documentary is a must-see. Herzog goes back to the filming locations and tells several insightful, entertaining, and unbelievable anecdotes about the productions and working with Kinski in the typical nonchalant Werner Herzog way. He also interviews several of Kinski´s co-stars (Claudia Cardinale, Eva Mattes) and shows behind the scenes footage, some of it reused material from the earlier documentary “Burden of Dreams”. We see Kinski´s most famous freak-outs, but also his calm, vulnerable, and tender side. Especially the ending with the butterfly will stay in my mind. It´s…

• 

  Review by Colin Burgess ★★★★

  Thought Klaus Kinski was the crazy one until near the end when they showed how tiny Werner Herzog’s handwriting is

• 

  Review by Stephen Gillespie ★★★

  A poignant portrayal of an interesting figure but a better portrait of a friendship. This is little more than a collection of anecdotes; but, the anecdotes are interesting and tie nicely into the films.

  Herzog is a joy to watch, as always. Here, he is more contemplative and reflective. It is a nice mode for him and it lends the film real heart. Having interviews with those that not only knew Kinski, but knew different sides of him, opens this up and makes it enriching. It is a slight thing, a deeply personal work that needs to be nothing more than that.