The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, it portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich s book.

Production of the film began in 2009, when Eisenberg, Timberlake, and Garfield were all announced to star. Principal photography began that same year in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lasted until November. Additional scenes were shot in California, in the cities of Los Angeles and Pasadena, as a portion of the film was set in Silicon Valley. In 2010, it was announced that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would create the film s score, which released on September 28, 2010.

The film released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010. A major critical and commercial success, the film grossed $224 million on a $40 million budget and was widely acclaimed by critics. It was named one of the best films of the year by 78 critics, and named the best by 22 critics, the most of any film that year. It was also chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2010. At the 83rd Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Eisenberg, and won three: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. It also received awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score at the 68th Golden Globe Awards.

The Social Network has maintained a strong reputation since its initial release, and is commonly cited by critics as one of the best films of the 2010s and 21st century. The Writers Guild of America ranked Sorkin s screenplay the third greatest of the 21st century. While no official sequel has been announced, Sorkin has publicly expressed interest and willingness to write a screenplay for one should Fincher return to direct.

Plot

On October 28, 2003, 19-year-old Harvard University sophomore Mark Zuckerberg is dumped by his girlfriend, Erica Albright. Returning to his dorm, Zuckerberg writes an insulting post about Albright on his LiveJournal blog. He creates a campus website called Facemash by hacking into college databases to steal photos of female students, then allowing site visitors to rate their attractiveness. After traffic to the site crashes parts of Harvard s computer network, Zuckerberg is given six months of academic probation. However, Facemash s popularity attracts the attention of twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their business partner Divya Narendra. The trio invites Zuckerberg to work on Harvard Connection, a social network exclusive to Harvard students and aimed at dating. Zuckerberg approaches his friend Eduardo Saverin with an idea for The Facebook, a social networking website that would be exclusive to Ivy League students. Saverin provides $1,000 in seed funding, allowing Zuckerberg to build the website, which quickly becomes popular. When they learn of The Facebook, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra are incensed, believing that Zuckerberg stole their idea while misleading them by stalling development on the Harvard Connection website. They raise their complaint with Harvard President Larry Summers, who is dismissive and sees no value in disciplinary action on The Facebook or Zuckerberg.

Saverin and Zuckerberg meet fellow student Christy Lee, who asks them to Facebook me, a phrase that impresses them. As The Facebook grows in popularity, Zuckerberg expands the network to Yale University, Columbia University, and Stanford University. Lee arranges for Saverin and Zuckerberg to meet Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who presents a billion-dollar vision for the company. Zuckerberg is impressed, but Saverin dismisses him as paranoid and delusional. Parker also suggests renaming the site to Facebook. Later, Zuckerberg relocates the company to Palo Alto on Parker s advice; Saverin remains in New York to work on business development. Parker later moves into the house that Zuckerberg is using as a base of operations and becomes more involved with the company, much to Saverin s annoyance.

While competing in the Henley Royal Regatta for Harvard against the Hollandia Roeiclub, the Winklevoss twins discover that Facebook has expanded to Europe with Oxford, Cambridge and LSE, and decide to sue the company for intellectual property theft. Meanwhile, Saverin objects to Parker making business decisions for Facebook and freezes the company s bank account in the resulting dispute. He relents when Zuckerberg reveals that they have secured $500,000 from angel investor Peter Thiel. Saverin becomes enraged when he discovers that the new investment deal allows his share of Facebook to be diluted from 34% to 0.03% while maintaining the ownership percentage of all other parties. He confronts Zuckerberg and Parker, and Saverin vows to sue Zuckerberg before being ejected from the building. Saverin s name is removed from the masthead as co-founder and CFO. Later, Parker is apprehended for cocaine possession at a party celebrating 1 million users. He attempts to blame Saverin, so Zuckerberg cuts ties with him, telling him to go home.

In separate depositions, the Winklevoss twins claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea, while Saverin claims his shares of Facebook were unfairly diluted when the company was incorporated. Marylin Delpy, a junior lawyer for the defense, informs Zuckerberg that they will settle with Saverin since the sordid details of Facebook s founding and Zuckerberg s callous attitude will make him unsympathetic to a jury. Alone, Zuckerberg sends a Facebook friend request to Albright and repeatedly refreshes the page.

A series of title cards reveal that the Winklevoss twins received a settlement of 65 million dollars, signed a non-disclosure agreement, and rowed for the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing, placing sixth. Saverin received an unknown settlement, and his name was restored to the Facebook masthead. Facebook has 500 million members in 207 countries, is currently valued at $25 billion, and Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world.

