The title of Fincher's 2007 film about the Zodiac killer is Zodiac. Released in 2007, the film is a crime thriller directed by David Fincher and written by James Vanderbilt, who adapted Robert Graysmith's nonfiction books Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked.
The story follows the investigation into the real Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer sent taunting letters and ciphers to newspapers, turning the case into a national obsession. Jake Gyllenhaal plays cartoonist Robert Graysmith, while Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards portray investigators and Robert Downey Jr. plays journalist Paul Avery.
A common mix-up is treating Zodiac as the killer's formal name or confusing the film with a fictional title such as The Zodiac or Zodiac Killer. Zodiac is the official title of Fincher's film. The case itself remains officially unsolved, which is central to the film's unusually investigative, unresolved tone.