Dir. Aaron Sorkin · 2026 · 112 min · in cinemas
A decade and a half after The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin writes and, this time, directs the Facebook story again. David Fincher is not involved, and critics have noticed. The film dramatises Frances Haugen's 2021 leak of internal company documents and the Wall Street Journal reporting that followed. It is brisk, well acted in places and often funny, and it keeps handing the reader the feeling that the best version of this material would have looked and sounded different.
Haugen (Mikey Madison) is a data engineer inside Facebook, troubled that the company's systems push people towards extreme content. Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) is the Wall Street Journal reporter working the same story. They join forces, while Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) faces growing scrutiny from government and the public. The film is based on Haugen's leak and on Horwitz's reporting in The Facebook Files. That is as far as this review goes into the plot.
The critics who like it start with the script. James Preston Poole at DiscussingFilm gives it 3.5 out of 5 and calls it Sorkin's best writing since Steve Jobs. Kent M. Wilhelm at The Film Stage, a more mixed voice, still finds the investigation clearly laid out and says Sorkin's fast, dense dialogue suits a story built from facts and figures. The Zuckerberg and crisis-preparation scenes draw praise for Bill Burr and Billy Magnussen. Even TheWrap, which is harsh, grants a comfortable pace and a few memorable zingers.
Sorkin sees the darkness of the story but undercuts nearly all its gravity with a victorious fist-pump parting shot.
Kent M. Wilhelm, The Film Stage
The complaints cluster around tone and look. William Bibbiani at TheWrap calls it a "generic potboiler with highfalutin dialogue", finds Strong's Zuckerberg blunt and cartoonish, and says the photography is closer to network television than to the first film. Wilhelm argues that Sorkin's classical, West Wing style, with its idealist heroine, feels out of step with a more pessimistic moment. Several critics are less bothered by the writing than by the direction: a round-up at Dark Horizons describes a film that some reviewers compare to a direct-to-streaming release. The most repeated worry is the ending, which, in Wilhelm's reading, takes the air out of the darker material.
This is a divided film. Dark Horizons counted 70% on Rotten Tomatoes (an average of 6.4/10) and 52/100 on Metacritic across 42 reviews at the time of writing, a gap that says enthusiasm for the script and disappointment in the finish are both real. Strong's Zuckerberg is the sharpest divider: one critic calls him smart, cunning and brittle, another calls him the weakest link. If you loved the 2010 film for Fincher's cold polish, expect to miss it. If you loved it for the talk, there is more here for you.
Tap what applies. This is only a guide built from the critical reading above, not a verdict on your taste.
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It is a cinema release. Time Out's October guide lists it for UK cinemas on 9 October, and the UK listing at Flicks gives it a 15 certificate for strong language. Sony Pictures Releasing handles the US release, also on 9 October. Dates and availability vary by country, so check your local cinema listings.