Gone Girl (2014) (17/25)

Amazing Amy is missing. In David Fincher’s pointed and vicious adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) discovers that his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike), the inspiration of a beloved series of children’s books, has vanished, leaving behind evidence of foul play and, to Nick’s surprise, evidence that he did it.

The first half of Gone Girl is an engine of suspense, as different revelations emerge about Nick and Amy’s marriage, as Nick makes seemingly innocent but highly suspicious decisions, and as the multimedia firestorm consumes him and everyone he knows. But needless to say there’s more to this story, and Gone Girl leads to drastic story twists and dramatic recontextualizations of everything we’ve seen before. Everything about Gone Girl clicks — it’s certainly one of David Fincher’s finest movies (and that’s saying something) — but the pieces are all held in place by Pike’s instantly iconic, Oscar-nominated, revelatory performance.