--- title: Chimps Love Watching Movies About Apes, Study Finds description: They're able to remember specific scenes and actions from films canonical: https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/ author: Victor Luckerson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-18T15:46:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:47.275Z article:section: Science og:title: Chimps Love Watching Movies About Apes, Study Finds og:description: They're able to remember specific scenes and actions from films og:url: https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5ee50331e46157c/698864310a4a22c3799c6214/monkey-suit.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5000 og:image:height: 2813 og:image:alt: Ape Watching TV og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Chimps Love Watching Movies About Apes, Study Finds twitter:description: They're able to remember specific scenes and actions from films twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5ee50331e46157c/698864310a4a22c3799c6214/monkey-suit.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Monkeys Love Watching Movies About Themselves, Study Finds > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Know Right Now: Who's Actually Killing Zimbabwe's Wildlife? [Watch (HLS stream): Know Right Now: Who's Actually Killing Zimbabwe's Wildlife?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FkRHU6Xe.m3u8) (1:05)  _Published 2015-07-29. Disasterous land reforms, the destruction of property rights and widespread poverty have contributed to the steep decline in Zimbabwe's wildlife._ by [Victor Luckerson](https://time.com/author/victor-luckerson/) ## Victor Luckerson Sep 18, 2015 3:46 PM UTC  Gorilla watches television Gorilla watches television Getty Images by [Victor Luckerson](https://time.com/author/victor-luckerson/) ## Victor Luckerson Sep 18, 2015 3:46 PM UTC Humans aren’t the only movie buffs in the animal kingdom. A [new study](http://www.pri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/pub/ronbun/1037/index-e.html) shows that chimps who watch movies about monkeys can end up riveted to the screen and recall events from the movie after a single viewing. Researchers at Kyoto University showed six bonobos and six chimpanzees a pair of short films that featured humans dressed in ape costumes performing scary acts. In one film, the actor bursts through one of two identical doors, while in the other film, an actor attacks the person in the ape costume with one of two objects. Twenty-four hours later, when the animals watched the same movie again, analysis of their eye movements showed they anticipated the “ape” coming out the correct door, and also looked at the right weapon before it was used to attack the ape. The findings show that the chimps and bonobos were able to store information from the film screenings in their long-term memory and apply it later, shedding new light on the high-level cognitive capabilities of primates. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/"},"headline":"Monkeys Love Watching Movies About Themselves, Study Finds","datePublished":"2015-09-18T15:46:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:57:47.275Z","description":"They're able to remember specific scenes and actions from films","url":"https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/","keywords":["memory","movies","study"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5ee50331e46157c/698864310a4a22c3799c6214/monkey-suit.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Victor Luckerson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/victor-luckerson/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb5ee50331e46157c/698864310a4a22c3799c6214/monkey-suit.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ape Watching TV","caption":"","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/memory/","name":"memory"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/","name":"Monkeys Love Watching Movies About Themselves, Study Finds"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Know Right Now: Who's Actually Killing Zimbabwe's Wildlife?","description":"Disasterous land reforms, the destruction of property rights and widespread poverty have contributed to the steep decline in Zimbabwe's wildlife.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/FkRHU6Xe/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-07-29T08:27:28.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/FkRHU6Xe.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/","duration":"PT1M5S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4040260/monkeys-love-watching-movies-about-themselves-study-finds/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```