David Fincher Movies Ranked
9. The Game (1997)
The Game is a sprawling thriller that effectively keeps you on the edge of your seat. Like Panic Room, it’s packed with great sequences and effective performances that amount to something you may expect if American Psycho and Saw were combined to adapt A Christmas Carol.
What makes this film so “Fincher” is the San Francisco setting, the sprawling, novelistic narrative, the driven protagonist who slowly unravels the mystery placed before them. It is, however, lacking in truly memorable scenes or meaningful characters.
The Game is a very good genre movie that probably wouldn’t be remembered had Fincher not directed it.
8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
There’s no other film in Fincher’s filmography like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Fincher is not one for romance in his films, and while Benjamin Button has his share of relationship issues, the film is really about the unity of two people throughout different points in their lives despite bizarre circumstances.
The digital aging looks better than The Irishman, and the visual effects won the film one of its three Oscars. If you’re looking for shock value, it’s quite jarring to see tiny octogenarian-child Brad Pitt have a meet-cute with a girl he’ll fall in love with eventually.
There may be a blending of old-school Hollywood Oscar-bait with the cutting-edge technology, but it’s considered such a deviation from Fincher’s other films that it’s hard to justify a higher ranking.
7. Fight Club (1999)
Fight Club is a film that nearly everyone has seen – and if they haven’t seen it, they know of it. The film was Fincher’s cult hit that now transcends its director and represents a phenomenon all its own. It’s stylized, funny, and quotable, capturing the spirit of rebellion against corporate America from the 1990s.
But what is Fight Club saying about masculinity and consumer culture? Is it a glorification of jaded violence? A statement in favor of men’s rights? No, but that doesn’t stop the decontextualization of Edward Norton and Brad Pitt’s iconic characters to justify talking points one way or another. Fight Club is a smart critique of toxic masculinity that is weighed down by the way its own premise and absurdity affect the reception of meaning.
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