Werner Herzog

He considers Nosferatu (1922) to be the greatest German film ever made. He directed the remake Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).

Was voted the 35th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945- 1985". Pages 422-429. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.

In 1961, he worked nights in a steel factory to raise money for his films. In 1966, he was employed by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

In 1968, Lebenszeichen (1968) won the German Film Prize and a Silver Bear as Best Debut Film at the Berlinale. The following year, Herzog organized a free alternative to the Berlinale in Wedding, a working-class district of Berlin, showing festival films at no charge for people who wouldn't ordinarily encounter independent and off-beat movies such as his own.

Was scheduled to fly on the same ill-fated plane as fellow German teenager Juliane Koepcke in 1971, but was bumped from the flight at the last minute. On Christmas Eve, the plane crashed in the Amazon jungle, and 17-year-old Juliane was the only survivor, after enduring 11 days alone. Her tale was told in 1974's Miracles Still Happen (1974).

Has shot 5 of his films in Peru: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski (1999), Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel (1999) and parts of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009).

Has three children from three women: Rudolph Herzog (born in 1973), Hanna Mattes (born in 1980), and Simon Herzog (born in 1989).

Claimed to have walked by foot from Munich, Germany to Paris, France (a distance of about 500 miles) in 1974 to prevent the very sick film historian and good friend, Lotte Eisner, from dying (as, applying his logic, she wouldn't dare to die until he visited her on her deathbed). Eisner, indeed, went on to live for 8 more years after Herzog's journey.

Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if a young American film student went out and actually made the film he was always only talking about. The young student was Errol Morris, who met the challenge with his off-beat 1978 pet cemetery documentary Gates of Heaven (1978) (and went on to make The Thin Blue Line (1988) and Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)). Herzog makes good on his promise in the film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), directed by Les Blank.

Klaus Kinski asked him to direct Paganini (1989), but he declined. It turned out to be Kinski's final film.

Said in DVD commentary for Incident at Loch Ness (2004) that his first book was a Marshal- Plan copy of "Winnie the Pooh", and it remains one of his favorites.

In late 2005, during an interview with BBC film critic Mark Kermode regarding Grizzly Man (2005), a sniper opened fire on them with an air rifle. Kermode panicked when Herzog calmly said, "Someone is shooting at us." One of the pellets then hit Herzog. An unmoved Herzog said that the bullet was 'not a significant one' and insisted on continuing the interview.

Herzog claims in a 2006 Bloomberg interview that he had the chance to direct both Brokeback Mountain (2005) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

Herzog received a lifetime achievement award, the Pardo d'onore, from the Locarno International Film Festival in August 2013, only four months after being similarly honored for his lifetime achievement in cinema by the German Film Academy in April 2013.