Film
Koko: A Talking Gorilla
- Light-hearted
A 1978 documentary following Dr. Penny Patterson's groundbreaking work teaching American Sign Language to Koko, a gorilla at the San Francisco Zoo. It's a intimate portrait of interspecies communication and the animal's personality, filmed with genuine wonder. For anyone curious about animal intelligence, consciousness, or the ethics of keeping animals in captivity.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you are fascinated by the messy business of trying to read another species' mind, and you enjoy watching a patient researcher and a curious animal work something out together on camera.
Skip it if you want a tight, fast-moving science film; this one is loose and observational, and its 85 minutes spend a good deal of time on sessions that unfold at their own unhurried pace.
What it asks of you: Sit with long stretches of quiet observation, where the camera waits on hands, gestures and pauses rather than cutting to explanation, and let the questions about language gather slowly.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
My Octopus Teacher2020
A filmmaker develops a relationship with a wild octopus over a year, exploring consciousness and intelligence in ways that feel utterly fresh. Gorgeously shot, emotionally earned, and raises profound questions about how we understand other minds.
But It's meditative and slow-paced; if you want narrative momentum or conflict, you'll find it thin on the ground.
Gorillas in the Mist1988
Sigourney Weaver as Dian Fossey, the primatologist who devoted her life to studying mountain gorillas in Rwanda. It's a portrait of obsession, vulnerability, and the cost of caring about beings we're not supposed to anthropomorphize.
But The film softens some harder edges of Fossey's real story; it's more inspirational biography than unflinching truth.
The Meerkats2008
David Attenborough narrates this nature documentary following a meerkat family in the Kalahari. Intimate, funny, heartbreaking—it treats animals as fully realized characters without ever losing scientific rigor.
But It's gentler and more whimsical than Koko's direct engagement with the question of communication itself.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Koko: A Talking Gorilla
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Right Stuff1983
Both are portraits of human/non-human frontiers. Koko asks what a gorilla can become; The Right Stuff asks what a human can become. Both answer: more than we assumed.
A four-hour epic about American astronauts and test pilots reaching for space. It sounds unrelated, but both films are about individuals crossing thresholds—communication, achievement, the limits of the possible—with genuine stakes and wonder.
But It's very long and very 1980s; the tone is monumental in ways Koko's intimacy explicitly rejects.
More like this (7)
Project Nim2011
A documentary about a chimpanzee taught sign language, parallel to Koko's story but darker. It's a strange, tragic, fascinating inquiry into what happens when we try to make animals human.
But It gets tangled and somewhat scattered; the narrative meanders when it might need clarity.
Blackfish2013
A documentary about orcas in captivity that builds a case for animal consciousness through tragedy and restraint. It raises the same ethical questions Koko does, but from a position of moral urgency.
But It's an advocacy film with a clear agenda; if you want pure scientific curiosity without activist framing, this isn't it.
March of the Penguins2005
An elegant nature documentary following emperor penguins across Antarctica. It finds drama and stakes in animal behavior without needing to teach them to sign or anthropomorphize them.
But It's more about survival spectacle than about consciousness or inner life.
The Ivory Game2016
Documentary about the ivory trade and elephant poaching, filmed with cinematic elegance. It's about animal intelligence, suffering, and human moral failure—the harder side of Koko's coin.
But It's heavier and more activist than Koko's scientific curiosity; the manipulation is deliberate and sometimes clumsy.
Chimpanzee2012
A Disney nature documentary about a young chimp's family. It's engaging and visually stunning, with genuine observation beneath the sentimentality.
But It prioritizes entertainment and emotional beats over scientific inquiry; the narration is actively anthropomorphic.
Wendy and Lucy2008
Both explore the irreducible reality of another consciousness. Koko does it through sign language; Wendy and Lucy does it through a glance, a gesture, the refusal to look away.
Kelly Reichardt's quiet film about a woman and her dog traveling through the American West. It's a story about the bond between species and mutual dependency—less scientific than Koko, but more emotionally true about what that connection means.
But It's minimalist and sad; there's no narrative payoff, just erosion.
Synecdoche, New York2008
Koko is Penny Patterson's attempt to make a gorilla legible to humans. Synecdoche is about the impossibility and tragedy of doing exactly that—of trying to contain something living in a system of signs.
Charlie Kaufman's surreal film about a theater director creating an ever-expanding replica of life itself. It's oblique and strange, but it's fundamentally about whether we can ever really understand another being, or only make representations of them.
But It's deeply weird and formally demanding; it's the opposite of a nature documentary in every structural way.
People
Cast
- Penny PattersonHerself
KokoHerself- Saul KitchenerHimself - Director Emeritus, San Francisco Zoo
- Carl PribramHimself - Professor of Neuroscience
- Roger FoutsHimself
Directing
- George Paul CsicseryAssistant Director
- Barbet SchroederDirector
Production
- Barbet SchroederAssociate Producer
- Dale DjerassiAssociate Producer
- Margaret MénégozProducer