The best of David Fincher: Zodiac

1. Zodiac
2. Se7en
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
4. Panic Room
5. Alien3
6. Fight Club
I loathed Fight Club. I thought it was pretentious, boring, smug and that it spelt out everything that had been so beatifully implicit about Fincher in Se7en. Who on earth wants to hear a filmmaker's philosophy? Might as well make notes about their shoe size. At his best Fincher makes movies the way Kubrick used to: as if he were slowly drilling his way through a subject. He's a full-bore filmmaker. Zodiac is as weighty and impassive as an Easter Island status — terrifying not for its shock moments but for its handling of time. It's a very hard movie to describe which is always a good sign. The first half of Benjamin Button, set in the old people's home, is the only time I've felt Fincher love the people in his movies and a sign that he might be more than just latter-day William Friedkin.