“The power to define what spectacle is...separates humans from beasts and helps keep the former at the top of the food chain. This is the paradox that underlies Frederick Wiseman's gorgeous...documentary Zoo. Like Wiseman's other films, Zoo, a seemingly fly-on-the-wall recording of a many-faceted institution, manages to come down squarely on the side of the most vulnerable” (Amy Taubin, Village Voice). The film documents keepers and veterinarians caring for the animals at Miami's MetroZoo, emphasizing the interrelatedness of the animal, human, ethical, financial, and scientific aspects of the zoo's operation. The zoo “has the balmy, benign look of a controlled environment but the cumulative effect is odd, sometimes queasy. Absence of didactic narration creates suspense. Self-contained dramas are gradually and skillfully resolved....(The film) never shies from gory or unsettling events, including the clinical yet convivial postmortem butchering of a stillborn rhino calf (which is) as surreal as Un Chien Andalou” (Lisa Nesselson, Variety).