Plot Summary

Set against the unsettling backdrop of late-1960s and 1970s America, Zodiac chronicles the true story of a cryptic serial killer who terrorized San Francisco and its surrounding areas for years. Operating with chilling precision, the murderer taunts authorities and the press alike by sending coded letters and puzzles, transforming his crimes into a macabre public spectacle.

As fear spreads throughout the city, four men find their lives increasingly consumed by the case. Newspaper cartoonist Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith, crime reporter Robert Downey Jr., veteran journalist Anthony Edwards, and hard-nosed inspector Mark Ruffalo each approach the mystery from different angles, yet all are drawn into the same obsessive pursuit of truth.

What begins as professional curiosity slowly mutates into fixation. Years pass, evidence fades, leads contradict one another, and certainty remains agonizingly out of reach. The killer’s elusive presence reshapes careers, relationships, and identities, proving that the true cost of the Zodiac case is not only measured in lives lost, but in the psychological toll inflicted on an entire city.

More than a conventional serial killer thriller, Zodiac is a meticulous study of obsession, ambiguity, and the human need for closure. It portrays a haunting reality where answers remain perpetually incomplete, and the most terrifying monster is not only the killer himself, but the unanswered questions he leaves behind.