Illustration by What’s on Netflix – Pictures: Getty Images / Netflix
David Fincher currently works with Netflix under a deal struck back in 2020 but in reality, was one of the first major talents to work with Netflix since Netflix Originals were created. Here’s a look back at this catalog of titles on Netflix and what’s coming next.
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker first got his big feature film break back in 1992 with the third Alien installment but that terrible experience quickly soured the director on making large studio-controlled features leading him to make a string of projects that seemed to be tailor-made for the director’s love for macabre and skewing more in the thriller/crime realm of genre filmmaking.
Those features included Seven, Fight Club, The Game, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl. Fincher eventually found his comfort zone working with Netflix and has since developed/directed a handful of films and episodes of television, with his last two films Mank and the upcoming assassin thriller The Killer, being some of the more exciting originals they have on their features lineup.
List of David Fincher Movies and Series on Netflix
House of Cards
Type: Series
Fincher’s Role: Producer, Director
First Released on Netflix: February 1st, 2013
Picture: Netflix
Fincher first made waves at the streaming giant with his mature political drama House of Cards, which had Kevin Spacey playing a scheming politician Frank Underwood moving his way from his position as Whip to President in a fictionalized version of Washington D.C.
The show’s popularity even earned Fincher a Primetime Emmy statue for his directing work on the first season.
Later, a wave of sexual misconduct and assault allegations led the series to pivot toward Spacey’s character’s wife, played by Robin Wright, which took up Underwoods’ political ambitions on the show and eventually ended its run in 2018 after 73 episodes.
Mindhunter
Type: Series
Fincher’s Role: Producer, Director
Released on Netflix: October 13th, 2017
Picture: Netflix
The next series Fincher helped put together for Netflix was Mindhunter, a dramatized version of real events that led up to the FBI to interview and analyze established mass murderers that had been caught and imprisoned in the United States. In the hopes, they could learn about patterns to catch future killers before they amassed an even more gruesome body count.
This FBI division helped inspire the Hannibal Lecter book series that got adapted into feature films like Silence of The Lambs and Manhunter.
The three main cast members of the show are Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Hannah Gross. Although the serial killer series focused on a team of the first FBI profilers was said to be extremely popular with true-crime buffs, the drama ended with season two.
Most recently, Fincher reaffirmed the consensus that a third season wouldn’t be in the cards and was likely too costly for a crime drama, and viewership wasn’t where it needed to be to continue.
Love, Death & Robots
Type: Anthology Series (Animated)
Fincher’s Role: Producer, Director
Released on Netflix: March 15th, 2019
Picture: Netflix
A mature animated anthology series wading in the genre waters of horror and sci-fi that is the brainchild of Fincher and Deadpool director Tim Miller, which originated as a pitch for a revival of 80s cult classic Heavy Metal but ultimately didn’t materialize. It eventually got rebranded years later as Love, Death & Robots and landed at Netflix.
A bunch of the short stories from that original pitch were used for the reconfigured show, including the only episode helmed by Fincher, Bad Travelling.
Three volumes have been released on Netflix thus far, with a fourth confirmed.
Mank
Type: Movie
Fincher’s Role: Director
Released on Netflix: November 13th, 2020
Picture: Netflix
The film starring Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried with a script originally penned by the director’s own father, Jack Fincher, would chronicle a dramatized version of the writing of Orson Wells’ iconic 1941 film Citizen Kane.
Scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz races to finish the screenplay which was influenced by the writer’s own observations while mingling within the circles of Hollywood’s elite during the 1930s that included William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper magnate that Charles Foster Kane was said to be directly based on.
After solid critical reactions, the Hollywood-set biopic was expected to do well during the award season. It earned itself an impressive 10 Academy Award nominations back in 2021 (including for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress). Mank only walked away with technical awards for its production design and cinematography.
Voir
Type: Series (Documentary)
Fincher’s Role: Producer
Released on Netflix: December 6th, 2021
Picture: Netflix
Film lovers examine the cinematic moments that thrilled, perplexed, challenged and forever changed them in this collection of visual essays.
Is That Black Enough For You?!?
Type: Movie (Documentary)
Fincher’s Role: Producer
Released on Netflix: November 11th, 2022
Picture: Netflix
Tracks the history of Black cinema, focused mainly on the ’70s, with archival and new interviews with many of the key players from the era.
New David Fincher Projects Coming Soon to Netflix
The Killer
Type: Movie
Fincher’s Role: Director, Producer
Releasing on Netflix: November 10th, 2023
Picture: Getty Images
Fincher’s big upcoming production is The Killer, an adaptation of the French graphic novel authored by Alexis Nolent (a.k.a Matz) and illustrated by Luc Jacamon.
The script was penned by screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who previously worked on the landmark 1990s crime flick Seven and Fincher’s recent animated segment for Love, Death & Robots. The Killer’s score will be composed by Oscar-winners and frequent collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who have been creating music for all his feature films since 2010s The Social Network.
It also boasts an interesting cast that includes Michael Fassbender, Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton. While there had been some flashes of footage in a recent video profiling the upcoming 2023 releases, we’re still waiting on a solid teaser or trailer from Netflix to get a true sense of what is in store.
The official logline for the film reads as follows: “After a fateful near-miss an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.”
Untitled Chinatown Prequel
Type: Series
Fincher’s Role: Producer
Releasing on Netflix: TBA
Picture: Paramount Pictures
Fincher is also producing a new series connected to the beloved Los Angeles noir Chinatown, which was directed by Roman Polanski back in 1974 and starred Jack Nicolson as a smart-mouthed private detective that stumbles upon a criminal conspiracy concerning the city’s water supply and a bunch of land-grabbing going on the outskirts by mysterious players looking to snuff him out before he connects all the dots.
In this case, the show is acting as a prequel to those events and likely means we’ll be seeing a younger version of Jake Gittes. Thankfully, he’s also brought in screenwriter Robert Towne (Mission: Impossible) from the jump to help develop the series after writing the original film. They’ve also enlisted the help of writer Matthew Carnahan (State of Play, Mosul), who had worked on World War Z (Fincher had been attached to direct a sequel) and Dark Waters.
It’s unclear if Fincher will direct episodes, but given he’s jumped in to direct episodes on most of his Netflix series, we think it’s a good bet he’ll attempt to helm at least one episode.
Given Fincher’s established working relationship with Netflix, which keeps getting stronger by the minute, we shouldn’t be terribly shocked if his next feature film ends up on the streaming service alongside future television pitches.
What Fincher projects have you enjoyed or are excited about coming out in the near future?
Netflix Synopsis: "In the late 1970s two FBI agents expand criminal science by delving into the psychology of murder and getting uneasily close to all-too-real monsters."
