My Best Fiend

Werner Herzog's documentary My Best Fiend examines his long and volatile working relationship with the actor Klaus Kinski. The two first met in Munich when Herzog was still a teenager, sharing a flat where Kinski's sudden rages left a lasting impression. Years later Herzog cast him in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, beginning a collaboration marked by mutual dependence and open hostility. The film draws on Herzog's own account and on interviews with collaborators, including Claudia Cardinale and Eva Mattes, to trace how trust and resentment grew side by side and how the pair repeatedly returned to work together.

Herzog directed and wrote the film, which was released in 1999 and runs 99 minutes. It is the tenth of the twenty-two features he has directed in chronological order, coming after Cobra Verde and before Invincible; Kinski appeared in several of the earlier ones. The documentary combines contemporary interviews with archival footage of Kinski, whose presence dominates the material even though he had died some years before filming.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 7.8 from around 13,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.3 from roughly 224 votes. A critics' rating of 7 out of 10, drawn from 27 reviews, sits close to those audience scores, suggesting broad if not unanimous approval for Herzog's account of an unusually fraught partnership.