Cast

• Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg
• Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin
• Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker
• Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
• Max Minghella as Divya Narendra
• Brenda Song as Christy Lee
• Rashida Jones as Marylin Delpy
• John Getz as Sy
• David Selby as Gage
• Denise Grayson as Gretchen
• Douglas Urbanski as Larry Summers
• Rooney Mara as Erica Albright
• Joseph Mazzello as Dustin Moskovitz
• Dustin Fitzsimons as The Phoenix – S K Club President
• Wallace Langham as Peter Thiel
• Patrick Mapel as Chris Hughes
• Dakota Johnson as Amelia Ritter
• Malese Jow as Alice Cantwel
• Trevor Wright as B.U. Guy in Bra
• Shelby Young as K.C.
• Aaron Sorkin as Ad Executive
• Steve Sires as Bill Gates
• Caleb Landry Jones as a fraternity brother

Josh Pence is the body double for Hammer, whose likeness was digitally imposed onto Pence s body. He is listed in the end credits as playing Tyler Winklevoss alongside Hammer. He also appears in a cameo role as the man being detoured from the bathroom by Zuckerberg and Saverin.

Production

Screenplay

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said, What attracted me to had nothing to do with Facebook. The invention itself is as modern as it gets, but the story is as old as storytelling; the themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class and power. He said he read an unfinished draft of The Accidental Billionaires when the publisher began shopping it around for a film adaptation. According to Sorkin, I was reading it and somewhere on page three I said yes. It was the fastest I said yes to anything … They wanted me to start right away. Ben and I were kind of doing our research at the same time, sort of along parallel lines.

According to Sorkin, Mezrich did not send him material from his book as he wrote it: Two or three times we d get together. I d go to Boston, or we d meet in New York and kind of compare notes and share information, but I didn t see the book until he was done with it. By the time I saw the book, I was probably 80 percent done with the screenplay. Sorkin elaborated:

There s a lot of available research, and I also did a lot of first person research with a number of the people that were involved in the story. I can t go too deeply into that because most of the people did it on the condition of anonymity, but what I found was that two lawsuits were brought against Facebook at roughly the same time, that the defendant, plaintiffs, witnesses all came into a deposition room and swore under oath, and three different versions of the story were told. Instead of choosing one and deciding that s the truest one or choosing one and deciding that s the juiciest one, I decided to dramatize the idea that there were three different versions of the story being told. That s how I came up with the structure of the deposition room.

Casting

Casting began in mid-2009, with Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, and Andrew Garfield announced to star. Jonah Hill was in contention for Timberlake s role, but director David Fincher passed on him. In October 2009, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer, Shelby Young, and Josh Pence were cast. Max Minghella and Dakota Johnson were also confirmed. In a 2009 interview with The Baltimore Sun, Eisenberg said, Even though I ve gotten to be in some wonderful movies, this character seems so much more overtly insensitive in so many ways that seem more real to me in the best way. I don t often get cast as insensitive people, so it feels very comfortable: fresh and exciting, as if you never have to worry about the audience. Not that I worry about the audience anyway – it should be just the furthest thing from your mind. The Social Network is the biggest relief I ve ever had in a movie . In 2010, it was mentioned that Rashida Jones would appear as Marylin Delpy.

Filming

Principal photography began in October 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scenes were filmed around the campuses of two Massachusetts prep schools, Phillips Academy and Milton Academy. Additional scenes were filmed on the campus of Wheelock College, which was set up to be Harvard s campus. (Harvard has turned down most requests for on-location filming ever since the filming of Love Story (1970), which caused significant physical damage to trees on campus.) Filming took place on the Keyser and Wyman quadrangles in the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University from November 2–4, which also doubled for Harvard in the film. The first scene in the film, where Zuckerberg is with his girlfriend, took 99 takes to finish. The film was shot on the Red One digital cinema camera. The rowing scenes with the Winklevoss brothers were filmed at Community Rowing Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts and at the Henley Royal Regatta; miniature faking process was used in a sequence showing a rowing event at the latter. Although a significant portion of the latter half of the film is set in Silicon Valley, the filmmakers opted to shoot those scenes in Los Angeles and Pasadena.

Armie Hammer, who portrayed the Winklevoss twins, acted alongside body double Josh Pence while his scenes were filmed. His face was later digitally grafted onto Pence s face during post-production, while other scenes used split-screen photography. Pence was concerned about having no face time during the role, but after considerable musing thought of the role as a no-brainer . He also appears in a cameo role elsewhere in the film. Hammer states that director David Fincher likes to push himself and likes to push technology and is one of the most technologically minded guys I ve ever seen. This included sending the actors to twin boot camp for 10 months to learn everything about the Winklevosses.

