The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo · reception & legacy
2011 · David Fincher
How The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Reviewed well and Oscar-nominated on release, but its box office fell short of Sony's franchise hopes and the planned sequels with this cast never happened — so it's since morphed into cinephiles' great what-if, the 'we were robbed of Fincher's trilogy' movie.
What's debated
Fans still argue whether it even needed to exist next to the 2009 Swedish film — and, endlessly, Rooney Mara vs. Noomi Rapace as the definitive Lisbeth Salander.
Its footprint
The oil-black title sequence set to Trent Reznor and Karen O's 'Immigrant Song' cover is constantly cited as one of the great modern credit sequences, and the marketing's 'The feel bad movie of Christmas' tagline became instantly quotable.
Where it stands
A reliable pick in the 'most underrated Fincher' conversation and a Letterboxd favourite for people who rank his filmography.