This documentary is, quite simply, the most powerful dose of medical reality ever administered by the tube.

–Harry F. Waters, Newsweek

These are the unforgettably sobering sights and sounds of ‘NEAR DEATH’, Frederick Wiseman’s great, fearless and monumental six-hour documentary chronicling the workings of the medical intensive care unit at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital. They are the sorts of images that become grimly commonplace during the course of a film that is less a viewing experience than a total immersion. It isn’t the running time that makes ‘NEAR DEATH’ so overwhelming; it’s the subject itself. But at this length, the film has time to carry its audience from an initially raw emotional response to a calmer consideration of the difficult issues raised here, and finally on to some sort of resolution.

–Janet Maslin, The New York Times