Daisy (Cate Blanchett) looking at Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) in ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’.Image via Paramount Pictures
While David Fincher is typically associated with dark thrillers, arguably his most acclaimed movie, The Social Network, is a psychological comedy-drama. In fact, another of his gut-wrenching thrillers, Gone Girl, is funnier than most viewers might remember. What this proves is that Fincher’s talents are still rather underrated, despite the highly acclaimed career that he has cultivated so far. But his biggest creative leap, both in terms of scale and ambition, has to be a fantasy epic that combines sweeping romance with character-focused drama and American history. It was the recipient of several Oscar nominations over 15 years ago, but is rarely counted among Fincher’s top movies even though it’s displaying its staying power this week on streaming.
It reunited the filmmaker with his Se7en star Brad Pitt and also featured Cate Blanchett, Mahershala Ali, and Taraji P. Henson. The movie grossed $335 million worldwide against a reported budget of approximately $165 million. Why was it more expensive than, say, Interstellar? Well, because Fincher used cutting-edge digital aging techniques throughout the film, years before the technology became mainstream with Captain America: Civil War and The Irishman. In fact, Fincher movie was released two years before Tron: Legacy, which is remembered for being one of the earliest Hollywood movies to experiment with digital de-aging.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
David Fincher’s Epic Holds an Oscars Record
We’re talking, of course, about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Written by Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth, the film tells the fantastical story of a man who ages in reverse — going from an old man to a young child while experiencing all the heartbreak and euphoria of life. The movie received mostly positive reviews and is now sitting at a 72% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The website’s consensus reads, “TheCurious Case of Benjamin Button is an epic fantasy tale with rich storytelling backed by fantastic performances.” The movie earned a leading 13 nominations at the 81st Academy Awards, including Fincher’s first in the Best Director category. It also remains notable for being the first film entirely shot using digital cameras to be nominated in the Best Cinematography category at the Oscars. According to FlixPatrol, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was among the most-watched movies on the global HBO Max chart this week. Fincher’s all set to reunite with Pitt for this year’s The Adventures of Cliff Booth. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
