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Zodiac
Paramount Pictures


7.6

based on 40 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 139 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for some strong killings, language, drug material and brief sexual images

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey Jr., Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch, Chloë Sevigny, and Ed Setrakian

Based on the actual case files of one of the most intriguing unsolved crimes in the nation's history, Zodiac is a thriller from David Fincher, director of "Seven" and "Fight Club." As a serial killer terrifies the San Francisco Bay Area and taunts police with his ciphers and letters, investigators in four jurisdictions search for the murderer. The case will become an obsession for four men as their lives and careers are built and destroyed by the endless trail of clues. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	James Vanderbilt Robert Graysmith (book)
DIRECTED BY:	David Fincher
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 24, 2007 Theatrical: March 2, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	156 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Village Voice Nathan Lee

Zodiac exhausts more than one genre. Termite art par excellence, it burrows for the sake of burrowing, as fascinated by its own nooks and crannies as "Inland Empire."

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Zodiac never veers from its stoically gripping, police-blotter tone, yet it begins to take on the quality of a dream.

100

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Zodiac is the rare serial-killer movie in which the psychosis stems as much from the pursuers (and the filmmaker) as the pursued.

100

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Fincher gets it all right, and Donovan's hippie-dippy "Hurdy Gurdy Man," which bookends the story, has never sounded so hauntingly menacing.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Its most impressive accomplishment is to gather a bewildering labyrinth of facts and suspicions over a period of years, and make the journey through this maze frightening and suspenseful.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

In Zodiac, working from a script by James Vanderbilt, Fincher has decidedly toned down his act. His straight-ahead, methodical direction isn't as flagrantly unsettling as much of his previous work, but it's more psychologically layered. In this film, for the first time, we feel for his characters when they bleed.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

An absorbing and fulfilling experience -- even though it ends with a question mark.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Rarely has a film with so much blood on its hands seemed so insistently alive.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and "All the President's Men"-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Conveying an astonishing array of information across a long narrative arc while still maintaining dramatic rhythm and tension, this adaptation of Robert Graysmith's bestseller reps by far director David Fincher's most mature and accomplished work.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Zodiac may be the perfect meeting of filmmaker and subject -- an obsessive's portrait of obsession that is, finally, a monument to irresolution.

Time Richard Corliss

Fincher, whose work on "Fight Club" and "Panic Room" displayed his expertise in melding the suspenseful and the lurid, plays it cool here. He lets his stars do their thing.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Anyone who enjoys the novels of Ed McBain, the Oscar-winning "All the President's Men" or any televised variation of "CSI" will be at home here.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's fascinating and unexpected both in its simple, looming images and its storytelling priorities, which may not intersect with the priorities of audiences who couldn't get enough of "Se7en."

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Zodiac is a reproach both to those dedicated to unscrambling "The Da Vinci Code" and to those hooked on forensic crime shows where all the evidence leads to a tidy conclusion. That Zodiac's manhunt is inconclusive makes it all the more haunting.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Unique and unmissable.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

It makes for a daringly different kind of thriller -- cerebral, meticulous, haunting.

USA Today Claudia Puig

This is the rare movie that blends long scenes of meticulous research with a sweeping story and sustains a feeling of riveting suspense. Zodiac grips you by the throat and doesn't let go.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

This movie sends you into the night thinking, maybe even a little afraid. Bravo, Mr. Fincher.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Like Brian De Palma's 1981 masterpiece "Blow-Out," this movie contains cutting perceptions of obsession, institutional and professional myopia, misplaced loyalty in experts, misreadings of evidence and the kind of confusion that leads to conspiracy theories. But Fincher's movie falls short of masterpiece status.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It doesn't break ground like "Seven" or "Fight Club"; it's not a thrill ride like "Panic Room." But it's a mature, thoughtful and full-bodied movie that compensates for the demands it makes with the rewards of craftsmanship, rigor, skill and art.

