Perhaps because Herzog is approaching old-master status, Encounters at the End of the World skews toward the observational. full review

Granted, this documentary (surely the weirdest ever funded by the Discovery Channel) could have used more editing. But it's the notebook of a genius, and well worth cracking open. full review

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

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

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. full review

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. full review

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. full review

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

In his latest documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog -- who warns the viewer at the outset not to expect any 'fluffy penguins' -- deals with the men and women who perform scientific research in Antarctica. full review

Encounters at the End of the World is an enjoyable example of this extraordinary director's documentary work, and accessible enough to make it a good introduction to his singular vision. full review

A supremely cranky and lyrical feat. full review

Who better than Herzog to share with us the off-beat Encounters at the End of the World. full review

[Herzog] 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. full review

Herzog the crank is a flimsy cover for Herzog the wonderstruck little boy, marveling at everything from the viscosity of seal milk (it pours like wax) to the spiderlike crab creatures that skitter along the ocean floor beneath the Ross Sea. full review

He [Herzog] is cinema's poet of the empty spaces. full review

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. full review

A hypnotically digressive travelogue. full review

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. full review