David Fincher’s “Zodiac” combines an epic-scale psychological thriller and a brilliant detective-newsroom drama, resulting in a sprawling American masterpiece–his best work since “Se7en.”

David Fincher is such a technically inventive and brilliant director that, even when he tackles a genre film, like his new suspense feature The Panic Room, he elevates it with his signature flourishes way above its damsel-in-distress origins. Recalling noir films about women trapped in a confined space, David Koepp's functional script centres on a single mother and her sickly daughter whose new house is invaded by a bunch of greedy burglars.