My Best Fiend

The lines between madness and artistry, and creation and destruction, are rarely explored so entertainingly as in this jaw-dropping look at the fiery relationship between director Werner Herzog and his frequent lead Klaus Kinski, who together forged some of the most acclaimed works of twentieth-century cinema, and who nearly killed one another in the process. Herzog digs through their shared decades of disasters, insults, and death threats, but also their comradery and triumphs, from Aguirre, the Wrath of God to Fitzcarraldo. Possibly geniuses, possibly madmen, simultaneously friend and fiend: “We complemented one another,” Herzog summarizes. “I needed him and he needed me.”