David Fincher's films: where to start

David Fincher started out making music videos and is known in Hollywood as a perfectionist who often shoots scenes dozens of times. His films are cool, precise and mostly dark: murderers, lies and people who sink their teeth into something and cannot let go. With many of them, the less you know beforehand, the better. So we only tell you how each film begins. Here is a path through his work, without a ranking and without spoilers.

The easy way in

The Social Network

2010, 120 minutes. The founding of Facebook, told in flashback from two lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg. Jesse Eisenberg plays him, Andrew Garfield his co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Aaron Sorkin won the Oscar for the screenplay, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the score. Fast dialogue, no violence, which makes it the most accessible Fincher film.

Gone Girl

2014, 149 minutes. On their fifth wedding anniversary Amy Dunne disappears, and her husband Nick quickly comes under suspicion himself, with the police and in the media. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play the couple, and Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay from her own novel. A thriller about a marriage and about how quickly television passes judgement on people. Read as little about it as you can beforehand.

For a long evening

Zodiac

2007, 157 minutes. In the late 1960s, a murderer in the San Francisco area sends coded letters to newspapers. A cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal), a police inspector (Mark Ruffalo) and a reporter (Robert Downey Jr.) spend years obsessing over the case. The film is based on real events and on the books by Robert Graysmith, the cartoonist Gyllenhaal plays. Less a thriller than a film about obsession: calm, precise and long.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011, 158 minutes. A journalist, played by Daniel Craig, is hired by a wealthy Swedish family to find out what happened to a young relative decades ago. He gets help from the hacker Lisbeth Salander, played by Rooney Mara, who was nominated for the Oscar for the role. Stieg Larsson's novel had already been in 2009. A warning: the film contains graphic scenes of sexual violence.

For strong nerves

Se7en

1995, 127 minutes. A detective about to retire (Morgan Freeman) and his young new partner (Brad Pitt) hunt a killer who chooses his victims according to the seven deadly sins. It rains almost all the time, and everything is dark and dirty. The film shows little directly, but what you see and sense is hard to bear.

Fight Club

1999, 139 minutes. An office worker who can no longer sleep (Edward Norton) meets the soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Together they start a club where men fight each other in a basement. Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, a box office disappointment at first and a cult film later. Brutal, biting and at its best if nobody has told you anything about it.