Hot take on David Fincher: is he an overrated hack?

The 30th anniversary of Se7en is being celebrated with a 4K remastered theatrical re-release. This event proves to be one of the few recent highlights in David Fincher's career. Once a red-hot director in the early 2010s, he has now seemingly faded into irrelevance.

This is not to say that Fincher has not been producing work in recent years. His involvement as an executive producer on Love, Death & Robots and Mindhunter can be seen on Netflix’s interface (he also directed several episodes of the latter). His two latest films were also Netflix productions: the black-and-white biopic Mank and the contract killer story The Killer. However, compared to his peak-era films like Fight Club, The Social Network, and Gone Girl, these recent works fall significantly short in both quality and impact.

So, what happened to Fincher? Has Netflix ruined him?

That is certainly one factor in his career decline. After signing a long-term exclusive deal with Netflix, Fincher's creative drive seemed to dwindle. Mank was mediocrely made in terms of both production and screenplay, lacking the energy that once defined Fincher's films. The Killer, on the other hand, had a generic B-movie action script, and no amount of Fincher’s technical mastery or Michael Fassbender’s dedicated performance could salvage it from its fundamental shortcomings.

Meanwhile, Love, Death & Robots felt less like an artistic endeavor and more like an advertising platform for top-tier animation and VFX studios worldwide. Netflix likely brought Fincher on board due to his background in advertising (before becoming a filmmaker, he was a successful music video and commercial director).

In recent years, the only project that seemed to ignite Fincher’s creative passion was Mindhunter, but its lukewarm market reception led to its cancellation after just two seasons. As for whether Fincher’s career will see a resurgence, there are currently no promising signs.

But even at his peak, was Fincher truly a director worthy of his reputation? Not necessarily.

His two major works of the 1990s, Se7en and Fight Club, are deeply embedded in the collective memory of popular culture. However, revisiting them 30 years later reveals some troubling aspects. Se7en contains traces of a conservative ideology, portraying New York as a hellish dystopia rather than a vibrant cultural melting pot. It presents serial killer John Doe’s acts of divine retribution as a solution to urban decay, reinforcing a pop culture trope that idolizes serial killers.

Fight Club, when viewed through the lens of 2025, is practically a celebration of toxic masculinity. It glorifies adolescent male aggression, pranks, and terrorism, while the female lead serves primarily as a prop for the protagonist’s psychological struggles. As for its critique of consumerism, the film itself is paradoxically wrapped in the trappings of consumer culture—featuring glamorous movie stars in stylish outfits, sleek music video aesthetics, and an ending that appears radical but ultimately changes nothing (because it is too detached from reality).

These two films epitomize a recurring characteristic of Fincher’s work: they are often perceived as subversive critiques of modern cosmopolitan civilization, yet they are themselves polished consumer products that adhere to the rules of the very system they supposedly critique. They mock the establishment while simultaneously thriving within it—a survival strategy that, as Fincher ages, risks devolving into cynicism and nihilism.

Following Fight Club and before his Netflix era, Fincher continued making strong films, but most of them felt like showcases of technical prowess rather than deeply expressive works. The Social Network was excellent, but its success owed more to the screenplay than the direction. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was technically superb but lacked a strong thematic statement. Gone Girl was an exceptional adaptation of a bestselling novel, retaining its twisted narrative but notably omitting some of the novel’s feminist undertones.

Among all of Fincher’s films, the only one that truly resonated with me on a deep level was Zodiac (2007). While it still exhibited Fincher’s usual technical precision, what set it apart was its emotional core: the omnipresent mystery of the Zodiac Killer, the collective fear that gripped San Francisco, and the protagonist’s descent into obsession as he attempts to fill an abyss that ultimately consumes him. Fincher’s craftsmanship in this film was not just impressive—it was profoundly human and empathetic.

Fincher is certainly not a talentless hack. He is a visual genius, a masterful executor, and a keen selector of material. However, for most of his career, he has merely been skillfully delivering what audiences want to see, showcasing his technical brilliance rather than pouring his heart into his work. For a filmmaker of his visual talent, this is a waste. If I say Fincher is overrated, it is only because he has rarely reached the heights he was truly capable of achieving.