Rowing production

Community Rowing Inc. held a casting call and a tryout for 20 rowing extras; some were graduates from Harvard, Northeastern University, Boston University, George Washington University, and Trinity College, as well as local club rowers from Union Boat Club and Riverside Boat Club. None of the cast rowing extras for the Henley Royal Regatta racing scene appeared in the film; filming for the race was originally planned to take place in Los Angeles, but Fincher decided to film in England during production.

David Fincher hired Loyola Marymount coach Dawn Reagan to help train Josh Pence and Armie Hammer. While Hammer was new to the sport, Pence rowed previously at Dartmouth College.

The indoor rowing scene was filmed at Boston University s indoor rowing tanks. All of BU s blue oars in the scene were repainted to Harvard s crimson color for filming. Dan Boyne was the official rowing consultant in the US and the UK.

Soundtrack

On June 1, 2010, it was announced that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would score the film. The soundtrack was released September 28 in various formats under the Null Corporation label. Leading up to the release of the soundtrack, a free five-track EP was made available for download. The White Stripes song Ball and Biscuit can be heard in the opening of the film and The Beatles song Baby, You re a Rich Man concludes the film. Neither song appears on the soundtrack album.

Reznor and Ross won the award for Best Original Score at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards, as well as the 2011 Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Marketing

Poster

The first theatrical poster, designed by Neil Kellerhouse, was released on June 18, 2010. As Kellerhouse previously designed posters for the films of Steven Soderbergh, director David Fincher s friend, he was contacted by Ceán Chaffin in late 2009 to work on the key art for The Social Network, which had to make sole use of one approved photograph, that of Eisenberg s head. As he wanted to highlight the tremendous drama that went with Mark Zuckerberg s success, Kellerhouse thought of the tagline You don t get to 300 million friends without making a few enemies ; he would later adjust the line to 500 million friends in anticipation of Facebook reaching 500 million users by the film s release date. Kellerhouse s poster has been praised for its unique and striking design, and alongside his work for the film I m Still Here, has since become highly influential in film marketing; posters for The King s Speech and The Armstrong Lie strongly evoked the poster s design format.

Trailers

The film s first teaser trailer was released on June 25, 2010. The second teaser was released on July 8. The full length theatrical trailer debuted on July 16, 2010, which plays an edited version of the song Creep , originally by Radiohead, covered by the Belgian choir group Scala & Kolacny Brothers. The trailer was then shown in theaters, prior to the films Inception, Dinner for Schmucks, Salt, Easy A, The Virginity Hit, and The Other Guys. The theatrical trailer, put together by Mark Woollen & Associates, won the Grand Key Art award at the 2011 Key Art Awards, sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter, and was also featured on The Film Informant s Perfect 10 Trailers in 2010.

Release

The Social Network had its first screening at the New York Film Festival on September 24, 2010.

Box office

The film was released in theaters in the United States on the weekend of October 1–3, 2010. It debuted at No. 1, grossing $22.4 million in 2,771 theaters. The film retained the top spot in its second weekend, dropping only 31.2%, breaking Inception s 32.0% record as the smallest second weekend drop for any number-one film of 2010, while being the third-smallest overall behind Secretariat s 25.1% drop and Tooth Fairy s 28.6% drop. At the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed $97 million in the United States and $128 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $224.9 million.

Critical reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 326 reviews, with an average rating of 9/10. The website s critical consensus reads, Impeccably scripted, beautifully directed, and filled with fine performances, The Social Network is a riveting, ambitious example of modern filmmaking at its finest. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 95 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating universal acclaim . Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B+ on an A+ to F scale.

From The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave the film four stars, praising David Fincher s directing as the right intensity and claustrophobia for a story that takes place largely in a stupefyingly male environment at Harvard University in 2003 . In her review for The Verge, Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote positive comments on Aaron Sorkin s screenplay, writing that his reflex for writing witty, whiny men with outsized intellect and poorly disguised narcissism serves as an advantage instead of a handicap. The film s editing by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall was also lauded by critics, leading to their win of the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Additionally, the film s score received positive commentary, with some reviewers stating that it was a persistent source of simmering tension in the movie , and a masterpiece .

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, giving it four stars and naming it the best film of the year, wrote: David Fincher s film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film his first full four-star rating of the year and said: The Social Network is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing wit with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade. The Harvard Crimson review called it flawless and gave it five stars.

Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal praised the film as exhilarating but noted: The biographical part takes liberties with its subject. Aaron Sorkin based his screenplay on The Accidental Billionaires, so everything that s seen isn t necessarily to be believed. Among the film s very few negative reviewers was Nathan Heller of Slate, who described it as rote and deeply mediocre as well as maddeningly generic , and believed that, Sorkin and Fincher s 2003 Harvard is a citadel of old money, regatta blazers, and (if I am not misreading the implication here) a Jewish underclass striving beneath the heel of a WASP-centric, socially draconian culture… to get the university this wrong in this movie is no small matter.

