Movie Review for Zodiac

Summary: 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.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures (8/0)
            It's a long, confusing ride, but that was the nature of the case. That's what made the film seem ...

By Mike McGranaghan of Aisle Seat (8/0)
            Zodiac works as a depiction of a criminal investigation, but even more than that it work...

By Phil Villarreal of Arizona Daily Star (8/0)
            "Zodiac" is an exceedingly long film that earns every bit of its length, hypnotizing the audience...

By Philip Martin of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (7/0)
            Lots of sick things were creepycrawling through the zeitgeist back then ... It's there ... in the...

By Christy Lemire of Associated Press (8/0)
            Zodiac certainly has its moments, but it's no masterpiece.

By Bob Longino of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (8/0)
            ...the film gets mired in the inevitable red tape of police investigations...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Lori Hoffman of Atlantic City Weekly (8/0)
            It’s a movie that, like the case it is based on, builds your interest and retains it with its imm...

By Marjorie Baumgarten of Austin Chronicle (8/0)
            Without due process or a culprit to wrap up the story line, Zodiac needs a more solid center on w...

By Christopher Smith of Bangor Daily News (Maine) (7/0)
            The film's interest is in the tireless legwork of detective work, which is accurately portrayed, ...

By Jamie Russell of BBC (7/0)
            Fincher is on top form: this is his best, most mature film yet.

By Wesley Morris of Boston Globe (8/0)
            ...a long work of completely sustained suspense and dark humor.

By Fred Topel of Can Magazine (8/0)
            David Fincher proves that you don't need resolution to make a compelling serial killer movie.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            Zodiac is an interpretation of a notorious crime spree that recognizes the cold facts but also ma...

By Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune (8/0)
            It's fascinating and unexpected both in its simple, looming images and its storytelling prioritie...

By Peter Rainer of Christian Science Monitor (7/0)
            The doggedness of the pursuit, the painstaking accumulation of clues, has its own inherent drama.

By Jeffrey Overstreet of Christianity Today (7/0)
            [It's] a story about the elusive nature of evil in a world that thinks information ... will event...

By Jules Brenner of Cinema Signals (8/0)
            The exhaustive detail of psychological combat against a clever and elusive madman pays off with a...

By Jeff Otto of cinemaobsession.com (8/0)
            The definitive movie on the Zodiac investigation.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By James Rocchi of Cinematical (7/0)
            By showing us the details in carefully-wrought, exacting fashion, Fincher and screenwriter James ...

By Tom Charity of CNN.com (7/0)
            Low-key but all the more compelling for it, Zodiac is the first must-see movie of 2007.

By Mark Palermo of Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (8/0)
            Missing the operatic sense of doom that helped characterize 1995's Seven, Zodiac's effort to avoi...

By Mark Palermo of Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (8/0)
            Missing the operatic sense of doom that helped characterize 1995's Seven, Zodiac's effort to avoi...

By Cole Smithey of ColeSmithey.com (8/0)
            At every level of production and execution, Fincher meticulously crafts the true-crime mystery as...

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (8/0)
            These [types of] films are often fascinating to those with patience, and Zodiac is no exception.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.net (8/0)
            David Fincher has achieved a new level of filmmaking to create a true crime thriller that's surpr...

By Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing (8/0)
            A welcome change from the witless murder-mysteries that usually clog our multiplexes.

By Robert Denerstein of Denver Rocky Mountain News (7/0)
            Fincher has told a sprawling story about crime and fear and those whose lives are transformed by ...

By Christy Lemire of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (7/0)
            Zodiac certainly has its moments but it's no masterpiece.

By Luke Y. Thompson of E! Online (8/0)
            The realistic tone should get him critical respect, but fans will still recognize the handiwork t...

By Luke Y. Thompson of E! Online (8/0)
            ...a better movie than any of the recent Best Picture nominees...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Dan Lybarger of eFilmCritic.com (8/0)
            'Panic Room' director David Fincher's latest movie is a fact-based thriller with little action an...

By Erik Childress of eFilmCritic.com (8/0)
            David Fincher's Zodiac begins by announcing itself as being based on actual case files. Then it s...

By Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy.Com (7/0)
            Fincher's best work since Se7en is a sprawling American masterpiece that combines epic-scale psyc...

By Kim Newman of Empire Magazine (7/0)
            ... this gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an an...

