The basement scene is a true horror scene, genuinely have never felt so uncomfortable watching a scene because there's no jump scares, no digital effects, just pure, slow burning terror. Also, I love that every time Zodiac appears and speaks, it's always a different person and different voice since they never caught him and couldn't know what he looked or sounded like.

I think it's really important that the last coda of the movie says that none of the DNA matches Allen. It's a film about obsession and about the frustration of not getting someone. The fascination we have with serial killers and the duty people have with giving people closure. Also two fun facts: The Zodiac is played by a different actor in every scene he appears and the man with the basement is the voice of Roger Rabbit.

I believe it was Roger Ebert who said something along the lines of, "There is nothing more thrilling to watch on screen than professionals who are really, really good at their job." This is one of those movies. Watching great actors playing competent professionals is just endlessly enjoyable.

Cool detail: David Fincher only filmed the murder scenes where someone survived or witnessed what happened.

One of Jake’s first staring roles was a silly romantic comedy called “bubble boy” and John carrol lynch (Arthur Leigh Allen) played jake’s father.

One of the things this movie really showcases is how rare, awkward, and difficult interdepartmental cooperation was in the 60s. Zodiac killed in several different jurisdictions, and even though they were all within a fairly small area of the country, the police weren't sharing information with each other, which made it much easier for him to elude capture.

The "stay on the line" thing for tracing a call is based on old equipment at the phone exchanges. The operator had to manually trace the route between the two phones in order to see where it was coming from, so it was a very real thing. With more modern computerized exchanges it is no longer needed. A great movie that shows the process is "Three Days of the Condor".

John carroll lynch is very underrated. To both pull off this unsettling performance and also the unbelievably sweet and charming norm gunderson is pretty incredible

The scene where he stabs the couple at the lake is one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen.

It's scary to know that this actually happened back in the late 60's, early '70's. When the movie, DIRTY HARRY was released, it was loosely based on the Zodiac Killings.

The double murder by the lake is legitimately one of the most horrifically affecting movie scenes I have ever seen.

Man I hope Prisoners is on the watch list eventually, I don't even wanna mention why but I feel like you guys would enjoy it.

The Lake stabbings are staggering in how close to reality and how creepy they are. The guy survived the stabbings if y'all didn't get that (you called it "murders at the beach" at some point I think). 17:10 "It's a good thing he didn't lock the doors" If the car had manual locks, he'd have to have reached over her and pushed the little lock tee down, which would have alerted her as soon as he did it. It seems power locks are older than I knew, but they weren't common on any cars I ran into back in the day.

my interpretation of the basement scene and the whole meeting with that guy is that even a perfectly innocent meeting with someone you already know and spoke with before can become impossible because of the extreme paranoia that obsessing over something like this would cause. You would never be able to feel safe around anyone at all.

About two years ago David Oranchak solved the 340 cipher on his YT channel. Absolutely fascinating series if you're into puzzles and/or computer science.

Big shout out to Roger Rabbit for being the absolute creepiest dude in this film

I could be misremembering things but I believed that David Fincher had some of the actors playing the Zodiac suspects in the movie play the zodiac killer in the attack scenes. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and cemented David Fincher as one of my favorite directors! If you want more from him I would go Panic Room, or Social Network.

When I saw this back in 2007, I became obsessed with this case. I read both of Graysmith's books. I've the case files, watched so many old news reports. It's tragic that the families of the victims never had any justice for their loved ones. As a California native, I still get emotional whenever I pass my some of the murder sites. I pass by them all the time whenever I'm in the Bay Area. I have been to each location where someone died. It's an eerie feel to be there. Especially when it gets dark.

The whole 'You have to keep them on the phone line for 15 minutes' thing is real. Nowadays doing a phone trace is pretty instant, true, but back then it was different. The system in use at the time was a lot more complicated and not nearly as centralized, so just the steps of getting access to the local phone lines, let alone tracing a call, was a more arduous, time-consuming process.

Funny story but my grandpa actually lived in the bay area his whole life and was interrogated multiple times under suspicion of being the zodiac killer. He matched the police sketches down to the glasses and pet dog. It was a strange time for them apparently even just living in the area. People feared the zodiac killer so much that when their house was under construction, and as such it didn't have a door, my grandpa and grandma would take turns staying up at night to be sure no one would sneak in.

