With technology increasingly controlling every aspect of our lives, it’s no surprise that fall brings a new crop of anxious tech-themed movies. There’s a four-hour documentary about Elon Musk (see sidebar); a much-touted Elizabeth Holmes doc, You Can See Everything (look for that locally on Friday); and Luca Guadagnino’s Sam Altman biopic, Artificial (slated for Christmas release).
Meanwhile, Aaron Sorkin revisits the subject of his Oscar-winning screenplay for The Social Network in another drama inspired by tech history. While the 2010 film depicted the origins of Facebook, with Jesse Eisenberg playing founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Reckoning takes us to 2019 and beyond to explore the consequences of a social platform wielding a disturbing amount of cultural power.
The deal
What happens when a disgruntled Facebook employee meets a technophobic Wall Street Journal reporter who’s eager to dig up dirt on Facebook? On paper, anyway, data engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) and journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) are the perfect platonic match.
Haugen joined the social giant’s Civic Integrity team because she actually believes in civic integrity. Her disillusionment begins with a Facebook video in which an acquaintance of hers (Portia Doubleday) drunkenly shouts racial slurs at highway patrol. Wondering how her formerly progressive friend became this person, Haugen learns how Facebook nudges the politically disenchanted toward right-wing extremism. She gathers internal documents suggesting that, by promoting engagement above all else, the social network helped transform U.S. political discourse into a seething stew of conspiracy theories and rage-bait — just in time for a pandemic.
Horwitz wants the story, but Haugen is a skittish source: She won’t go on the record, insists on meeting him in odd places (hiking trails, Puerto Rican tiki bars) and mocks his tech illiteracy. By 2021, however, their collaboration will bear fruit, forcing Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) into damage control mode as he prepares to testify before a U.S. Senate committee.
Will you like it?
Sometimes you can tell from the first scene that a movie is not going to work. With Disclosure Day, it was that opening at a pro wrestling match — why? The Social Reckoning begins with a too-long prologue that seems designed to rage-bait the audience, as we watch Doubleday’s character goad two polite and exemplary cops. The point about political radicalization is valid, but it already feels belabored before the real story starts. We never learn anything about the troubled psyche of this particular “white girl wasted” (as she’s described), who’s simply a stand-in for the worst person in every comments section.
We never learn much about Horwitz, Haugen or Zuckerberg, either. Sorkin’s script paints them in broad strokes: The reporter is dogged; the tech worker is socially awkward; the tech CEO has a robotic affect and cares only about maximizing his company’s value. (Strong does a solid impersonation of Zuckerberg, but gone are the human aspects that made Eisenberg’s portrayal so engaging.)
As The Social Reckoning cuts between Horwitz’s pursuit of the story in 2019 and 2020 and Zuckerberg’s internal prep session in 2021, everyone takes on a clear role in the morality play: Billy Magnusson is Haugen’s cherubically evil boss; Wunmi Mosaku, the amorally competent crisis handler; Bill Burr, the unheeded voice of reason. Though The Social Reckoning is less lecture-driven than some of Sorkin’s work, it’s never less than crystal clear where our sympathies should lie.
The film’s saving grace is Madison’s central performance. The Best Actress Oscar winner for Anora doesn’t play Haugen’s quirks for easy laughs, and she makes the cutesy banter with Horwitz entertaining. The intelligence of her line readings gives the whistleblower’s conflict genuine pathos, even as we may roll our eyes at Haugen’s belief that Facebook should be a force for good.
Granted, we viewers have watched social media deteriorate since 2021. If Sorkin’s attempts to illustrate the evil effects of Zuckerberg’s products on ordinary Americans feel stagy and ridiculous, that’s partly because we don’t need convincing.
While Sorkin can be blamed for his clumsy reenactment of the U.S. Capitol attack of January 6, he can’t be held responsible for a problem inherent to tech movies. It’s extremely tough to dramatize the subtle, long-term interactions of brain and algorithm. Netflix’s “Adolescence” did a decent job of showing how social media can warp a teen’s thinking. But metaphors work even better: Movies such as The Drama and Obsession resonate because they obliquely address our anxieties about social media pile-ons or incel culture.
If nothing else, The Social Reckoning brings more attention to the real Horwitz’s series of exposés in the Journal. And it pinpoints a real problem: When tech billionaires defend their platforms as politically neutral public bulletin boards, as Zuckerberg does in the film, they’re conveniently not mentioning their quest for monetized monopolization of our eyeballs. This weekend, try watching a filmmaker’s tech takedown instead of feeding the online rage cycle.
If you like this, try…
Musk (2026; at Essex Cinemas as of 10/21): Alex Gibney, maker of such documentaries as The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (about Holmes) and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, offers his take on the billionaire political power broker. Don’t expect it to be flattering.
The Social Network (2010; Fandango, MGM+, Tubi, YouTube Primetime, rentable): David Fincher directed the multiple Oscar winner that chronicles the start of Facebook, with some fictionalized elements.
The Social Dilemma (2020; Netflix): Destined forever to be confused with the two similarly titled dramas, Jeff Orlowski’s documentary tackles the dark side of social media. Watch it for the interviews with real experts, not the cringe-worthy skits featuring actors.
The original print version of this article was headlined “The Social Reckoning”
This article appears in The Tech Issue • 2026.
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