David Fincher’s 9 Best Movie Characters

David Fincher started his movie career working with directors like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg before he made his directorial debut in 1992. This was for the movie Alien 3, which saw Fincher take on characters from an existing franchise. While critics were not impressed, Fincher won them over when he directed Se7en three years later.

Fincher has directed 11 movies to date, and they are all full of memorable characters. These characters included serial killers, world-famous hackers, anarchists, social media masterminds, and legendary filmmakers. While most viewers would never want to bump into these people on the street, characters like Tyler Durden and Amy Dunne are unforgettable.

The Narrator In Fight Club (1999)

• Available to rent on Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime Video.

In Fight Club, Fincher adapted the Chuck Palahniuk novel about toxic masculinity, and he created some great movie characters in the movie. From Meat Loaf’s Robert Paulson to Jared Leto’s Angel Face, the movie was not short on memorable characters.

The Narrator protagonist was one of the three best in the movie. Edward Norton delivered a great performance as an unreliable narrator and had the challenge of breathing life into a boring malcontent who spent Fight Club talking to an imaginary person.

Meg Altman In Panic Room (2002)

• Available to stream on Hulu.

One of Fincher’s least appreciated movies was 2002’s Panic Room. It starred Jodie Foster and a teenage Kristen Stewart as a mother and daughter who found themselves under siege when armed robbers break into their house.

Foster plays Meg Altman, a mother who has a panic room in her house and uses it and her smarts to protect herself. Foster brings a lot to the role and is a strong-minded mother who will do anything to protect her child.

Herman J. Mankiewicz In Mank (2020)

• Available to stream on Netflix.

Mank was Fincher’s love letter to classic filmmaking. In the movie, Gary Oldman took on the role of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz.

Oldman’s performance was enough to make Mank a great character, but there was more than just great acting on display here. Mank is a man wanting to tell the story of moral decay, and the movie allows him to show how that existed in his life and ultimately destroyed him.

Amy Dunne In Gone Girl (2014)

• Available to stream on Hulu.

Gone Girl was a movie with no real hero. Amy and Nick Dunne were a married couple who had serious problems. While Gone Girl focused on Ben Affleck’s Nick more, it was Rosamund Pike’s Amy who was the superior character.

Amy pulled all the strings and framed her husband for killing her while going into hiding herself. However, she faced even more problems after faking her death, and by the time it was over, she had to return to life and continue her marriage. But in the end, Amy proved that she was always one step ahead.

Marla Singer In Fight Club (1999)

• Available to rent on Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime Video.

A second Fight Club character who stands out is Marla Singer, played by Helena Bonham Carter. She is the woman whom The Narrator met at a group therapy session and ended up bonding with.

Watching Marla try to navigate The Narrator’s life while keeping any mode of sanity herself allowed Carter to deliver a tour-de-force. It was Marla whot was one of the only real things in his life and the rock that brought The Narrator back to reality.

Mark Zuckerberg In The Social Network (2010)

• Available to stream on Netflix.

Fincher had a tough task when he directed The Social Network because he took the man who still runs Facebook and created a character that showed him at his worst. Jesse Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg and delivered an Oscar-worthy performance.

While some argue that Andrew Garfield was better in the movie, there is no discounting that Eisenberg took a complex man and gave him a series of tics and traits that allowed him to navigate the role of a man who created one of the most important social experiments in history.

Nicholas van Orton In The Game (1997)

• Available to rent Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime Video.

The Game was one of David Fincher’s best movies with two powerhouse performances. Michael Douglas was Nicholas van Orton, a self-centered, wealthy man who had lost touch with his humanity. Sean Penn was his brother who wanted to help bring him back to Earth.

The movie plays out a bit like Total Recall with Nicholas thrown into a game where he finds himself on the run from people who want him dead and who destroy everything in his life. Watching Nicholas break down and eventually show that he could be the person his brother believed he could be was inspiring.

Rooney Mara In The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

• Available to stream on Netflix.

Rooney Mara had a lot to live up to. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was already a movie in Sweden, and Noomi Rapace had already delivered the perfect portrayal of hacker Lisbeth Salander.

Daniel Craig was the biggest name in the movie, but Mara stole every scene she was in as Lisbeth, a woman who could stand up for herself, defend herself, yet remain completely vulnerable. With a burning rage and a desire to hurt the people who hurt her, Lisbeth is easily one Fincher’s best characters.

Tyler Durden In Fight Club (1999)

• Available to rent on Apple iTunes or Amazon Prime Video.

Fincher’s best character was Fight Club‘s Tyler Durden. Played by Brad Pitt, he portrayed Tyler as the ultimate alpha male in a world of men searching for their agency. The idea of toxic masculinity is on full display here and no one lives that more than Tyler.

The fact that Tyler isn’t even real makes this performance, and the character, even more powerful. Tyler is what the weak Narrator sees as his endgame, and it paints a picture of what is wrong with the masculine ideal today.

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