Keep in mind that this movie is based on Graysmith's book and he was convinced that Allen did it so the movie tries to frame it that way. I love Fincher's movies but he's never been concerned with historical accuracy and has even straight up said it's "irrelevant" to him. Graysmith takes a lot of what the Zodiac "revealed" about himself in the cyphers as gospel. But only the parts that fit his theory. He doesn't mention the parts that don't. For instance, in one cypher Zodiac says he's encoded his name. That cypher was never decoded, but we know that whatever name is encoded there is too long to be Allen's. The police did manage to get a partial DNA sample of the Zodiac in the early 2000s from an envelope he sent one of the letters in. It did not match Allen. In 2022 using much more advanced techniques they managed to get a much more complete sample from another envelope. It matched the first sample, in other words not Allen. One thing I've learned from following true crimes and seeing so many decades-old ones being solved with DNA: There's always a guy the police are sure did it because he fits the clues so perfectly like Allen does here that you can't see it being anyone else. And it almost always is someone else. In this movie we have the guy Graysmith thinks did it. Most people who follow this case and have seen all the evidence think Richard Gaikowski did it (his nickname "Gyke" is literally in one of the decoded cyphers, the dispatcher positively identified his voice as the Zodiac's, among A LOT more evidence, so much that he fits even better than Allen!). Detective Narlow also has a different guy he's absolutely sure did it. Other detectives are "sure" of still more people. That's common in these cases and when one of them is solved by DNA it's almost never anyone who was ever suspected. Maybe one day we'll find a match for the DNA sample. But probably not. We'll likely never know

The Zodiac killer was a constant existential threat when I was growing up where I lived (Vallejo). Any time you tried to run off somewhere for fun it was, "Don't get too far away or the Zodiac killer will get you" lol I used to go to that park all the time in the opening sequence too. The IHOP building is still there too.

The Melvin Belli/Zodiac interview is on KZfaq. Pretty well reenacted, Brian Cox did a great job portraying Belli.

You have no idea the amount of CGI this movie has. It is everywhere, look for a behind the scenes, it is incredible.

Aside from Zodiac being a great suspenseful thriller, the amazing thing is how close to real life this thing is. It's so meticoulously accurate (at least in depicting real-life locations, timing, dialogue, down to the clothing, not saying of anything Graysmith claims or speculates, although it's also very faithful to the book) that it's goddamn impressive on itself.

Fincher gets the feel of that time period so well. My family and I moved to SF in 78 and this captures the period so well. I know Fincher grew up in the north bay in the late 60s and remembers when the bus threat came out.

A movie about murder that's really a movie about obsession. What a great film. I don't know if you'd do it for the channel but there's an incredible Korean film called Memories of Murder that has a similar vibe. It's by Bong Joon-Ho, the director of Parasite. Highly recommended.

what's interesting as well is that Toschi, the main detective in charge of the investigation after Stine was shot, was already famous as a really good detective, the classic movie Bullitt has its main character modeled after him which brought, among other things, the idea of a weapon holster on your chest which is something Toschi came up with during his work and copied by the main actor of the movie McQueen

No other movie has made me actually contemplate and fear being stabbed the way Zodiac did. The movie never shies away from the violence but that whole scene at Lake Berryessa is on another level

So... This movie also ironically gave people tunnel vision for a while. It was almost certainly _not_ Allen. There are still popular theories on the who, but to my knowledge, they don't _know._ I suspect it was originally the dude suspected because of his proximity to the library worker college lady. As far as the ciphers go, the 340/Z340 Cipher wasn't solved until a couple years ago. He would do things like spell paradise as "paradice", and as you know the christmas/christmass thing. But if you want to see the considered solution, you can find it w a search. You can also, if interested, search the likely perpetrators based on other people's mini obsession. It is most certainly a complex puzzle. Especially because of how many false threads there are. Which letters are real? Fake? Was it one guy? More? If so, did they work together? Or was he taking credit for stuff he didn't do? Was he military/a military geek? Would explain the code stuff mixed with the spelling. Both seemingly a genius but maybe just dumb lucky. Or a serial ender with more than one name? Iirc, people thought he could've been the Golden State ridder of people. Also reminds me, you guys should do 7 Psychopaths. Great movie. It's like the modern Jack The Ripper case.

Tracing a phone call is almost immediate in modern digital-switching systems. In the 1960s they had to manually trace the call across multiple analog switch connections, which took finite time.

I always fast forward the Lake Berryessa murder scene. That was the most gruesome part I’ve ever seen in a movie.

I was a little kid living about two hours away from San Francisco when this was happening. It was constantly on the radio and people were seriously scared.

