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Horror, anxiety, and violence are all common topics in the films of David Fincher, whose work within the film industry had earned him an all-time “blank check.” Whether he’s tackling historical dramas based on riveting true stories or telling viscous crime sagas, Fincher is guaranteed to find an audience with every project he works on.
In recent years, Fincher has found success with Netflix, as he served as a collaborator on the popular streaming shows House of Cards and Mindhunter. After funding Fincher’s passion project Mank, Netflix will distribute Fincher’s next crime thriller The Killer. Here are the ten best villains in David Fincher movies, ranked.
10 The Beast, ‘Alien 3’
Alien 3 isn’t given much credit by Fincher’s fans; this is unsurprising considering Fincher himself has disowned the film and has not made a definitive director’s cut that represents his true vision to the butchered sequel.
While nothing will top the true horror of seeing the Xenomorph unleashed in full for the first time in the original 1979 Alien, Fincher does manage to take an interesting slant on the franchise by killing off Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) allies in the first few minutes and introducing new creatures. Among them is “The Beast,” a hybrid alien brought to life with stunning practical effects.
9 Christine, ‘The Game’
Fincher’s underrated 1997 thriller The Game was a much different examination of evil than some of the more defining work of his late career. Rather than introduce a terrifying villain, The Game examines the evil that lurks within everyone, questioning who has the capacity to commit acts like murder.
Nothing is scarier than corporations, and the Consumer Recreation Services in The Game represents the corrupting power of capitalism. Among their most fearsome employees is Christine (Deborah Kara Unger), who successfully goads Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) into taking part in CRS’s twisted program.
8 Junior, ‘Panic Room’
Unlike other Fincher films, Panic Room is a fairly straightforward home invasion thriller that examines the horror of being unsafe in one’s home. The film focuses on the struggling mother Meg Altamn (Jodie Foster), who must defend her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) when robbers break in.
Of all the film’s villains, it’s surprisingly Jared Leto who gives the most memorable performance as the uptight burglar Junior. Leto is known for getting a little too eccentric in films like Suicide Squad and Morbius, but he’s able to reign himself in for Panic Room to play a more nuanced role.
7 Martin Vanger, ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’
While the story of Lisbeth Salander and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was once told across the course of an entire Swedish film trilogy, Fincher managed to tell his version of the story in a jam-packed 158-minute feature. Fincher’s version replaced Noomi Rapace’s iconic performance as Lisbeth with Rooney Mara, who received an Academy Award nomination for her intimate performance.
Lisbeth is tasked with researching a decades-old case involving the disappearance of the missing child of a wealthy family, only to realize that the girl’s estranged relative Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgård) had a hand in the case.
6 William Randolph Hearst, ‘Mank’
Mank was a very personal project for Fincher, as it was based on a script written by his late father Jack Fincher. The film was based on the behind-the-scenes drama behind the making of Citizen Kane, and how internal pressure forced the film’s screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman).
The film draws comparisons between the real life figures in Mankiewicz’s life and the characters in Citizen Kane. The ruthless, legendary newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hurst (Charles Dance) is commonly thought to be the inspiration for Orson Welles’ iconic titular character, Charles Foster Kane.
5 The Zodiac Killer, ”Zodiac’
The “Zodiac killings” remains one of the most transfixing unsolved murder cases of all-time, and Fincher’s 2007 thriller makes a deliberate (and brilliant) choice not to give the audience what they want by finding a definitive culprit. Instead, he examines how fear and anxiety drives the cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) to the point of insanity as he searches for the killer.
The unnamed presence of the titular killer in Zodiac somehow manages to be even scarier than any shocking reveal would have been. The viewer only sees brief glimpses of the killer during a ritual murder committed on the side of a lake.
4 John Doe, ‘Se7en’
Kevin Spacey may have won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the criminal mastermind Keyser Soze in 1995’s The Usual Suspects, but the same year he also appeared as the enigmatic serial killer ‘John Doe’ in Fincher’s Se7en.
Doe doesn’t appear until the final stretch of the film when he’s captured by the retiring homicide detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and his jumpy young protege David Mills (Brad Pitt). However, a twist involving a certain box is enough to sear him within the memories of moviegoers forever.
3 Amy Dunne, ‘Gone Girl’
Gillian Flynn’s hit novel Gone Girl inspired one of Fincher’s scariest, funniest, and most unique novels to date. The film examines the impact of the news media circus after the disappearance of the seemingly flawless housewife Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) leaves her husband, Nick (Ben Affleck) completely baffled.
Pike’s presence is understated for the first half of the film, but the stirring “cool girl” monologue she gives during Gone Girl’s climax solidifies that Amy’s disappearance is much more than a simple case of kidnapping. Pike’s twisted performance as Amy earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
2 Tyler Durden, ‘Fight Club’
“Hey, wanna fight?” Brad Pitt’s performance as the ringleader of an underground society in Fight Club may have been seen as “cool” by viewers at the time, but any serious examination of the film reveals that Tyler Durden represents the worst of toxic masculinity.
Fight Club’s twists and turns have now become embedded within popular culture, but the salient points that the film (and surprisingly, Durden himself) about violent radicalism remain just as relevant today as they were in 1999. If Fight Club felt like a warning in the 1990s, it now plays like the perfect examination of Today’s internet culture.
1 Mark Zuckerberg, ‘The Social Network’
The Social Network continues to become more timely with each passing day as Facebook puts limits on free speech and contributes to the spread of malicious fake news outlets.
In many ways, Fincher’s 2010 biopic of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) feels like the origin story for one of today’s most destructive public figures. Any sympathy Eisenberg invokes in the film’s opening completely disappears once his true colors are revealed.
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