Zodiac is a 2007 American crime thriller film directed by David Fincher and written by James Vanderbilt, based on the non-fiction books by Robert Graysmith: Zodiac (1986) and Zodiac Unmasked (2002). It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr., with Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, John Carroll Lynch, Chloƫ Sevigny, Philip Baker Hall, and Dermot Mulroney in supporting roles. The film tells the story of the manhunt for the Zodiac Killer, a serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, taunting police with letters, bloodstained clothing, and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of the United States' most infamous unsolved crimes.