This reminds me that I FINALLY have to watch this film. Been meaning to forever but kept just not doing it. I was a kid when the Zodiac Killer was in the news and it terrified me. Would love to see the behind-the-scenes of the investigation.

I love that they had multiple actors play the killer. Such a smart move.

This is literally my favorite film of all time. So stoked and jealous you two got to experience it for the first time.

This movie was based off the book written by Graysmith, who is more inserted into the story and made into a character than in actuality to represent the obsession with the case. The story makes Leigh seem like a slam dunk suspect but it isnt as clear cut as the movie makes it seem. Handwriting evidence is also not conclusive evidence, its like a lie-detector test or witness statements. We need DNA evidence, fingerprints, victim belongings, etc.

Lee definitely wasn't the Zodiac. But Dave and Robert were both obsessively convinced that he was, because of all the circumstantial evidence. Really, it's the best way to handle a film about a killer who was never identified. Since you can't reveal the killer's identity at the end, you spend the whole film revealing the obsessions of the people trying to catch him.

There's a crazy behind the scenes moment on the Blu/DVD where Gyllenhaal and the BTS camera person are making a bet on how many takes a certain scene will require (director David Fincher is infamous for requiring an insane number of takes sometimes). Gyllenhaal guesses something like 17 or 18 but it ends up taking 30 something. What's really insane is that the scene is just his hand dropping the characters' sketch book on his car seat with the book open to a certain page. This type of shot is called an "insert shot" and is almost always filmed using a stand-in (often weeks or months later) since you only see the characters' hand. But for some reason Fincher wanted Gyllenhaal there to film the scene...

Simone and her knowledge or lack there of, about vehicle lights. 10/10

Hurdy Gurdy Man has always been a creepy song. It was perfect for this flick.

I just can't believe that Iron Man, The Hulk, and Mysterio couldn't outwit and destroy this guy...

Such a great, but often overlooked, film. I love RDJ and Jake G and Ruffalo in this. All terrific performances.

17:51 Zodiac watches are actually alive and well today. They're an old, old watch brand from the 1800s and were popular during this time period for their dive watches. Like all watch companies, sales dropped after the introduction of quartz movement and digital watches. And Zodiac did experience a rough time in the 90s unique to them, but it was mostly due to a new executive (who formerly worked at Tag Heuer) taking the company and its watch designs in a bad direction and bankrupting it. The brand got picked up by a conglomerate afterwards and went back to its older designs. As far as I'm aware, the company never received any negative press or sales drops specifically from being associated with the killer.

I was a young child living in the area when this all occurred. The one survivor at Lake Berryessa was my brother's roommate in college. This psycho had all of us living in complete fear!

The guy from the very first scene is Lee Norris- aka Minkus from Boy Meets World!

George's description of the poster is like a Rorschach test. In the Clint Eastwood movie, Dirty Harry, the killer was based on the Zodiac Killer.

Interesting enough, not only were Zodiac Watches NOT discontinued, but still sell today at prices ranging from $750 to over $2000 each.

To this day, no one knows who the Zodiac is. The last Zodiac cypher was cracked about 5 years ago by an FBI supercomputer. Unfortunately it didn’t lead them anywhere.

This is probably my favorite Fincher movie. Glad y'all liked it!

36:28 - Don't ask me why, but I found that basement scene to be even more terrifying when I learned that the actor, Charles Fleischer, voiced Roger Rabbit.

This is one of my favorite movies, even though Graysmith’s book was largely debunked, the film is a great exploration of the effect Zodiac had on the Bay area at the time, and the fascination people have with the case. But Allen has been ruled out by subsequent investigations.

The sheer amount of VFX shots in this film is what shocked me more than the subject matter

16:31 This moment right here.... Oh god.... 🤤 This should be taught at film schools all over the world. It's one of my favorite scenes of all time. The way the sound completely drowns, it teaches brilliantly how you could also create shock and terror with complete silence! It's GENIOUS!!! 😍

I love that George mentioned listening to a lot of Simon Whistler! I recently discovered his channels and I listen to them all the time now. Dude’s hilarious.

Great watching along with your reaction as always. Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network all were mentioned in the comments, but there’s a criminally underrated and under appreciated film in Fincher’s body of work … and that is The Game, with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. I think you guys would be mesmerized by that film 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

The guy at the end that brings him into the basement is the voice of roger rabbit

One of my favourite movies. A whodunnit where there isn’t a definitive answer. That scene in the diner with Ruffalo and Gyllenhaal is 👌🏼

I was born & raised in the Bay Area in the 70’s & 80’s, and between the Zodiac Killer, the Golden State Killer, and a Richard Ramirez, we were always a bit on edge.

