 David Fincher is one of my favorite directors working today in Hollywood, so I thought it'd be fun to do a top 10. And since he has 10 movies, this works out really nicely. In the number 10 spot is Benjamin Budden, a movie about an old man baby who grows up to be a young man. I don't know, it's hard to explain. Unfortunately, there isn't much script there. They had this concept where he was going to age in reverse, but there wasn't an interesting story outside of the concept. And it sucks because it's the third time I believe that he's teamed up with Brad Pitt, and the previous two entries were phenomenal. It's of course visually stunning as every David Fincher movie is. It just runs out of steam very fast. In the nine spot is a movie that a lot of people will probably say, whoa, that's in the top three for me and that's, that's fine. I just didn't like this story. I didn't like that they gave away the ending in the middle of the film. So the second half was me just watching two awful people try to one up each other. It just didn't feel right. I wish they would have left that kind of halfway reveal to the end of the film as it should have been. I know it's based off a popular book, so I think it was true to form in that aspect. As far as David Fincher is concerned though, he's such a talented guy behind the lens of a camera. I wish he'd focus on the more surreal films unless on these kind of lackluster tales. In the number eight spot is Alien 3. This is the last one from David Fincher that I'm just kind of met on. Another film that's entirely not Fincher's fault as he was brought in to armchair quarterback this thing. He was like the third director brought in studio interference left and right. There's tons of audiobooks behind the scene events and things that can tell this story far better than I can. But the end of the day, we're talking about a really young new director who's never done a feature length film brought on by a studio and has to shoot this thing in an extremely limited amount of time. He's writing script changes on the fly as he's shooting. He's also getting studio notes and full page rewrites in tandem as he's shooting scenes in the film. It was nuts. I remember seeing a part of the documentary where the Sigourney Weaver was talking about how it's like two in the morning and she's walking down this tunnel that's like a hundred some degrees for like the 30th or 40th time. Maybe a hundredth time. I don't know. I guess I don't remember it that well. But Fincher just cannot get this one shot perfectly right in his eyes. And this man is a perfectionist when it comes to shooting. If you pause a David Fincher movie at any point, you will see a painting. Number seven is the girl with the dragon tattoo. The reason this one's lower on my list is because I read the book first and it's rare when I read a book before seeing a movie. And that's not because I'm too cool for school. It's because oftentimes the book is better than the movie and I'm a movie buff. I want to see the movie before I get the further information into the story. I did that with the Harry Potter franchise. No regrets. I think the movies and books are equally amazing. I think the books just fill in some of the gaps and add more to the story to the rich world. But those movies are damn good. I also did that with Jurassic Park. I think most people did, but the book is quite different than the movie. Also fantastic. Fincher was very true to the source material. So much so that I found myself just kind of waiting for the reveal. Like, okay, this movie looks gorgeous. You got the net. You got Trent Reznor's stamp on the music. Everything's working. Brilliant casting for the leads. Skarsgard seems like an obvious villain. But let's just move this along. Social networks at my number six spot. A movie that I didn't think could possibly be better than just okay. Really impressed with this one. Fincher managed to take a decent background story and make it something really special. I never thought I would care so much about two guys rowing a boat as much as I did here. Jesse Eisenberg is at his most Eisenberg-y and proves that he is a decent actor when giving good source material like Sleuther. Number five is Panic Room. Jodie Foster. My treasure. My beauty. And that girl from Twilight. Kristen Stewart. I know that's not really a selling point. But she's young here. This is pre-Twilight and she has acting chops. She's good. Just ignore that crap series. Here though, they go into a panic room about 10 minutes into the film and that's where they stay for almost the majority of this picture. While Jared Leto, who at one point was also good pre-joker, and friends try to break in and murder them. A very simple concept does not overstay its welcome. Fincher once more doing crazy stuff with the camera. This guy loves to move this sucker in places it should not be. Going through keyholes, running up the sides of railings, going through ceiling vents and down and holding the shot to let you know that he in fact did this seamlessly in one take. Or at least he's tricked your eyes to the point where you believe he did. A master at his craft. Sodiak's at my fourth spot. It's a movie that gets better with