By Vince Koehler of Entertainment Spectrum (8/0)
            The all-star lineup of actors is impressive without a shadow of a doubt.

By Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly (8/0)
            A procedural thriller for the information age...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (8/0)
            When it's over I can't help feeling as disappointed as the cops must have been -- which might act...

By Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central (8/0)
            The best film of its kind since All the President's Men.

By Maria Garcia of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Fincher...meticulously avoids cinematic hyperbole, which is what gives Zodiac such uncommon authe...

By Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat (8/0)
            Zodiac is an exhaustive (and exhausting) tale, made compelling by strong performances from Ruffal...

By Sean O'Connell of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            Methodical and mesmerizing

By Sean O'Connell of filmcritic.com (8/0)
            ...brilliant, the first great film of the year...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Victoria Alexander of FilmsInReview.com (7/0)
            A long movie with lots of suspects and details but no pay-off.

By Brent Simon of FilmStew.com (8/0)
            Zodiac has perhaps the most perfect tagline for a movie of its mannered intricacy in years, and a...

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (8/0)
            [A] confrontation with evil that isn't quite like anything we've seen on film before...

By Rob Vaux of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
            The workaday grind of its heroes gives it a unique feeling that few thrillers can match.

By Bill Clark of FromTheBalcony (8/0)
            It may not be his [Fincher's] most groundbreaking film, but it is one of his most important ones.

By Eric Lurio of Greenwich Village Gazette (7/0)
            That was cool!

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Peter Canavese of Groucho Reviews (8/0)
            Reverent docudrama...to those completely unfamiliar with the case, Zodiac should be every bit as ...

By Michael Rechtshaffen of Hollywood Reporter (8/0)
            ...chillingly effective...

By Staci Layne Wilson of Horror.com (8/0)
            When even David Fincher can't make a compelling, innovative Zodiac Killer film, it's time to hang...

By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (7/0)
            The most perverse thing about Zodiac isn't that its Hollywood's umpteenth serial-killer flick, wh...

By Todd Gilchrist of IGN Movies (7/0)
            Fincher creates a righteous epic about San Francisco's Zodiac killer and in so doing offers a cat...

By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (8/0)
            ... a methodically paced and fascinatingly cerebral piece of work that had me on the edge of my s...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (8/0)
            ... a methodically paced and fascinatingly cerebral piece of work that had me on the edge of my s...

By Kevin Williamson of Jam! Movies (8/0)
            Fincher has made what may very well be his masterpiece.

By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (8/0)
            The film is just as creepy as any slasher-fest, but without the facade of fantasy, it resonates m...

By Scott Foundas of L.A. Weekly (8/0)
            At nearly three hours, and without a single hobbit in the cast, Zodiac is the sort of vast, richl...

By Robert Roten of Laramie Movie Scope (8/0)
            The best film of the year so far.

By Andy Klein of Los Angeles CityBeat (7/0)
            Fincher has crafted a completely engrossing "true" crime saga that holds our attention consistent...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Mark Dujsik of Mark Reviews Movies (8/0)
            The implications of the Zodiac murders ... still hold bearing today.

By Pete Hammond of Maxim (7/0)
            Reminds us what great filmmaking is all about. There isn't a false note anywhere.

By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (8/0)
            The characters' need to know the truth is contagious, and you'll leave the theater feeling inquis...

By Colin Covert of Minneapolis Star Tribune (7/0)
            A film that is both emotionally and intellectually unsettling.

By Kevin N. Laforest of Montreal Film Journal (8/0)
            Exquisitely crafted, with 3 or 4 kick-ass set pieces and remarkable casting, but rather bloated a...

By Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) (8/0)
            There's something to be said for a 158-minute movie that manages to hold your attention; still, i...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Kurt Loder of MTV (8/0)
            "Zodiac" bears little resemblance to Fincher's hyper-violent 1995 serial-killer hit "Se7en." This...

By Anton Bitel of musicOMH.com (7/0)
            Fincher manages the pace brilliantly, making the viewer feel as frustrated, paranoid and, most im...

By David Edelstein of New York Magazine (8/0)
            I don’t think Fincher can relate much to moral outrage. What occupies him is how to send you home...

By Andrew Sarris of New York Observer (7/0)
            Mr. Fincher’s flair for casting is the major asset of his curiously attenuated return to the seri...

By Lou Lumenick of New York Post (8/0)
            ...rivets - and demands - your attention for just over 2 1/2 hours.

