You can say a lot about Werner Herzog, but who else could it be said of that he has fully earned the right to publicly address the most profound questions of our (or any) era?

| Nov 10, 2023

Whatever expectations you have entering this documentary, no matter how adamant your feelings are for or against capital punishment, they become another feeling entirely by the time it’s over.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 6, 2023

With no traces of cynicism or sly wit, Into the Abyss is a particularly straightforward documentary. Thoroughly inquisitive and contemplative, Herzog seems to be saying enough is enough.

| Mar 21, 2021

One of Herzog's most deeply moving documentaries.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 12, 2020

Herzog spares us little in this sorrowful take on Crime and Punishment in Rick Perry's kingdom.

| Jun 18, 2020

A steely look at the darkness that plagues much of rural America.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 8, 2019

A film that refuses to fit into any single ideology about the subject or the approach taken by any of its cinematic predecessors. For all the director's talk about what it means to be human, it may also just be his most humane.

| Jan 8, 2019

Werner Herzog never fails to surprise.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 4, 2019

Into the Abyss is a hugely powerful film, shot with elegance and sensitivity to both victims and perpetrators.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2018

Into the Abyss is not just a compelling documentary about a convicted murderer on Death Row, but a further chapter in Werner Herzog's obsessive exploration of the American way of life - and death.

| Jul 6, 2018

The filmmaker talks with loose, amateurish presence to the people-leading questions, re-framing camerawork, shoddy jump cuts-and by talking to them makes them participants in a weird, painful geographic-familial-residential tapestry of anguish.

| Nov 16, 2017

Herzog insinuatingly and gently coaxes his interviewees while his camera registers a more ambiguous, startled fixation on people and places, plus a willingness to stare bluntly. Director and camera are like good cop, bad cop.

| Jul 13, 2017

A mark of tremendous insight that plays like another notch in the social dashboard from which Werner Herzog continues to find his inspiration.

| Jul 22, 2016

...adopts the posture of an empathetic listener.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 11, 2015

Werner Herzog has a well-deserved reputation for tackling difficult, risky subjects. It took courage to enter the Lone Star State and wade into the mire of capital punishment.

| Aug 4, 2015

Herzog is a superb interviewer, never bludgeoning the interviewees with his power as filmmaker nor shying away out of discretion or discouragement.

| Aug 4, 2015

As it winds to its inevitable conclusion, viewers are left to ponder right and wrong, and most will have the same mixed feelings they had before they took their first bite of popcorn. This looks to be on the short list for Oscar contenders.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 11, 2015

The star filmmaker, oft mocked for verging on self-parody, keeps his Teutonic explorer persona in check and allows his subjects' emotional outpourings-sadness, shame, dread, and desperation, and unexpected glimmers of hope and happiness-to set the tone.

| Jul 1, 2013

A smart documentary that takes sides in the death penalty debate but never shies away from the horrendous crimes at the center of the story.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 30, 2013

A virtuoso work, unparalleled in Herzog's career. And it'll just break your heart.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 22, 2013