Film
Zoo
- Crime
- Very dark
- Strange
Zoo is a forensic documentary about zoophilia, centered on a 2005 incident in Washington State where a man died during sexual contact with a horse. Director Robinson Devor examines desire, isolation, and community through interviews and careful reenactment, treating an extreme subject with anthropological curiosity rather than judgment. It's unsettling, intelligent, and demands mature viewers.
If you liked this
Capturing the Friedmans2003
A masterclass in documentary ambiguity. Like Zoo, it examines a sexually transgressive crime through family interviews and conflicting accounts, asking what we can actually know about desire and guilt.
But The subject matter—child abuse allegations—is deeply disturbing, and the film deliberately refuses to give you moral clarity or catharsis.
The Act of Killing2012
Devor's methodical, non-judgmental approach to taboo psychology finds its spiritual cousin here. Both films let perpetrators speak and show us the banality behind extraordinary acts without excusing them.
But It's a slow, patient film about mass murder. The refusal to condemn can feel complicit if you're looking for traditional moral scaffolding.
Grey Gardens1976
Pioneering documentary portrait of eccentricity and isolation in a decaying mansion. Like Zoo, it finds strange dignity in marginal lives and avoids the easy path of mockery or pity.
But It's a squalid, claustrophobic watch about two women living in filth and delusion. Beautiful filmmaking doesn't make it pleasant.
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The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Gerry2002
Both are studies of masculine isolation and the quiet catastrophes that follow it, told through observation rather than explanation.
Gus Van Sant's almost plotless film about two men walking into the wilderness and getting lost. It shares Zoo's patient, non-judgmental observation of male isolation and transgression—both films quietly investigate how men end up where they shouldn't be.
But It's 100 minutes of men walking through trees with minimal dialogue. Many will find it indulgent and unbearably slow.
More like this (6)
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst2015
Six hours of obsessive investigation into a possibly guilty man, layered with ambiguity about what confession means. Shares Zoo's fascination with psychology beneath transgression.
But It's addictive true-crime storytelling first, philosophy second. The sensationalism works against the deeper questions it raises.
Crumb1995
Terry Zwigoff's portrait of R. Crumb examines obsession, transgressive desire, and artistic genius intertwined. It has Zoo's unflinching interest in how smart, disturbed people actually think.
But It features extended discussion of sexual fantasies and misogyny. Crumb is brilliant but unsettling, and the film doesn't distance itself from his worldview.
Tickled2016
What begins as a curiosity about competitive tickling becomes an investigation into hidden communities, sexual compulsion, and the internet's dark corners. Matches Zoo's journalistic fascination with the margins.
But The subject is trivial compared to Zoo—it's tickling, not death—so the heavy-handed documentary techniques can feel like overkill.
Sour Grapes2016
A wine fraud documentary that, like Zoo, explores obsession and how intelligent people rationalize transgression. It's lighter in tone but structurally similar.
But It's essentially a con-artist story dressed in prestigious clothing. If you're not interested in wine or white-collar crime, there's less here than meets the eye.
An Elephant Sitting Still2018
Both find visual and emotional poetry in marginal lives, using extended observation and refusal to moralize as the core of their method.
Cheng Zhangke's four-hour portrait of four adrift people in a declining Chinese city. Like Zoo, it treats desperation and transgression with anthropological patience and visual poetry, asking why people do what they do without judgment.
But It's long, bleak, in Mandarin, and offers no redemption or uplift. The quiet despair may feel more like punishment than insight.
Kes1970
Both explore how marginalization and lack of connection breed transgressive behavior, but Kes shows the social causes while Zoo observes the individual symptoms.
Ken Loach's film about a working-class boy and a hawk he trains. It examines how isolation and the lack of belonging drives transgression and cruelty—thematically Zoo's mirror, but rendered as social realism rather than clinical study.
But It's a kitchen-sink drama about a miserable child in 1960s England. The bleakness is unrelenting and there's no redemptive arc.
People
Directing
- Robinson DevorDirector
Writing
- Charles MudedeWriter
Production
- Alexis FerrisProducer
- Peggy CaseProducer