The Social Network appeared on 78 film critics top-ten lists of the best films of 2010, based on Metacritic s aggregation. Out of the critics, 22 ranked the film first, and 12 ranked the film second. Out of the films of 2010, The Social Network appeared on the most top-ten lists. In 2016, The Social Network was voted the 27th-best film of the 21st century by the BBC, as voted on by 177 film critics from around the world.

In 2018, IndieWire writers ranked the script the fourth best American screenplay of the 21st century, with Michael Nordine arguing that everything came together nearly perfectly on the film, thanks in large part to Aaron Sorkin s Oscar-winning screenplay. Its finds the loquacious scribe at his best, with all the verbal takedowns and rapid-fire back-and-forths we ve come to expect (and, more often than not, love) from him. Sorkin s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg was hardly flattering, but recent headlines suggest it may have been too sympathetic.

Home media

The Social Network was released on DVD and Blu-ray January 11, 2011. In its first week of release, DVD sales totaled $13,470,305 and it was the number-one-sold DVD of the week. The DVD includes an audio commentary with director David Fincher, and a second commentary with writer Aaron Sorkin and the cast. The Blu-ray and two-disc DVD releases include the commentaries, along with a feature-length documentary, How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?, featurettes, Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter and Ren Klyce on Post, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and David Fincher on the Score, In the Hall of the Mountain King: Reznor s First Draft, Swarmatron, Jeff Cronenweth and David Fincher on the Visuals, and a Ruby Skye VIP Room: Multi-Angle Scene Breakdown feature.

Accolades

The Social Network won the Best Motion Picture – Drama Golden Globe at the 68th Golden Globe Awards on January 16, 2011. The film also won the awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score, making it the film with the most wins of the night.

The film was nominated for seven British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Andrew Garfield), and Rising Star Award (Andrew Garfield). It won three for Best Editing, Adapted Screenplay, and Best Direction on February 13, 2011.

The Social Network received nominations for eight Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won three for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing at the 83rd Academy Awards on February 27, 2011.

The film won Best Picture from the National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle, and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, making it only the third film in history—after Schindler s List (1993) and L.A. Confidential (1997)—to sweep the Big Four critics awards. The film also won the Hollywood Ensemble Award from the Hollywood Film Awards.

Historical accuracy

The script was leaked online in July 2009. In November 2009, executive producer Kevin Spacey said, The Social Network is probably going to be a lot funnier than people might expect it to be. The Cardinal Courier stated that the film was about greed, obsession, unpredictability and sex and asked, Although there are over 500 million Facebook users, does this mean Facebook can become a profitable blockbuster movie?

At the D8 conference hosted by D: All Things Digital on June 2, 2010, host Kara Swisher told Zuckerberg she knew he was not happy with The Social Network being based on him, to which he replied, I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive. Zuckerberg stated to Oprah Winfrey that the drama and partying of the film is mostly fiction, and that he had spent most of the past six years focusing, working hard, and coding Facebook. Speaking to an audience at Stanford University, Zuckerberg said that instead of making Facebook to get girls , he made it because he enjoyed building things . He added that the film accurately depicted his wardrobe, saying, It s interesting the stuff that they focused on getting right—like every single shirt and fleece they had in that movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz called the film a dramatization of history … it is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things that didn t matter, (like the Winklevosses, who I ve still never even met and had no part in the work we did to create the site over the past 6 years) and leaves out things that really did (like the many other people in our lives at the time, who supported us in innumerable ways) . According to Moskovitz:

A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I m just going to choose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds. … The plot of the book/script unabashedly attacked, but I actually felt like a lot of his positive qualities come out truthfully in the trailer (soundtrack aside). At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is.

Co-founder Eduardo Saverin said the movie was clearly intended to be entertainment and not a fact-based documentary . Sorkin said: I don t want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling. What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy s sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?

Journalist Jeff Jarvis acknowledged the film was well-crafted but called it the anti-social movie , objecting to Sorkin s decision to change various events and characters for dramatic effect, and dismissing it as the story that those who resist the change society is undergoing want to see . Technology broadcaster Leo Laporte concurred, calling the film anti-geek and misogynistic . Sorkin responded to these allegations by saying, I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people .

Andrew Clark of The Guardian wrote that there s something insidious about this genre of scriptwriting , wondering if a 26-year-old businessman really deserves to have his name dragged through the mud in a murky mixture of fact and imagination for the general entertainment of the movie-viewing public? . Clark added, I m not sure whether Mark Zuckerberg is a punk, a genius or both. But I won t be seeing The Social Network to find out.

Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore, blogging for CNN, said: If the Facebook founder is concerned about being represented as anything but a genius with an industrious work ethic, he can breathe a sigh of relief. Jessi Hempel, a technology writer for Fortune who says she s known Zuckerberg for a long time , wrote of the film:

The real-life Zuckerberg was maniacally focused on building a web site that could potentially connect everyone on the planet…By contrast, in the film he seems more obsessed with achieving the largesse that bad boy Sean Parker, an original Napster founder, portrays when he arrives to meet Zuckerberg at a New York restaurant.

Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig wrote in The New Republic that Sorkin s screenplay does not acknowledge the real villain of the story:

The total and absolute absurdity of the world where the engines of a federal lawsuit get cranked up to adjudicate the hurt feelings (because our idea was stolen! ) of entitled Harvard undergraduates is completely missed by Sorkin. We can t know enough from the film to know whether there was actually any substantial legal claim here. Sorkin has been upfront about the fact that there are fabrications aplenty lacing the story. But from the story as told, we certainly know enough to know that any legal system that would allow these kids to extort $65 million from the most successful business this century should be ashamed of itself. Did Zuckerberg breach his contract? Maybe, for which the damages are more like $650, not $65 million. Did he steal a trade secret? Absolutely not. Did he steal any other property ? Absolutely not—the code for Facebook was his, and the idea of a social network is not a patent. It wasn t justice that gave the twins $65 million; it was the fear of a random and inefficient system of law. That system is a tax on innovation and creativity. That tax is the real villain here, not the innovator it burdened.

In an onstage discussion with The Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington, during Advertising Week 2010 in New York, Facebook s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said she had seen the film and it was very Hollywood and mainly fiction . In real life, he was just sitting around with his friends in front of his computer, ordering pizza , she declared. Who wants to go see that for two hours? .

Divya Narendra said that he was initially surprised to see himself portrayed by the non-Indian actor Max Minghella, but also admitted that the actor did a good job in pushing the dialogue forward and creating a sense of urgency in what was a very frustrating period .

Legacy

Preliminary impact

Since its release, The Social Network has been cited as inspiring involvement in start-ups and social media. Bob Lefsetz has stated that: watching this movie makes you want to run from the theatre, grab your laptop and build your own empire, noting that The Social Network has helped fuel an emerging perception that techies have become the new rock stars. This has led Dave Knox to comment that: fifteen years from now we might just look back and realize this movie inspired our next great generation of entrepreneurs. After seeing the movie, Zuckerberg was quoted as saying he is interested to see what effect The Social Network has on entrepreneurship , noting that he gets lots of messages from people who claim that they have been very much inspired… to start their own company. Saverin echoed these sentiments, stating that the film may inspire countless others to create and take that leap to start a new business. In one such instance, the co-founders of Wall Street Magnate confirmed that they were inspired to create the fantasy trading community after watching The Social Network.

Following his success with the film, Sorkin became attached to another project about a technology company, writing the script for the 2015 biopic Steve Jobs, which used a similar format. Another Facebook film may be produced, as Sheryl Sandberg has signed a deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment to develop her 2013 book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, into a movie.

Post-2010s assessment

Following the close of the decade, The Social Network was recognized as one of the best films of the 2010s. Metacritic reported that it was listed on over 30 film critics top-ten lists for the 2010s, including eight first-place rankings and four second-place rankings. Metacritic ranked The Social Network third overall, following Mad Max: Fury Road and Moonlight. Esquire named The Social Network the best of the 2010s, calling it Citizen Kane for the Internet age and dubbing it the movie of our new millennium . With Facebook going from a utopian, world-shrinking force of good to a potential threat to democracy , Esquire wrote, Fincher seemed to sense all of this and more long before anyone else. And his brilliant, troubling film bristles with that queasy sense of prophecy and prescience. Polygon, calling The Social Network the best film of the decade, wrote, The Social Network, by chance or by design, has become one of the most immensely relevant movies of this decade… But after nearly a decade of watching Facebook move fast and break things, including news websites, social video, politics, etc., the movie s tangible sense of tension can easily be reinterpreted as foreboding for what comes after you make a billion friends. Director Quentin Tarantino called the film the best of the 2010s, singling out the script by Aaron Sorkin, whom he described as the greatest active dialogist .

