10 Great Filmmakers Best Remembered For The Wrong Films

4. David Fincher

Best Remembered For: Seven (1995), Fight Club (1999) Should Be Remembered For: Zodiac (2007) Subjectivity already dominates this list, so I'll admit from the off that David Fincher's supposed masterpiece, Fight Club, does little for me. And Seven, a serial killer film obsessed with the grisly details without taking much notice of the human impact, now feels largely like a dry run for Fincher's later true-life serial killer procedural, Zodiac. That's not to say Seven isn't in itself a minor classic - it's just that Zodiac is superior as a thriller, as a mystery and most of all as a compelling human drama. Zodiac is the youngest of the films on this list, but the time that's already passed is enough to tell that the project has so far been the most perfect fit for David Fincher. The director's fastidious nature, combined with his gothic visual styling, has resulted in one of the most fascinating procedurals ever committed to celluloid. It didn't set the box office on fire on release and the Oscars didn't even recognise it, but that's no indication of Zodiac's quality: a two-and-a-half hour study of obsession surrounding San Francisco's Zodiac killer, this is Fincher's best to date. With a superb cast, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo, and a script full of painstaking period detail and intrigue, Zodiac becomes more than a serial killer movie. Perhaps that's why audiences tuned out back in 2007 - Zodiac deals less with the gory murders and more with the after-effects of the crimes, a far cry away from Fincher's more conventional Seven.