Encounters at the End of the World is a 2007 American documentary film by Werner Herzog about Antarctica and the people who choose to spend time there.

Filmmaker Werner Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger travel to Antarctica to meet the people who live and work there and to capture footage of the continent's unique locations.

Arriving at McMurdo Station, the two-man crew interview some maintenance and support workers and iceberg geologist Douglas MacAyeal.

As Herzog speculates about alien scientists visiting a post-human Earth, there is a sequence shot in tunnels carved deep into the ice below South Pole station, where various trinkets and mementos, including a can of Russian caviar and a whole frozen sturgeon, have been placed in carved-out shelves in the walls and preserved by the extreme cold and dry air.

Continuing the progression into the metaphysical, the filmmakers visit the launch of a giant helium balloon used in a neutrino detection project (ANITA) and interview physicist Peter Gorham.

[3] Kaiser, a musician and diver, first went to Antarctica as part of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program for his "Slide Guitar Around the World" project, and he returned on several scientific diving expeditions.

[4] Before Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog made prominent use of Kaiser's footage in the fiction film The Wild Blue Yonder (2005).

The pair went to Antarctica without any opportunity to plan filming locations or interviews, and had just seven weeks to conceive the project and shoot their footage.