Ghost Elephants is a 2025 American documentary film directed by Werner Herzog. It follows Steve Boyes, a South African naturalist in search of what he believes to be an undiscovered species of African elephant on the highland plateau of Angola.
The film had its world premiere out of competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 28, 2025. It was theatrically released in the United States by National Geographic Documentary Films on February 27, 2026, followed by its streaming release on Disney+ and Hulu on March 7.
Contents
Cast
Steve Boyes - Ornithologist, Explorer
Xui - San Bushman Master Tracker
Kobus - Master Tracker, Healer Apprentice
Xui Dawid - Master Tracker
Gary Trower - Anthropologist, San Culture Specialist
Kerllen Costa - Environmental Anthropologist
Jordana Meyer - Molecular Ecologist, Stanford University
Regedor Kaketche - King of the Nkangala
Elias Ngunga - Luchazi Tracker
António Luhoke - Luchazi Hunter
Melissa Hawkins - Curator of Mammals, Smithsonian Institution
Mary Faith Flores - Molecular Technician, Smithsonian Institution
Ellie Armstrong - Evolutionary Genomics, UC Riverside
Katherine Solari - Conservation Genomics, Stanford University
Release
Ghost Elephants was presented in Features at the Vienna International Film Festival on October 18, 2025. It screened in the Masters section of the Stockholm International Film Festival on November 6, 2025. The UK premiere was at the Leeds International Film Festival on November 14, 2025.
In August 2025, National Geographic Documentary Films acquired the world streaming rights to the film and it will be globally available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu in 2026.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 42 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "A visually magnificent tribute to humanity's fascination with animals, Ghost Elephants is a haunting documentary that reaffirms how much any subject becomes all the more intriguing when beheld by Werner Herzog's gaze." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on six critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Peter Sobczynski of RogerEbert.com gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "Ghost Elephants is a portrait of obsession that, while gentler than some of Herzog's other works, is mesmerizing from the first moment to the last, yet another title of note in what remains one of the most incredible filmographies of our time."