Yeah the instant moment you place a phone call it can be traced and pin pointed to your exact location the second the call is made. It has been this way since the mid 80s. Prior to this there did need to be about 60 seconds but that was so that telephone switch operators could manually connect the circuits as they were manually switched in the pre digital era

Absolutely one of my all-time favorite movies. There's something about this specific portrait of obsession that will just always resonate with me, and Gyllenhaal is the perfect actor to portray it.

I’m from Sacramento and we still talk about zodiac here to this day. My parents were around when it all happened and we talk about it some. This movie though…it’s my favorite movie of all time. Not because of the graphic nature of it. But for the dialogue and having someone different portray the zodiac every time they’re on screen. Leaves you guessing. Keeps you intrigued. Makes you infatuated in what’s happening and that you want a resolution so bad, will you believe it to be true if it was right in front of you. Such a class act in dialogue. I want to be an author/screen writer and I always come back to this movie to see how setups are done. Just so well done. Nothing feels botched or bloated. Every scene just flows and it’s just so well crafted. Every performance is just 👨🏻‍🍳💋

This film is actually very accurate to the real case files. The stabbing scene at the lake makes me squirm everytime😬😬

The invisible special effects in this movie are so well done, the CGI that recreates 1970s SF is so good that you don't even notice it.

When I was a new police officer in San Francisco, I got a chance to go into the records room and saw the boxes of evidence from the Zodiac case

3:00 Funfact. Whenever the Zodiac appears he is played by a different actor.

The key to the movie is the tagline - "There's more than one way to lose your life to a killer." It's a great line; the movie isn't about who the murderer is at all. If you come away thinking 'I'm so glad they definitely figured out who the killer was' then you might have watched it wrong

i remember this when it happened, and the thing that scared me was that the killer was never caught...

This movie and Almost Famous evoke the lived sense feel of that era like no others I’ve seen. Zodiac is my top movie since its release. Can’t rewatch it enough. SUCH a great ensemble! So Toschi had at least 3 movies either referencing or evoking him. This, Bullitt, Dirty Harry!

@4:20 a good reason not to publish these codes is that it will set a precedent where any copycat or prankster will demand things be put into the newspaper or else they will threaten to do something, serious or not.

Zodiac watches are made to this day. According to Wikipedia they are primarily known for their diving watches...

Back in the 60s it took 15 min to trace calls...u have to remember there was no such thing as fiber optics, or computers that they had access to, so everything was done thru electrical signal thru land lines

Fun Fact: We can see the Zodiacs prior victims (Bryan C. Hartnell) in the courthouse scene when Mark Ruffalo is talking up the stairs to Dermot Mulroney

First, this movie was great with how it deceived you with multiple suspects and actors to throw you off, just like with how difficult it was to find the real killer in the real life case. Second, George said the woman and baby were lucky that the Zodiac didn't lock her in which allowed her to jump out and escape. However, back then not many cars had automatic door locks that could be controlled by the driver. Also, even the ones that did could be unlocked by the passenger anyway, so she could have escaped just as easily. Lastly, another great Jake Gyllenhaal thriller I'd recommend is "Prisoners" with Hugh Jackman and Paul Dano. Great stories and .emotional roles.

Fun Fact Simone: the real Melvin Belli, the white haired attorney portrayed in this movie, played the "Friendly Angel" in an episode of Star Trek (TOS).

Almost every single detail in this was what actually happened, from the couple who figured out the zodiacs coded message, to the husbands negligence when his wife was warning him about somebody approaching and watching them, crazy stuff.

One of the best thrillers ever! Criminally underappreciated! I really wish more people had watched this on the big screen, but it came out around the same time as 300, so competition was kinda hard haha

An amazing thriller! I think that basement scene is one of the most tense I've seen.

A great movie with an all-star cast. I remember my mom being fascinated with the Zodiac when I was a kid. I didn't realize it until I saw a documentary about Zodiac when I was in my 20s. There are a lot of good documentaries on Zodiac out there though.

Fun fact, only Canada requires daytime non-switchable running lights. All vehicles produced or imported to Canada have to have them, but American produced, not for import vehicles don’t. I once had a Civic built in Canada and it had them and I always thought it was weird until I looked up the law and why it was like that.

