Werner Herzog (German: [ˈvɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk]; born September 5, 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, considered a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious heroes with unattainable dreams, people with unique talents in little-known fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. He is known for his unique filmmaking process, such as his disregard for storyboards, his emphasis on improvisation, and his placement of actors and crew in situations similar to those of the characters in his films.

Herzog began work on his first film, "Herakles," in 1961, when he was nineteen. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature films and documentaries, such as "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972), "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" (1974), "Heart of Glass" (1976), "Stroszek" (1977), "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979), "Fitzcarraldo" (1982), "Cobra Verde" (1987), "Lessons of Darkness" (1992), "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" (1997), "My Best Fiend" (1999), "Grizzly Man" (2005), "Encounters at the End of the World" (2007), "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" (2009), and "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (2010). He has published more than a dozen books of prose and has staged as many operas.

The French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog "the most important living film director." The American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog "has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular." In 2009, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The above description is taken from the Wikipedia article on Werner Herzog, licensed under CC-BY-SA; the full list of authors is on Wikipedia.