Rank Fincher

1. Fight Club - A movie that's smart and funny if you're an angry teen white guy, and a movie that's smart and funny for entirely different reasons if you're not. Like the Goodfellas of impotent white masculine rage festering into straw nihilism, it fully immerses you in it and then tears at the seams. Also just love its grungy aesthetic, it looks like the end of the '90s as it speaks to an unfortunate subculture that would gain more and more prominence in the digital age of the 21st century.
2. The Social Network - About as prescient as Fight Club but much more tightly controlled in all aspects of filmmaking. Like a finely-tuned, well-oiled machine. Sorkin and Fincher are an ideal combination for a movie about assholes, a favorite subject of both but one where they balance out each other's worst tendencies (Sorkin's schmaltzy moralizing, Fincher's airtight coldness). They need to get on with a sequel.

3. Zodiac - Like getting lost in hermetically sealed case files. Maybe the most on-the-nose subject matter of Fincher's career (guy gets obsessed over a serial killer) in a way that plays to everything that makes him special as a filmmaker. And given the dubious ethics of most true crime material, this especially stands out now as a triumph.
4. Gone Girl - Righteously funny in Fincher's pitch-black way and endlessly watchable in its pulpiness. The casting of Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike are absolutely genius.
5. Se7en - His calling card for the pre-digital part of his career. Pitt and Freeman make a terrific pair (has the whole "cop on his last case before retirement" trope ever been better than here?) and the third act is still as unbearably tense as ever.

6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - It unfortunately never lives up to the incredible energy of its opening credits, but it's still a stirring yarn spinner.
7. The Game - The script isn't all there, but another case where Fincher's sheer command of tone and pace make for an enjoyable ride.
8. Mank - The tact it takes with regard to Orson Welles annoys me (wasn't all this settled 50 years ago?) but it's still a very interesting journey through the political machinations of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Doesn't hurt that Oldman and Seyfried are doing terrific work here.
9. Panic Room - I think this film would probably be much better if he made it now. Not that it's a bad movie, it's a solid program thriller, but he would take much more special care now to get as much as he can out of the script. Interesting to see the escalation in his fancy for digital tricks, though.

10. Alien 3 - Kind of an honorary position since I haven't seen the Assembly Cut in so long. I just remember it being more interesting in theme than in character (sans Ripley) and feeling all too much of the tension between what the film is going for and what the studio was allowing to get done in time for its release. Willing to give it a rewatch soon.

11. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - I get what it's going for and I think it's a very sweet, melancholic idea and a novel way to look at the lifespan with a forefront focus on death. I just don't think it really works. Fincher's allergy to the outright emotionality of something like Forrest Gump or Big Fish results in a film that plays at but cannot reach any of the emotional insight of those movies. It's a movie constantly in thought. I'd call it handsomely mounted but this is the one where his steadfast refusal to light his sets is most bothersome, in no small part because it only puts us further at a remove for a film as obvious as "what if a dude lived his whole life aging in reverse?"

N/S The Killer

I sometimes think he's the most influential/important filmmaker since mid-90s, at least in America... not saying he's the one with "best" run or string of film exactly or I don't have criticism towards his work (I'm not a fan of the way he does on screen violence for example) or he's the best actors diroctor... but I think people really want to copy him (*for what it's worth, I probably have seen more breakdown videos of his work on YT than any other director; Nolan & Kubrick are close) and, maybe even unconsciously imitate him, in their way of editing, lighting and even world-view... Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac (an unofficial trilogy?) just showcase a brand of cynism that capture the hopelesssness of the late 90s-00s in a way that I haven't seen anyone else do it (people like QT or the Andersons are too peculiar to speak for an era you know?) and I'm not into that like I used to in the past, I actually find it questionable now at moments (maybe that's why I can't call The Killer perfect... it is ugly and insesnsitive too, and that's part of it's charm, weirdly)... even Lanthimos or Eggers are inferior to him imo, but I guess/hope they're just starting, while he's very established and accomplished at this point.

1. The Social Network
2. Zodiac
3. Fight Club
4. Gone Girl
5. Se7en
6. The Killer
7. Panic Room
8. Alien 3
9. Mank

Those first 5 are in my Top 70 of all time, and he's probably my #5 or #6 fave director.