Here's a neat detail. Every scene involving zodiac, he is played by different actors

I was a little kid, about six, during the height of the Zodiak murders. I lived in San Carlos, which is a bit south of SF. This was all over the news, and everyone was talking about it, to the point where even kids my age were very aware (so far as we could comprehend) of what was going on. After the threat against schoolbuses, word went around among the kids in my school that there were shotguns hidden under the schoolbuses. I'm sure that wasn't true, but you know, it's the sort of thing kids would come up with. My friends and I all had completely non-workable plans for catching the Zodiak killer, which were fun to talk about, although looking back, it would've been a creepy scene to put into the movie -- have one or two of the major characters listening in on a couple of little kids talk about how they'd catch the killer. o_O This was an era where a lot of kids walked to school by themselves, and a lot of parents (including my mom, who walked to school with me for the rest of the school year) started walking or driving their kids. Things died down, and he never did go after any schoolkids, so when I started second grade, I was walking by myself or with some friends my age again. I guess my point is that this was a *huge* thing in the Bay Area while it was going on. I wasn't aware of the machinations shown in the movie, because I was six, but the basics were just soaked into the culture for a while. Trivia: Melvin Belli was a very famous lawyer back then -- everyone would've recognized his name, then and for decades after. He died before he could play himself in the movie, but he had a bit part in the original Star Trek series, in *And the Children Shall Lead,* as well as a few other acting gigs.

I grew up in Vallejo around the corner from the murders at Blue Rock Springs park & Lake Herman road. You still hear people mention the zodiac every so often out here. Creepy knowing the guy was never caught.

Fincher is just on another level, his camera movements are mesmerizing

I like that they had different actors playing the killer during the murder scenes. The actor's bodies fit the descriptions of what the killer looked like based on witness accounts.

Lol... I was more than halfway through this posting and was so antsy to comment... PHENOMENAL job in your editing of the viewing, kudos!

I grew up in the bay area and this movie gave me such powerful nostalgia it was insane. It came out the same year I had to leave the state to take care of a family member with a health issue so that probably magnified it a bit. When I was little I went with my cousin several times to that same Ace hardware store that is shown in the film as where Allen worked but I don't know if they used the same one the the exterior shot. I do know that when I saw an old news report about him as an old man I was about 80% I recognized him from when I was little. Which is kinda creepy when you know what he did with kids. Not convinced he was the Zodiac but there was either a ton of coincidence involved or he actively tried to court that attention.

Fun story. When I saw this, there were two WW2 veterans who ditched their function sitting behind us, talking rather loudly. My friend got annoyed, but I quelled him. Then the stabbing scene happened and one guy said to the next, “Well this is a nice movie you picked out for us, Hank.” It was the most disturbing scene ever followed by the funniest reaction I’ve ever seen.

The movie certainly presents a compelling case for Arthur Lee Miller. Can I suggest the Disney+ documentary mini series “The Most Dangerous Animal of All”, which presents another compelling case. It’s based on a book by Gary Stewart, who was adopted and in the search for his birth father has become convinced his father was the Zodiac - his handwriting matches pretty closely, the timing and place matches, his father LOOKS an awful lot like the sketches provided to police ... it seems pretty close.

When folks dive into this mystery, they end up having favorites and villains - who may or may not be The Killer! This is a fascinating movie not because it 'solves' the crime (it doesn't) or because the author/filmmakers point to the wrong guy (fans boo, critics cheer) but because it follows an investigator that no other authors or filmmakers have done. Oh yeah... let's not forget they made up some of the investigation details...ahem. I wish there were more dancing girls, personally.

the best fincher film imo. the beach stabbing, the baby in the car, some of his best scenes.

That brutal park attack was about as bad as it gets , thanks y’all!

In the last couple decades Graysmisths book has pretty much been torn to pieces for innacuracies and wild assumptions. Then there's the guy who wrote about it being his dad, and David Gold says it was Frank Lee Morris and the Anglin Bros, it's just a mess at this point. It'll never be definitively solved.

12:00 The whole "keep them on the line for x amount of time"-trope is no longer a thing, but it used to be. Nowadays you can track a call before you even answer the phone, but back in the late 60s the whole process had to be done manually and would take quite bit of time.

Probably in my top 10 movies of all time. Flawless.

Cars certainly have the option to turn off headlights today.

The basement scene is still one of my fave scenes ever.

That guy Simone recognized in the beginning was Minkus from Boy Meets World.😂😂😂

The guy who you recognized from his youth may have been when he played Chuckie Lee from the Torkelsons.

Generally, as i understand, keeping them on the line gives the authoritys time to close in on the known loacation of the call. As long as theyre on the line you KNOW exactly where they are standing as you get to the location