The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.

It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra.

At the 83rd Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Eisenberg, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing.

He creates a campus website called Facemash by hacking and downloading photos of female students from house face books, then allowing site visitors to rate their attractiveness.

When they learn of Thefacebook, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra are incensed, believing that Zuckerberg stole their idea while misleading them by stalling development on the Harvard Connection website.

Zuckerberg relocates the company to Palo Alto based on Parker's advice; Saverin remains in New York to work on business development, while breaking up with Lee.

After narrowly losing in the 2004 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.

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.

[citation needed] Armie Hammer, who portrayed the Winklevoss twins, acted alongside body double Josh Pence while his scenes were filmed.

[54] 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.

[59] 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 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.

[66] 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".

[74] Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal praised the film as exhilarating but noted: "The biographical part takes liberties with its subject.

"[75] Nathan Heller of Slate wrote a negative review of the film, describing it as "rote and deeply mediocre" as well as "maddeningly generic", and said 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 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.

[86] The Social Network was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

"[94] 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.

"[96] 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)".

[98] Sean Parker described the film and its depiction of him as "a morally reprehensible human being" as "a complete work of fiction,", and claimed that he remained friends with Saverin.

[103] Andrew Clark of The Guardian wrote that "there's something insidious about this genre of [docudrama] 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?".

[106]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!")

[108] HarvardConnection co-founder Divya Narendra said that he was surprised to see himself portrayed by the non-Indian actor Max Minghella, but said he did a "good job in pushing the dialogue forward and creating a sense of urgency in what was a very frustrating period".

[110] Bob Lefsetz has stated that: "watching this movie makes you want to run from the theatre, grab your laptop and build your own empire,"[111] noting that The Social Network has helped fuel an emerging perception that "techies have become the new rock stars.

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.

[121] 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".

[122] 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.

"[123] ScreenCrush ranked The Social Network eighth, referring to it as "[Fincher's] spiritual sequel to Fight Club, another story of an embittered, lonely man who discovers unleashing his rage at society has unexpected consequences".

"[127] In 2024, Looper ranked it number 5 on its list of the "50 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time," writing "Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's examination of Facebook's ascension in power and how that came at the cost of so many people's well-being and relationships has only gotten more prescient as the years have passed by.

"[128] 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.