Zodiac

Director David Fincher returns with an arresting take on one of American history’s most notorious unsolved murder cases. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a cartoon artist for the San Francisco Chronicle who researched and hunted the Zodiac Killer in the ’70s. The killer was never caught, and the film spends a decent amount of time on Arthur Leigh Allen, the prime (and now dead) suspect. Robert Downey Jr. is his usual excellent self as Paul Avery, the Chronicle reporter who wrote many an article on the Zodiac. Mark Ruffalo is also terrific as inspector David Toschi, who chased the killer for years but came up empty. The film is long, and it doesn’t have the usual whodunit payoff. It also manages to be terrifying at times—something Fincher does well. It leaves you feeling a little sick that the guy could still be out there.