Cobra Verde

Set in the 19th century, Cobra Verde carves a ruthless trail through the Brazilian hinterlands until he reaches the sugar plantation owned by Don Octávio Coutinho. The master is impressed by the outlaw’s hard edge and hires him to oversee the enslaved labor on his estate. When Cobra Verde impregnates Octávio’s three daughters, the plantation owner, enraged by the scandal, banishes the man to Africa and orders him to reopen the slave trade there. Across the Atlantic, Cobra Verde uses tribal rivalries to seize an abandoned fortress and commands a wild army of naked warriors, driving them toward power, survival, and conquest.

Directed by Werner Herzog with a screenplay by Herzog and Bruce Chatwin, Cobra Verde arrived in 1987 as a stark cross continental epic. The film blends colonial history with mythic ambition, drawing on Chatwin's research and Herzog's intense, boundary pushing style.

Box office data for Cobra Verde is sparse; the film received a limited international release and did not become a major box office hit. It has been primarily valued by art house audiences and Herzog enthusiasts.

Within Herzog's catalog, Cobra Verde stands out for its unflinching portrayal of greed and empire. Klaus Kinski embodies the title character with feral magnetism, anchoring scenes of brutal conquest and stark landscapes that linger after the screening. The film's iconography, including the fortress and the assault by naked warriors, has fueled scholarly discussions about colonial violence and cinema as a moral mirror rather than mere spectacle.

Critics treated Cobra Verde as a demanding, ambitious epic that trades conventional narrative for atmosphere and consequence. It probes how wealth and power corrupt, and how colonial projects redraw maps of loyalty and violence. Some reviewers praised its austere beauty, others found the pace punishing yet revealing. Across interpretations, the film is seen as a late era Herzog inquiry into domination, humanity, and the costs exacted by empire.