By Manohla Dargis of New York Times (8/0)
            ...magnificently obsessive...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By David Denby of New Yorker (7/0)
            Any honest neurotic could probably tell you: the emotional payoff of an obsession is not attainin...

By Gene Seymour of Newsday (7/0)
            Overall, the movie's a sprawling mess. But its twitchier particulars dare you to hold them up for...

By David Ansen of Newsweek (7/0)
            The movie holds you in its grip from start to finish.

By Jeffrey Westhoff of Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) (8/0)
            As ungainly as Zodiac is, it never loses your interest.

By Ethan Alter of NYC Film Critic (7/0)
            Fincher's second foray into serial killer territory...is purposefully low-key.

By Brian Orndorf of OhmyNews.com (7/1)
            Fincher shelves his usual bag of tricks and shoots the picture like a distanced classic Pakula fi...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By John A. Nesbit of Old School Reviews (8/0)
            Welcome to reality mainstream film!

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (8/0)
            Though Zodiac is structurally unwieldy and sags at times, as a whole it's still a procedural with...

By Scott Tobias of Onion AV Club (7/0)
            Zodiac is the rare serial-killer movie in which the psychosis stems as much from the pursuers (an...

By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (7/0)
            Zodiac is fascinating and engrossing and realistic and every bit as unsatisfying as real life and...

By Cole Haddon of Orlando Weekly (8/0)
            Very little of it works as well as it should, but somehow the strength of his obsessive, single-m...

By Fiore Mastracci of Outtakes With Fiore (8/0)
            This movie takes the wrong approach and ends up producing only 'swamp ass'.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Fiore Mastracci of Outtakes With Fiore (8/0)
            This movie takes the wrong approach and ends up producing only 'swamp ass'.

By Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews (8/0)
            Revisits the infamous serial killer known as the Zodiac.

By Jeremy C. Fox of Pajiba (8/0)
            The visuals and the performances (excepting my Gyllenhaal quibbles) are across-the-board fantasti...

By Jeanne Aufmuth of Palo Alto Weekly (8/0)
            Deftly maintains a methodical rhythm of fear and anxiety.

By Sean Burns of Philadelphia Weekly (8/0)
            A brilliantly sustained aria of obsession and failure, Zodiac is an absurdly entertaining, two-an...

By Bill Gibron of PopMatters (8/0)
            Zodiac crackles with a kind of corrupt electricity, an overriding feeling of discomfort that make...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Cynthia Fuchs of PopMatters (8/0)
            As Zodiac imposed a brutal truth on communities of past and potential prey, he was also and alway...

By Glenn Kenny of Premiere Magazine (8/0)
            There's definitely the potential for a crassly manipulative gore-fest here. But Fincher's near-ep...

By Kevin Koehler of Pretentious Musing (7/0)
            Zodiac meticulously reconstructs investigative techniques at a time...women still accepted rides ...

By David N. Butterworth of rec.arts.movies.reviews (8/0)
            Worth seeing more for its thoughtful attention to detail than its satisfying completeness.

By Mark R. Leeper of rec.arts.movies.reviews (7/0)
            The investigation and the film are both long and the final conclusion the film reaches is ...

By Mark Pfeiffer of Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema (7/0)
            The story is built beam by beam, but Fincher tweaks the final design of what we expect in the arc...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Jim Hemphill of Reel.com (8/0)
            The director has taken a depressing topic and used it as the basis for the most exhilarating movi...

By Michelle Orange of Reeler (7/0)
            At over two-and-a-half hours of dead-ends and bedevilment, there isn't enough intrigue to justify...

By Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews (8/0)
            ...uses the best elements of Fincher's previous work...to service a mature investigative thriller...

By John P. McCarthy of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
            As the Zodiac case fizzles out, the movie appears to contort itself.

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (8/0)
            ...faithful to its source material.

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (8/0)
             Put your whodunit expectations away when you visit Zodiac. It's the process that pins you to...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Carla Meyer of Sacramento Bee (7/0)
            A less-skillful director might, say, up the fog quotient for a film about murder and San Francisc...

By Jim Lane of Sacramento News & Review (7/0)
            ...sturdy performances from a pedigreed cast...

By Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com (7/0)
            Zodiac is all about Fincher's personal enthusiasms and obsessions. It takes a mighty big ego to s...

