2. Zodiac (2007)
If the ending of Seven hadnt offered a resolution, it would have become Zodiac. This tale of obsession, Finchers most underrated work, follows three men - a comic writer, a newspaper crime writer, and a cop - as theyre drawn into the hunt for the infamous (and still uncaught) Zodiac killer, who haunted the San Francisco Bay area in the late 60s and early 70s. Going into the film, we know the case cannot be solved, and yet we are still riveted at each turn, each interrogation, each potential lead. We grow to care about the case as much as the main characters; it becomes a private obsession for the audience as well. Finchers direction throughout the film is so controlled that its almost scary. He pulls tension and terror out of thin air; has us on the edge of our seat simply through the way he cuts through a conversation. Fincher puts the audience on a string at the beginning of the film, and then leads them along to his own beat for the duration of the picture. Even without a traditional resolution, he takes us on such a journey that by the film's end half of us is glad that it's over, while the other half of us wants to dive back in and look for more clues. Zodiac has plenty of action, but it's the procedural work, the paper pushing, that really grips us. The traditional tropes of the cop and newspaper movies are molded into a sort of existential chase, something that never ends because the goal can never be attained. And yet, even as we know that we wont solve the case, we hope against hope throughout the picture. To do that, to make us doubt what we already know to be true, is the sign of a master. And for Fincher, Zodiac is one of his true masterworks.