each watching. And it's also one of those rare movies where I went in the first time. It was kind of disappointed with it. There's been a few movies that have done that to me over the years. I remember Austin Powers going to that one and just not getting it, not being in on the jokes or anything, but it just stuck with me in the back of my mind like this would be so stupid. And then I watched it 30 more times and loved it more every time and I still do. The same can be said for Sodiak. I think a lot of it has to do with the marketing kind of misleading me. They made it seem like it was going to be the seven type of film where there was these gory kills and it was like kind of in the mind of the serial killer. But no, it's really in the mind of going mad trying to find the serial killer. It's about the hunt. It's about the need and the desire to stop everything in your life and focus on this killer. And it is gripping if you go into it that way. If you go into it from the psychological standpoint of Jake Gyllenhaal's character or Robert Downey Jr. or Mark Ruffalo. Ruffalo or however you say his name. Plus it has one of my top 10 most disturbing scenes in a film, which is a couple at a park in the middle of broad daylight getting stabbed in front of each other. It's super haunting stuff. Highly recommend it. Number three goes to the most criminally underrated film on this list, The Game with Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, other people. This thing is awesome. A brain teaser of sorts. This one is a psychological mystery where Michael Douglas is given a birthday present like no other. Or is he? I don't want to ruin this. I know a lot of people haven't seen it. They've slept on The Game. I don't want to give anything away. Just know that it's worth your time and come back to me in the comments when you have seen it. I'd love to know if you thought it was great. You will think it's great. It's a puzzler. It plays with your mind and your emotions. You don't know what's going on. You don't know what's real or fake. One of the Brad Pitt movies I was talking about earlier is Seven. There are seven deadly sins. Greed, lust, gluttony. I'm not saying this in the right order. It doesn't matter. There's seven of them. Take my word for it. Kevin Spacey's in this. Brad Pitt's in this. Morgan Freeman's in this. Kevin Spacey, I know, has had some issues lately in real life. And that kind of works in his favor here. You can't really watch the Cosby Show anymore when you see the guy in front of the lens. You know, he's playing a character, but he's kind of just playing Bill Cosby. Kevin Spacey, however, is playing a insane psychopathic serial killer. So he's disturbing in real life. He's disturbing on screen, maybe in real life, allegedly. And that works out in his favor. Because for a while, when I first saw Seven, I had no idea who Kevin Spacey was. I'm like, this dude is creepy as hell. And then I kind of watched him in a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm like, Kevin Spacey. And then I went back and watched Seven. I'm like, okay, it's Kevin Spacey. Now I go back and I go, oh my God, it's Kevin Spacey. What's he going to do next? He's scary. Seven is disturbing. It's gritty. It's dark. It's got one of the best twists in movie history. People quote it all the time. What's in the box? What's in the box? Terrific acting. Brad Pitt is at his best here. Morgan Freeman is always at his best. So that doesn't really matter. C7. I could make a lame joke about how I'm not supposed to talk about the number one movie on this list. And I kind of just did. It's Fight Club. There are so many good things to say about Fight Club. I could do a podcast for hours on it, but I won't. Because I don't have that kind of time anymore. Let me just summarize with this. Every watch of Fight Club brings to a new revelation, a new reveal, a new image that you didn't see before. Whether it's a hidden Starbucks cup in every sequence of the film, whether it's a spliced image, one of five that I believe are of Tyler Durden in and out of frame, whether it's the constant back and forth bickering between our lead character and another person, a mysterious person who you later find out, it's one and the same. This movie is a mind squeeze. It takes you for all your worth. It's full of fun, dark humor. It's full of some great action scenes. It's got some amazing use of early CG work and camera angles. I can't even possibly comprehend how they shoot. Immensely quotable. The film has never looked better. And I have seen this thing probably 50 times. I watched it every other day when I was a teenager. It spoke to me. Damn it. It's angsty. It's rebellious. It's got space monkeys. It's got bitch tits. It's got a slow motion bullet time-esque sex scene. It's got everything you want and more. That's my David Fincher top 10. Can you beat it? No, you can't because this one's perfect. Can you disagree? Almost certainly. Let me know your list in the comments. Thanks for watching. Like the video if you want and make sure to subscribe to Adam Does Movies because I have a bunch of other stuff on this channel. Other hot takes, other movie feuds, movie related stuff. All right, take care.