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (7/0)
            Fincher keeps us at arm's length from the detectives and journalists driving themselves to distra...

By Larry Ratliff of San Antonio Express-News (8/0)
            Even though Zodiac doesn't tie itself into a tight knot of grisly finality after two hours and 40...

By Jean Lowerison of San Diego Metropolitan (8/0)
            David Fincher has taken this puzzling case and fashioned it into a taut police procedural.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Lee Grant of San Diego Union-Tribune (8/0)
            At more than 2-½ hours, Zodiac is like a deep, involving book, a page-turner that you can't put d...

By Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle (8/0)
            Falls flat.

By Eric Melin of Scene-Stealers.com (8/0)
            It is at once a police procedural and an epic look at the ruined lives of the men who hunted the ...

By Gina Carbone of Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine) (8/0)
            You don't need a tidy ending when the payoff is the whole film.

By Sean McBride of Sean the Movie Guy (8/0)
            easily the best film of the year so far.

By Sean McBride of Sean the Movie Guy (8/0)
            easily the best film of the year so far.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By William Arnold of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (8/0)
            ...an absorbing and fulfilling experience...

By Moira MacDonald of Seattle Times (8/0)
            David Fincher's grim but mesmerizing Zodiac offers the puzzle-solving addictiveness of a detectiv...

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (8/0)
            Leave it to Fincher to reinvent the serial killer thriller.

By Nick Schager of Slant Magazine (7/0)
            Zodiac's exhaustive attention to minute facts and theories forms a parallel not only with Graysmi...

By Dana Stevens of Slate (8/0)
            Zodiac is long -- over two and a half hours -- but when it's over, you almost wish it had gone on...

By Phoebe Flowers of South Florida Sun-Sentinel (8/0)
            Although Zodiac is not what most people want or expect, it is a fairly fantastic work of slow-bur...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Angela Baldassarre of Sympatico.ca (8/0)
            At over two and half hours and spanning nearly four decades, David Fincher's "Zodiac" is a sensor...

By Andrew Wright of The Stranger (Seattle, WA) (8/0)
            [Fincher's] most impressive monolith to date, a sprawling, three-decade-spanning infodump that, f...

By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (8/0)
            An absorbing, hugely ambitious, richly textured entertainment, and one of the better releases of ...

By Frank Ochieng of TheWorldJournal.com (8/0)
            [An] absorbingly sadistic psychological whodunnit. Fixating in its gripping hold, Zodiac is convi...

By Frank Ochieng of TheWorldJournal.com (8/0)
            [An] absorbingly sadistic psychological whodunnit. Fixating in its gripping hold, Zodiac is convi...

By Richard Corliss of TIME Magazine (7/0)
            You'll feel a chill in the theater, and in your blood.

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Ben Walters of Time Out (7/0)
            Several bravura suspense sequences – can’t help but recall slasher convention.

By Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York (7/0)
            A modern American masterpiece.

By Tony Medley of tonymedley.com (8/0)
            This movie just goes on and on and on, with a marked lack of dramatic tension. Two hours forty mi...

By Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide's Movie Guide (8/0)
            A chilling exercise in soul-eroding anxiety.

By Brian Tallerico of UnderGround Online (7/0)
            Technically, Zodiac is as flawless a film as you may see all year.

By Enrique Buchichio of Uruguay Total (7/0)
            Un thriller fuera de lo común, que prioriza la investigación y la acumulación de pistas sobre la ...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Claudia Puig of USA Today (8/0)
            ...an unusually haunting and compelling horror film.

By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (7/0)
            Zodiac is a thoroughly engrossing, brilliantly directed and superbly acted thriller that is quite...

By Willie Waffle of WaffleMovies.com (8/0)
            even if you do know how it ends, this movie still reaches thrilling and fascinating heights when ...

By Prairie Miller of WBAI Web Radio (8/0)
            A clinical but ominous approach, weighing the hunted against the hunters in a world where unhealt...

By Daniel M. Kimmel of Worcester Telegram & Gazette (8/0)
            ...it leaves us not with a satisfying moment of vengeance, but with a new respect for the hard an...

By Susan Granger of www.susangranger.com (7/0)
            Despite Fincher's gritty atmosphere of ominous dread, the characters are simplistic and sketchy, ...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Steven Snyder of Zertinet Movies (7/0)
            Maybe the movie is less about finding the answer than the intricacy of the mystery itself, in the...