NS The Killer yet...

1. Zodiac – 10/10 – His masterpiece. Addictive and endlessly rewatchable.

2. Se7en – 9/10 – Gloriously grungy atmosphere, with some of the best rain in a movie this side of Blade Runner. In different hands, this could have easily been a trite exercise in nihilism, but instead it’s rather thoughtfully philosophical within its genre framework.

3. The Social Network – 9/10 – If you told me 15 years ago that a movie about Facebook—NOT another serial killer movie (which should be the title of his next film lol)—would become one of Fincher’s top 3 films, I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s still crazy to me that this movie turned out to be not only great, but best-of-the-decade level great. The single best screenplay Fincher has ever directed, and also the beginning of a tremendous musical partnership with Reznor/Ross (still the best score they’ve ever done)... a match made in heaven.

4. Mank – 8/10 – Somehow this movie has become stupidly underrated, partly because I think it’s sort of misunderstood. Yeah, the Welles stuff is irritating, and the ending doesn’t really fit... but that’s because the film isn’t actually about the authorship of Citizen Kane’s script. It’s about the artist’s social responsibility, and the creation of art as a form of ethical atonement. It’s also really funny, with one great line after another, and Oldman is terrific.

5. Gone Girl – 8/10 – Every time I rewatch this, for some reason I keep expecting to not like it as much as the last time I watched it, but nope, every time it never fails to pull me in and never lets up. This film succeeds with its satire where Fight Club failed imo.

6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – 8/10 – Starts to maybe feel a bit too long after a certain point, but still pretty gripping stuff overall, and a definite improvement over the 2009 film. If Zodiac was about the elusiveness of truth and how some things can never be known, then this inverts that theme and says that the truth can be found if you look hard enough.

7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 7/10 – I’m a fan, but it does stand out in a weird way in his filmography. Probably not the best person to helm this kind of material, but I like its melancholic tone, and how it’s sort of a meditation on transience. It feels like something that could have been really great, but didn’t quite get there and only ended up being merely “good.” Fantastic score.

8. Panic Room – 7/10 – effectively claustrophobic cat-and-mouse thriller with Fincher in Hitchcock mode. Some gaps in logic (like stuff hinging on the intruders' stupidity) and the CGI hasn't aged well, but it's tense and well-directed with some bravura sequences. Jared Leto is really terrible though.

9. The Game – 7/10 – Fincher again in Hitchcock mode, sort of North By Northwest-ish. Feels like an extended Twilight Zone episode, entertaining but pretty preposterous stuff.

10. Alien 3 – 6.5/10 – I think of it as an admirable failure. Fincher's talent clearly shines through: it’s got great atmosphere, and the first half has a sense of dread and ominous portent that I like. It's ultimately disappointing though because the stuff actually involving the alien is pretty dull imo with some bad vfx, plus I think the film starts to lose shape in the second half. Some good ideas, and I really like the basic premise, but it just doesn't come together into a satisfying whole for me.

11. Fight Club – 6/10 – Starts promisingly, but goes off the rails in the second half, and ends up as this smug, self-congratulatory mess. I just don’t think it handles its ideas in a way that adds up to an interesting movie. I haven’t read the book, but maybe it all works better in that medium. Plus I just find the movie to be really visually ugly.


A lot of good ones, but only 3 truly great ones...

Ah, too bad you didn't enjoy this... 

Some of these are pretty interchangeable for me.

1. Zodiac
2. The Social Network
3. Se7en
4. Fight Club
5. Gone Girl
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
7. Panic Room
8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
9. The Game
10. Mank (needs a rewatch though)
11. Alien 3

Can’t wait to watch The Killer. Will update with its placement.

Probably sliding The Killer in at #5

The Social Network
Gone Girl
Zodiac
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Se7en
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Game
Panic Room
Mank
Fight Club
The Killer
Alien 3

It really sucks that he remains an Oscar-less director dog.

1. Fight Club
2. Social Network
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
4. The Killer
5. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
6. Zodiac
7. Gone Girl
8. The Game
9. Se7en
10. Mank

NS Panic Room or Alien 3