Rolling Stone ranked The Social Network second after Moonlight (2016) on its end-of-decade list, describing it as one deliciously re-watchable preview of the apocalypse, as entertaining and cheeky as it is troubling and startlingly prescient . Time Out named it the fourth-best of the decade, Powered by a relentless, clinical Aaron Sorkin script, directed with sinuous grace by David Fincher and loaded with smirking, smart-ass central performances, The Social Network is arguably the most important and prophetic film of our era, itself a depressing thought. ScreenCrush ranked The Social Network eighth, referring to it as spiritual sequel to Fight Club, another story of a embittered, lonely man who discovers unleashing his rage at society has unexpected consequences . Mashable, listing The Social Network among the top 15 films of the 2010s, said of the story, It was everything young people could be and everything older generations feared in us before a decade of blaming problems we didn t create and can t solve. IndieWire ranked The Social Network sixteenth among the decade s films, writing, The Social Network is both a thrilling, queasy exploration of how Facebook came to be and a searing indictment of what it would inevitably become. Inverse listed the film among those defining class rage in the 2010s, As a gently prodding diagnosis of class conflict, The Social Network is a logical place to start.

Possible sequel

In January 2019, Sorkin revealed that Rudin has suggested the development of a screenplay for a sequel, noting, A lot of very interesting, dramatic stuff has happened since the movie ends. Sorkin also mentioned that there was indeed enough material to create a sequel. On July 18, 2019, Eisenberg expressed his interests in starring in the proposed sequel, stating that Sorkin is a genius, and if he chooses to write about something, I ll obviously be interested . In October 2020, a decade after the film s release, Sorkin announced that he would only write the sequel s script if David Fincher returned as director.

