Zodiac
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: March 2, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Village VoiceNathan 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." Read full review
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
The movie holds you in its grip from start to finish. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Zodiac never veers from its stoically gripping, police-blotter tone, yet it begins to take on the quality of a dream. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Zodiac is the rare serial-killer movie in which the psychosis stems as much from the pursuers (and the filmmaker) as the pursued. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Fincher gets it all right, and Donovan's hippie-dippy "Hurdy Gurdy Man," which bookends the story, has never sounded so hauntingly menacing. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter 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. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
An absorbing and fulfilling experience -- even though it ends with a question mark. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterMichael 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. Read full review
90
VarietyTodd 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. Read full review
90
L.A. Weekly
Zodiac may be the perfect meeting of filmmaker and subject ­-- an obsessive's portrait of obsession that is, finally, a monument to irresolution. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Rarely has a film with so much blood on its hands seemed so insistently alive. Read full review
90
TimeRichard 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. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Unique and unmissable. Read full review
88
PremiereGlenn Kenny
It makes for a daringly different kind of thriller -- cerebral, meticulous, haunting. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence 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. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael 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." Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie 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. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia 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. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
This movie sends you into the night thinking, maybe even a little afraid. Bravo, Mr. Fincher. Read full review
83
Baltimore SunMichael 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. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn 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. Read full review
80
Film ThreatPete 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. Read full review
80
SlateDana 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. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Zodiac is superbly made, but it's also a strange piece of work. Read full review
80
EmpireKim Newman
This gripping character study becomes more agonisingly suspenseful as it gets closer to an answer that can't be confirmed. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames 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. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene 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. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley 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. Read full review
75
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. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)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. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin 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. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The picture tries hard for addictive mystery, but it is full of scenes that promise insight and don't deliver. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
At 2 1/2 hours, the film is too long in the telling and too short on suspense. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack 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. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen 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. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The film feels self-obsessed, an intriguing drama that slowly devolves into a bleak meditation on the absence of dramatics.
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan 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. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie 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. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick 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. Read full review
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