I find it hard to compare directors to one another to figure out who I think is the better director. I look at each director individually and compare their own work against their own work.
We all have our own views on which film is better, which is worst, who has better skill, better talent, more ability to get a great performance out of an actor so to me making a judgement on something like this...I can't do it.
What I can tell you is which films of each director I have seen that I enjoyed and why:
Seven: I saw this film on video and the ending for me was totally unexpected, shocking and stuck with me for days after viewing. I rank this film very highly because of it's tone and atmosphere and I think it is one of Brad Pitt's best acting roles (Twelve Monkeys, Fight Club and Burn After Reading are on my list as really good Pitt performances).
Seven's story is really well executed and it is a psychological experience of great magnitude.
The Dark Knight:
This film has a very powerful psychological effect on me and it is one of those movies that stay with me in my mind as effective and immersive experiences. The Joker's code of chaos versus Batman's code of ethics makes for very intense scenes. I would classify this film as a psychological action thriller that just happens to be based on a comic book character.
The Dark Knight Rises:
I stand proud to say that I feel this film is a worthy entry into the Nolan Batman trilogy. It does have it's shortcomings, plot holes and other issues but I think that what was set up in Batman Begins, escalated in The Dark Knight and paid off in The Dark Knight Rises all goes together well considering that each film was tackled one at a time without being envisioned as a trilogy from the beginning.
You could probably say from the fact I've only mentioned one David Fincher film in this post that I favour Nolan over him. The truth is that the only other movies by Fincher I have seen are Fight Club, Panic Room, Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Alien 3.
What do I think of those films I just mentioned? In all honesty I would have to sit down and watch them all again. The last time I watched Fight Club was the year it came out and the same goes for Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
I saw Panic Room a couple of years after it came out and I watched Alien 3 a couple of years ago (which interestingly enough isn't a bad film when you watch Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection after one another - Alien 3 is the much better film out of those two but when it is compared to the first two films Alien 3 falls flat)
What I will say of Fight Club from what I remember is that the ending was something I didn't see coming and that Brad Pitt's performance was interesting and effective.
As for Panic Room, it's not really a memorable movie for me so I can't say anything that really stands out except for the camera work in that film, especially the camera moves that incorporate use of CG.
In the Curious Case of Benjamin Button I was impressed by the visual effects that went into it. I felt it was a strange and serious version of Forrest Gump in that it was about a man who had and led and extraordinary life, experiencing some interesting things.
The last thing I will say in this particular post is that comparing Nolan to Kubrick is something that half of me thinks is a fair comparison but the other half of me does not. Stanley Kubrick was an elusive and thorough director whose films are unlike others that have come before or since.
Nolan in some respects is similar to Kubrick but I would say that he is similar in the sense that he has an ability to create a story that has many levels to it apart from surface appearances.
Kubrick had a lot of hidden narrative and subtexts within his stories. Nolan's films have a lot of substance to them. I would say that David Fincher's best film would be Seven and that is a film that has a lot of substance to it as well.