Year	2010
ReleaseDate	2010-10-01
RuntimeMins	120
RuntimeStr	2h
Plot	As Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, he is sued by the twins who claimed he stole their idea, and by the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.
Awards	Won 3 Oscars, 172 wins & 186 nominations total
Directors	David Fincher
Writers	Aaron Sorkin, Ben Mezrich
Stars	Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Produced by	Dana Brunetti,Ceán Chaffin,Jim Davidson,Michael De Luca,Scott Rudin,Rupert Smythe,Kevin Spacey
Music by	Trent Reznor,Atticus Ross
Cinematography by	Jeff Cronenweth
Film Editing by	Kirk Baxter,Angus Wall
Casting By	Meagan Lewis,Laray Mayfield
Production Design by	Donald Graham Burt
Art Direction by	Curt Beech,Keith P. Cunningham
Set Decoration by	Victor J. Zolfo
Costume Design by	Jacqueline West
Makeup Department	Felicity Bowring,Linda D. Flowers,Heather Mages,Kelly Muldoon,Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou,Marleen Alter,Clare M. Corsick,Sophia Knight,Tijen Osman,Yesim ‘Shimmy’ Osman,Ann Pala,Alex Proctor
Production Management	Marc A. Hammer,JoAnn Perritano,Carey Len Smith,Judy Vermeulen,Pete Corral,John David Gunkle,Vincent G. Scotti
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Matt Carver,Noble Jones,Allen Kupetsky,Maileen Williams Matheny,Bob Wagner,Scott Kirkley,Christian Labarta,Neil Lewis,Allan Rafael,Michael Stevenson,Greg Tynan,Pete Waterman
Art Department	Richard Bennett,Cliff Berns,Franck ‘Frenchy’ Brousse,Joanna Bush,Monica Castro,Louie Esparza,Trish Gallaher Glenn,Lindsey Gary,William Gideon,Aaron Haye,Bart C. Hubenthal,Cindy M. Ichikawa,Scott Lodwig,Randy Martens,Cameron Matheson,Robyn Paiba,Missy Parker,Chris Samp,Theodore Sharps,Kurt Smith,Chris Snyder,Carl Sprague,Jim Stubblefield,Adrian Valdes,Freddy Waff,Randall D. Wilkins,Jane Wuu,Audra Avery,Adam L. Barker,James Davidson Bennett,Erik Boring,Steve Burnes,Walsh Carvalho,Jason T. Clark,David Corral,Andréa Dawson,Patrick T. Eagan,Beth Emerson,Jennifer Engel,Francesco franco Ferrara,Hank Giardina,Jordan Noël Hawkes,Christopher Hayes,Zeth Huckabay,Wayne Kimball,Matthew King,Greg Knapp,Christopher Larsen,Sean Lira,James R. Lord,Justin Louie,Gregory Lynch Jr.,Ryan McPeake,Matthew Merenda,Michael Mestas,Jim Meyer,Christopher Morente,Laura Nash,Ted Nolan,Cesar Orozco,Alexander Panov,Christopher Plummer,Eugene Pope,Dennis Richardson,Bret Ross,David Scott,Carly Serodio,Craig T. Shordon,Steve Sickle,Matthew G. Smith,Dale Snyder,David Venezky,Jack White,Fante Zamora,Adam Zerkel
Sound Department	Thom Brennan,Jeannette Browning,Coya Elliott,Malcolm Fife,David C. Hughes,Doc Kane,Ren Klyce,Oleg Kulchytskyi,Mary Jo Lang,Jeremy Molod,Alyson Dee Moore,Nathan Nance,Larry Oatfield,David Parker,Richard Quinn,David Raymond,John Roesch,Michael Semanick,Mark Weingarten,Phil Benson,Mark Fay,Leilani Jones,Noah Katz,Nick Kray,Mark Levinson,David C. Manahan,Jeremy Molod,Jordan O’Neill,Ronald G. Roumas,Jason Stevens,Tom Williams,Doug Winningham
Special Effects by	Steve Cremin,Christian Eubank,Brandon K. McLaughlin,Richard Terry Tjelmeland,William Catania,Robert Cole,Roland Hathaway,Arthur G. Schlosser,Christopher Walsh,Michael Watson,Manon Wilkes,Scott Willis
Visual Effects by	Casey Allen,Spencer Armajo,Elizabeth Asai,Ron Barr,Guy Botham,Paco Castillo,Joseph M. Chiechi,Trent Claus,Brendan Crockett,Andrea D’Amico,Robin L. D’Arcy,Oliver de Gante,Natalia de la Garza,Toby Evetts,Miles Friedman,Antonio Gallardo,Daniel Gonzalez Solozabal,Orin Green,Chris Haney,Richard Hirst,Adam Howard,Charlie Iturriaga,Eli Jarra,Daniel Jauregui,Joshua Jordan,Felix Kawamura,Shahana Khan,Aleksander Kocev,Christian Kugler,Kurt Lawson,Max Leonard,Dave Levine,Brice Liesveld,Noll Linsangan,Miguel Lizarraga,Victor Lizarraga,Jason Locke,Samantha Mabie-Tuinstra,Paul McReynolds,Alejandro Miranda Palombo,Fernando Najera,Daniel Naulin,Thomas Nittmann,Brian Nugent,Clark Parkhurst,James Pastorius,Fred Pienkos,Raul Prado,Rick Ramirez,Ana Gabriela García Reyes,Edward Ruiz Jr.,Hameed Shaukat,Josh Singer,Jennifer Sofio,Colin Strause,Jeremiah Sweeney,Tim Turner,Tim Unger,Edson Williams,Paul Yacono,Kazuyoshi Yamagiwa,Holli Alvarado,Dan Bartolucci,Madalina Bland,Sarah Blank,Stefan Bredereck,Ben Campanaro,Omar Garcia Castaneda,Viki Chan,Jesse James Chisholm,Enid Dalkoff,Jenn Epstein,Chad Eshbaugh,Tiffany Germann,John F. Gross,Joshua Grow,Simon Holden,Jason Locke,Steve McLafferty,Jesse Monsour,Damian O’Farrill,Rick Ramirez,Guillaume Renberg,Gizmo Rivera,Edward Ruiz Jr.,Maciek Sokalski,Joy Tiernan,James William Visconti III
