Most Recent Film: Gone Girl (2014) Next Film: N/A Best Film: The Social Network (2010) You know what you're getting with a David Fincher picture, and that's a compliment. Though his approach to filmmaking remains instinctively nihilistic, he is also a master of tone and style - somehow an auteur without being the writer. His films are "commanded" rather than directed, and he always knows how to get good performances out of his actors. Has he made bad movie across the span of his career, then? No: even his lesser efforts, such as Panic Room and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, contain enough ideas and creative flourishes to guide you to the end happily enough (though "happily" is probably the wrong word to use, given the gloominess that seems to linger over a Fincher picture). His best film is a matter of true debate, and indeed you could natter over the subject for hours on end and still get no closer to an answer - that's how many natural contenders there are. For many, it's Se7en, the nightmarish serial killer flick from 1995, but The Social Network - made in 2010 about the rise of Facebook - feels like the smart choice. Gone Girl, his most recent picture, was a smash at the box office, and it told us what we already knew of Fincher: him doing his thing is something we'll never grow tired of.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