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            The corpus delicti that motivates Fincher's fact-based body count epic is as large and sprawling ...

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            The corpus delicti that motivates Fincher's fact-based body count epic is as large and sprawling ...

By Annlee Ellingson of Boxoffice Magazine (4/4) No reference
            A sprawling, unfocused film that nonetheless retains viewer interest due to arresting performance...

By Annlee Ellingson of Boxoffice Magazine (3/4) No reference
            A sprawling, unfocused film that nonetheless retains viewer interest due to arresting performance...

By Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader (3/4) No reference
            Fincher does keep this bubbling along, ably assisted by a cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Robert...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times (7/1) No reference
            Great stuff.

By Devin Faraci of CHUD (7/1) No reference
            Zodiac feels a lot like a masterpiece... [it's] like quicksand, inexorably drawing you deeper and...

By Pablo Villaca of Cinema em Cena (7/1) No reference
            Mais um esforço brilhante de um diretor que inexplicavelmente ainda não alcançou o amplo reconhec...

By Mary F. Pols of Contra Costa Times (3/5) No reference
            The movie feels like a giant canvas that has been painstakingly crafted. It's murky in atmosphere...

By Scott Weinberg of FEARnet (7/1) No reference
            I'm certain I'm not the only one who'll make this comparison, but Zodiac could be the All the Pre...

By Jimmy O of Film Snobs (3/5) No reference
            A Slow Burn of Fincher Goodness

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (7/1) No reference
            sometimes agonizingly intense... Some of the sequences here... are as nerve-wracking as the scar...

By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/5) No reference
            It’s an existential thriller in the most literal sense.

By John Larsen of Light Views (7/1) No reference
            Methodical to the point of becoming unnerving, Zodiac meshes fact and supposition into a fascinat...

By Glenn Whipp of Los Angeles Daily News (7/1) No reference
            An obsessive, ambiguous movie about obsessives struggling with ambiguity. And, yes, it's as fasci...

By Nell Minow of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (7/1) No reference
            Director David Fincher wisely makes this story not about the monster, but about our fascination w...

By Stephen Whitty of Newark Star-Ledger (3/4) No reference
            For a director whose earlier films include the influential Seven and cult-fave Fight Club, the re...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Shawn Levy of Oregonian (7/1) No reference
            You have Fincher's amazing technique.

By Mike Sage of Peterborough This Week (7/1) No reference
            the performances are dang-on across the board, and even though the formal protagonist shifts arou...

By Gary Thompson of Philadelphia Daily News (4/4) No reference
            Zodiac doesn't have a 'make my day' hook, but it may capture the mood of a country that faces a s...

By Carrie Rickey of Philadelphia Inquirer (3/4) No reference
            Zodiac runs long, about 21/2 hours, but it also runs fast, at a heart-pounding pace over four maj...

By James Kendrick of Q Network Film Desk (6/1) No reference
            Zodiac is never anything less than completely enthralling.

By Mike Ward of Richmond.com (7/1) No reference
            Robert Downey Jr. in particular thrives as an old school, cocky newsman who appears to be auditio...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Jack Garner of Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (4/4) No reference
            Even though this odyssey fails to reach its destination, you'll be grateful you took the fascinat...

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (3/4) No reference
            Quite simply, this is a great, great movie.

By Josh Larsen of Sun Publications (Chicago, IL) (3/5) No reference
            The fixated cop is a thriller cliche, but Fincher helps us understand how you could become addict...

By Daniel M. Kimmel of Worcester Telegram & Gazette (4/4) No reference
            ...it leaves us not with a satisfying moment of vengeance, but with a new respect for the hard an...

By Lawrence Toppman of Charlotte Observer (7/1) Not Reachable
            [Zodiac packs] a quarter-century of scrupulously observed detail into its length without repeatin...

By Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve (7/1) Not Reachable
            Fincher deftly combines art and commerce by providing some violence with a principal interest in ...

                         Reviews of Zodiac
By Rene Rodriguez of Miami Herald (7/1) Not Reachable
            Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt, who spent more than a year researching the script, hav...

By Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone of TheMovieChicks.com (7/1) Not Reachable
            The 'stars' definitely aligned to make this picture work.

Movie Distributors
Paramount Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures International

Production Companies
Phoenix Pictures

Movie Studios
Warner Bros. Pictures
Inc.