Stunts	Dan Brown,Mickey Giacomazzi
Camera and Electrical Department	Peter Batten,Jeremy Braben,Michael J. Coo,Scott D. Davis,Jerry C. Deats,John Flemming,Ian Foster,John Foster,Edward Hohman,Jeffrey A. Johnson,Leonardo Larosa,Gavin MacArthur,Michael E. Matteson,William R. Mayberry,Daniel Page McDonough,Steven Meizler,Merrick Morton,Peter Rosenfeld,Jose L. Ruiz,Harold Skinner,Wayne Tidwell,Paul Toomey,Chris Weigand,James D. Wickman,Andrea ‘Roo’ Ruane Krout,Adam Ayd,Shawn C.H. Baron,Nathan Beaman,Kyle Boorman,Brad Boyer,Thomas Calandrillo,Jeff Callow,Adam Camacho,Mark J. Casey,Michael Dynice,Eric Engler,Jack Flemming,John Flemming,Dave Freeth,Miles Gutkin,Sean Hadley,Ashton J. Harrewyn,Jimmy Harritos,Nate Heartt,Dan Hutchinson,William T. Iversen,Twig Johnson,Justin w Jones,Neirin Jones,Richard Jones,Austin Keller,Tim Kossa,JD Leedham,Damon Lemay,Damon Marcellino,Mike Miller,Juan Morse,Matt Perry,Tony Rivetti,David M. Rogers,David C. Romano,Ramiro Ruiz,Shaun Sangkarat,Andrew Shields,Ian Speed,Nobu Tashiro,Maxwell Thorpe,Travis Trudell,Roger Wall,Scott Webb,Wally Webber,Bradley Everett Wilson,Satoshi Yamazaki
Animation Department	Steven Do
Casting Department	Michelle Fitzsimons,Carolyn Pickman,Sande Alessi,Kristan Berona,Matt Bouldry,Patty Connolly,Ethan Golub,Dayna Price,Mark Sussman,Dagmar Wittmer
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Carrie Arakaki,Alison Gail Bixby,Cheryl Beasley Blackwell,Jay Cheng,Naomi Gathmann,Sean Haley,Virginia Johnson,Sharon Long,Robert Mata,Alexa Anderson,Melissa Binder,Phillip Boutte Jr.,Susanna Brown,Michael Burke,Elizabeth Clifford,Adrian Garber,Valerie T. O’Brien,Senna Shanti,Sanford Slepak
Editorial Department	Adam Cole,Katie Fellion,Tyler Nelson,Alex Olivares,Ian Vertovec,Eric Weidt,Nathan Adams,Matt Blackshear,Anton Capaldo-Smith,Chi Yoon Chung,Michael Cioni,Jeremy Edwards,Craig Thomas Quinlan,Rosanne Tan
Location Management	Charley Armstrong,Jonah Coombes,William Doyle,Scott Fitzgerald,Ben Gladstone,Brian Patrick Kinney,Stephen Mapel,Marvin Ruffin,Richard Schuler,A.J. Boles,Mike Buonanno,Christopher Geair,Lucas Nalepinski,Josh Slates,Golden Swenson
Music Department	Biraj Bhattarai,Marie Ebbing,Paul Luther Jackson,Mohammad Safari,Jonathon Stevens,Alexander Cardinale,Ren Klyce,Michael Patterson,Deke Sharon,Michael Tuller,Mark Willsher
Script and Continuity Department	Sharron Reynolds,Lisa Arnone
Transportation Department	Michael Antunez,Ronald Augustus,Mark Brown,Dave Calaway,James Divito,Chris Basso,Billy Benner,Kenneth A. Owen,Irv Press
Additional Crew	Sara Akhteh,Edward Bainbridge,Tim Belcher,Kristine Bochum,Dan Boyne,Trevor Brunsink,Genelle Ciccarelli,Jason T. Clark,Giovanni Cotto-Ortiz,Jim Davidson,Kristen Detwiler,Philippe Gallichet,Jeremy Gilbreath,Lynn Hamilton,Jon Harris,Jordan Noël Hawkes,Lucy Herrera,Callie Hersheway,Michael Jupp,Damiana Kamishin,Neil Kellerhouse,David Kennedy,Meti Kusari,Lauren Lohman,Lance Malbon,Andy McCallie,Kyle McGatlin,Andrea McKee,Allison Moore,Elena Moscatt,Irina Naydichev,Susan Nickerson,Jeff Overfield,Ron Pekkala,Dawn C. Regan,Ian Reichbach,Bob Riley,Ahmed Saker,Dave Shaw,Gene Strange,Jason Tamez,Candice Taylor,Will White,Joe Wolcott,Nick Zayas,Nathan Adams,Ron Bottitta,Brian Boyd,Elizabeth Cantillon,Fritz Ceriales,Brian M. Chilcoat,Mark Cockren,Patty Connolly,Joe Deingenis,Tiffany Donahue,Adam Dornbusch,John ‘Duke’ Duquesnay,Ken Edling,Rob Fiks,Jane Finn-Foley,Brendan Flaherty,Seth Gass,Alex Gavigan,Jeremy Glazer,Alicia Hanifin,Gale Hansen,David Henri,Daniel Herther,Elizabeth Himelstein,Adam Holmes,Coy Jandreau,Marisol Jiménez,Jeff Johnson,David Keadell,Gareth Lewis,Keith Littlefield,Patrick Mahoney,Jeffery Mannarini,Sean McIntosh,Korey McIsaac,Denise Mora,Michael Moran,Zoe Morgan Chiswick,Elena Moscatt,Lumumba Mosquera,Heidi Brook Myers,Duy Nguyen,Maureen O’Reilly,Stacy Parker,Kevin Pasdon,Matt Paulding,James Pride,Eva Quiroz,Marlaine Reiner,Nicole M. Rivera,Trevor Rubatzky,Matthew Rutler,Toby Spanton,Ryan Spenser,Paul Anthony Speziale,Jason Stamp,Angelo Vacco,Chris Whitaker,Tony Whitmore,Josh Woolf
Thanks	Daniel Grist,Ivor Lloyd,Peter McSweeney,Philip Odegard,Iain Reid,Mike Sweeney
Genres	Biography, Drama
Companies	Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Scott Rudin Productions
Countries	USA
Languages	English, French
ContentRating	PG-13
ImDbRating	7.8
ImDbRatingVotes	695434
MetacriticRating	95
Keywords	facebook,intellectual property,entrepreneur,young entrepreneur,hacker