The Social Network had its first screening at the New York Film Festival on September 24, 2010.[1]
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.[3] The film retained the top spot in its second weekend, dropping only 31.2%,[3] 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.[3]
Critical reception
Jesse Eisenberg received widespread critical acclaim for his performance as Mark Zuckerberg, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.The Social Network received widespread critical acclaim. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 333 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."[58] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 95 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[59] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[60]
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".[61] 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."[62] 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.[63] 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".[64][65]
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."[66] 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."[67] The Harvard Crimson review called it "flawless" and gave it five stars.[68]
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."[69] 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."[70]
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.[71][72] 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.[73]
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."[74]
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.[75] 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.[76] The film was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray in October 2021 as part of the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection (Volume 2), featuring a new Dolby Atmos mix and upscaled Dolby Vision/HDR10 transfer from the film's 2K master.[77]
