David Fincher has been the go-to thriller director for the past few decades, as he has made some of the very best mystery crime movies of the 21st century. Unfortunately, the filmmaker has yet to win an Academy Award, which only ever seems less likely considering how the Academy undeservedly treats thrillers like lesser movies than dramas.
However, at least the director can sleep peacefully knowing that his movies are still the favorites of hundreds of thousands of cinephiles, as they have some of the best possible scores on Letterboxd.
Mank (2020) - 3.3
Available to stream on Netflix.
Citizen Kane and the personal and professional problems he had at the time. Interestingly, Fincher's father wrote the screenplay all the way back in the '90s.
The film isn't one of Fincher's best, but Mank still has its merits, and it's easy to see why Letterboxd fans would still appreciate it more than general audiences, as Mank is all about the inner workings of Hollywood. It's almost like being a fly on the wall while Citizen Kane, hailed as one of the greatest movies of all time, was being produced.
Panic Room (2002) - 3.4
Available to stream on Hulu.
Shockingly, Panic Room's screenplay sold for $4 million, making it one of the most expensive screenplays of all time, according to New York Post. And paying such a high price for a film, it's only right that the studio hires the best possible director to deliver the crime movie to the highest standard. But at the time, ironically, choosing to direct such a straightforward home invasion movie was a left-field choice for Fincher.
The director was coming off a string of complex and thought-provoking thriller movies, including Fight Club. However, that might be exactly why he chose Panic Room next, as Fight Club had flopped and, believe it or not, it received extremely divisive reviews when it was theatrically released. The 2002 release might be a popcorn movie, but it's such an entertaining thrill ride.
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008) - 3.6
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
Just like Mank and Panic Room, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button isn't the usual Fincher affair either. However, there's no denying that the movie looks stunning.
The filmmaker is one of the most technically oriented directors of his time — he even started his career working at Industrial Light & Magic — and that's on full display in the 2008 movie. The visual effects in Benjamin Button, which is about a man who ages backward, are better than any blockbuster superhero flick that was released at the time.
The Game (1997) - 3.7
Available to rent Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime Video.
The Game often goes overlooked when discussing Fincher's best movies, but that isn't to say that people don't like it. The movie has a premise as compelling as either Se7en or Fight Club, the two movies it's sandwiched between in of release dates, but for whatever reason, it just didn't get the attention it deserves.
The movie is about a wealthy businessman who gets given an unorthodox birthday present from his brother, but shortly after, a strange conspiracy begins to unravel. The Game has one of the most shocking twists in a Fincher movie, and it even rivals the end of Se7en.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011) - 3.8
Available to stream on Netflix.
Though most Hollywood remakes of foreign films tend to be much worse than the originals, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one of the few instances where the remake is better. But that might have something to do with the fact that it's more of an adaptation of the novel of the same name than a remake.
Some Redditors think that Dragon Tattoo is a movie that doesn't justify its overly long runtime, but given that it adapts as much of the enormous novel as possible, two hours and 40 minutes is actually a fairly lean runtime. Not only that, but the 160 minutes fly by, as Lisbeth and Mikael working together to uncover an unsolved 20-year-old mystery couldn't be more engrossing. Interestingly, it has a higher rating than the 2009 original, but only by a whisker, as the Swedish movie has a 3.7.
The Social Network (2010) - 4.0
Available to stream on Netflix.
The Social Network isn't exactly a thriller and, on the face of it, it barely seems like a biopic about the origins of Facebook has the making of a great Fincher movie. However, the cinematic version of Mark Zuckerberg has very sociopathic tendencies, and in that sense, he fits in with Fincher's other protagonists like The Narrator in Fight Club and Nick in Gone Girl. And that's exactly how Fincher treats the character.
On top of that, it's one of Fincher's most stunning-looking movies, and it has an amazingly icy score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which marked the start of a great working relationship between the musicians and director. And as the movie was so well received and as there have been so many recent controversial Facebook updates, Fincher should direct The Social Network 2.
Zodiac (2007) - 4.0
Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
Serial killers and true crime are Fincher's bread and butter. The Zodiac Killer was notoriously never caught, but that didn't stop thousands of people from trying to decipher his codes. The Zodiac movie follows a cartoonist as he works with police detectives and investigative journalists to try and get to the bottom of it.
Zodiac is a sprawling epic, and even in San Francisco's murky winter greyness, the film still looks beautiful. And even without an incredible twist ending to leave the audiences shocked, which has become somewhat of a magic trick for Fincher, the film still manages to be one of his best.
Gone Girl (2014) - 4.1
Available to stream on Hulu.
Fincher didn't have much output in the 2010s, but before his six-year gap between movies, he was on a roll with cold, icy, heartless thrillers, and that reached its highest form with Gone Girl. The movie is about a woman who goes missing, and her husband becomes the prime suspect in what could become a murder case.
Gone Girl is one of the best mystery movies of the 2010s, and that's mostly down to the unique way the narrative is delivered. The same story is told twice, first from the husband's perspective, and then from the wife's, and that format leaves viewers guessing what's really going on until the very final frame.
Se7en (1995) - 4.3
Available to stream on Hulu.
Se7en is the movie that put Fincher on the map. Before it, the filmmaker had only directed Alien 3, which was a product of endless studio meddling, but it was the 1995 movie that truly established Fincher's style.
From the opening credits soundtracked by Nine Inch Nails, the serial killer premise, and the shocking twist ending, which gives audiences chills just thinking about it, the film is the blueprint for almost every FIncher movie that followed. Not only that, but it encouraged a ton of other filmmakers to follow his style, which led to so many inferior Fincher-type movies.
Fight Club (1999) - 4.3
Available to rent on Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime Video.
Not much can be said about Fight Club that hasn't already been said. Even the first rule of Fight Club constantly gets repeated. Along with being Fincher's highest-rated movie on Letterboxd, it's rated the 11th best film ever on IMDb too.
Despite being a gritty, nihilistic, crime drama, the 1999 movie has so much rewatchability, and it's one of the few movies where the big twist actually encourages viewers to look at the film differently. Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote the novel on which the movie is based, has written two sequels, so fans might one day get a movie sequel too.