Slate Dana Stevens

To undertake a thriller of this length and scope with no prospect of a morally satisfying resolution, Fincher must have been a little nuts himself. We'll see whether audiences used to the tidy one-hour cases on "CSI" and "Law & Order" will follow him down Zodiac's murky, twisted, and ultimately dead-end street. It may not sound like it from that description, but it's a hell of a ride.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The more unpleasant aspects of the case are minimized in favor of telling the story and highlighting the effects of the case on these four men. It drags in spots, but even if Fincher hasn't hit it out of the park, Zodiac is easily a stand-up triple.

Newsweek David Ansen

The movie holds you in its grip from start to finish.

The New Yorker David Denby

Zodiac is superbly made, but it's also a strange piece of work.

Empire Kim Newman

This gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can't be confirmed.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Zodiac is a kind of corrective remake of "Se7en," a renunciation of that earlier movie's psychotic nihilism. That rejection extends to a neat sight gag. Fincher gives us a shot of a cardboard cutout for "Dirty Harry" that mocks the personal abyss that catching Zodiac becomes.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The most provocative aspect of this compulsive riddle is how it resists closure. The end comes not when we have the answer, but when the movie reaches its irresolute end.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The straightforward approach is crucial, because the movie is constantly doling out so much information -- so many names and places and theories to keep track of -- that it borders on the overwhelming. Occasionally, it's a little dull, too.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The length and uneven pacing are stumbling blocks with which an audience must contend. Patient viewers will be rewarded; others may wish for something with less subtlety and more verve.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

What begins like your basic police procedural becomes more and more choppy and diffuse. To a point, that’s intentional: Zodiac was never caught, and Fincher aims to creep you out with the lack of closure.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Zodiac is primarily a complex character study, despite the film's grim and gruesome subject matter. It's a role reversal of sorts for a director who normally emphasizes the brutal tension in his movies.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The picture tries hard for addictive mystery, but it is full of scenes that promise insight and don't deliver.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Without a persuasive ending, Zodiac is an exercise in frustration if not futility. But before it hits the inevitable wall, it does something better than most genre films even attempt: it perfectly depicts the obsession that often overtakes cops and reporters involved in high-profile crimes.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

That's exactly the problem with this movie: It's not about a killer, or his victims, or the manhunt or the cops. They're all in it, of course, more or less. But it's about a writer.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

In some ways, for better and for worse, this is even more about Graysmith (Jake Gyllehaal)--who became obsessed with solving the Zodiac killings that terrorized northern California in the late 60s--than about the murderer.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Bits of the picture are fascinating to look at, but eventually, exhaustion kicks in, to the point where we're not sure what we're looking at, or why.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Never takes off, but it never collapses. At times, it becomes frustrating -- for example, about 30 minutes are spent pursuing a lead that goes nowhere.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The film feels self-obsessed, an intriguing drama that slowly devolves into a bleak meditation on the absence of dramatics.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 139 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lee M. gave it a10:
The best thriller of the last 10 years by some distance.

David gave it a10:
Brilliant. Just because it isn't a typical slam-blam chaotic action-filled, gory serial killer movie, doesn't mean it won't send chills up your spine at times. Zodiac is at once a newspaper movie, a serial killer film, and a meditation on the often excruciatingly frustrating results from hours and hours of police work. See it now.

Jay M. gave it a10:
This strange, obsessive film by David Fincher is the perfect match of material and directorial personality. Given to compulsive retakes and meticulous preparation and long shoots, Mr. Fincher finds his alter ego in his characters compulsions yielding a masterwork nearly unmatched in recent cinema. One of the 3 or 4 best films of 2007.

John O gave it an8:
This is superb!! If you like intelligent murder thrillers you won't be disappointed.

Mike P. gave it a9:
Beautifully done, has me guessing the whole way not much better movies out there!

Scott S. gave it a9:
Great film a little complicated to follow in places due to the many names and dates used but it will keep you guessing throughout. Highly enjoyable.

Jay H. gave it a7:
What an excellent movie. Great plot, beautifully written and always interesting, although at times it gets a bit tiresome, but not often. A good fifteen to thirty minutes could have been shaved off the total time. Great cast works well together, excellent acting.

Zodiac Paramount Pictures

Zodiac
Paramount Pictures