The Social Network 2010

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Just as you can't stop yourself from checking into Facebook more than once a day, you'll find yourself drawn to The Social Network again and again. It's easily one of the year's best. Read more

Todd McCarthy, indieWIRE: On a first viewing, it seems almost indecently smart, funny and sexy. The second time around... half the time I sat there marveling at the similarities of the story, themes and structure to Citizen Kane. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: The film swaggers with a bravado born of insecurity... Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Mr. Fincher and Mr. Sorkin offer up a creation story for the digital age and something of a morality tale, one driven by desire, marked by triumph, tainted by betrayal and inspired by the new gospel: the geek shall inherit the earth. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Do movies ever attempt to analyze the entire weave of life? Now they do. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The movie's lustrous, deep-focus frames and headlong pace are difficult to resist. Its an entertainingly cynical small movie. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: This account of Facebook's founder, and of the website's explosive growth, quickly lifts you to a state of exhilaration, and pretty much keeps you there for two hours. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: One of the many remarkable things about David Fincher's movie The Social Network is the constant realization, as you watch, that this movie should by all rights have been exceedingly dull. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: The Social Network sometimes relegates the actual effects of Facebook to passing lines of dialogue and offhand references. But there's plenty to explore in its causes, and Zuckerberg's story ends up feeling bigger than his own life. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: With The Social Network, director David Fincher has come up with a movie that, in telling the turbulent story of whiz-kid Mark Zuckerberg's creation of Facebook, isn't just compelling. It's great. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: On the level of craft, the movie's just absurdly enjoyable. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Watching The Social Network, the real Zuckerberg may feel as if someone has hacked into his Facebook account and changed his profile picture. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: An unlikely marriage of directorial and writerly sensibilities has produced one of the most stimulating films of the year. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Despite the whiz-bang topicality, the headlong intelligence, and the many sharp collegiate scenes, this new-style movie hews pretty closely to an old-style playbook. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Somehow the results come together like the perfect status update. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: The Social Network shares creative DNA with a handful of classic, zeitgeist-savvy films like Network and All the President's Men, as well as more recent fare such as The Insider and Michael Clayton. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: There's a cool precision and honesty to The Social Network, the story of the founding of Facebook, which guarantees its entertainment value even as it limits its emotional impact. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The Social Network has everything you want in a thriller for the brain: huge doses of ego and duplicity, corporate backstabbing, and some very layered performances. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Everyone involved went out and made the film they were trying to make, and it's often funny and generally captivating. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: A mesmerizing, bewildering and infuriating protagonist makes this movie about Facebook's creation a must-see. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Smartly written by Aaron Sorkin, directed to within an inch of its life by David Fincher and anchored by a perfectly pitched performance by Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network is a barn-burner of a tale that unfolds at a splendid clip. Read more

Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News: You will know The Social Network is something very special from its first scene. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Despite the ceaseless yammering, The Social Network delivers the heady, rib-tickling rush of an action picture, and it gradually builds to an emotional wallop that blindsides you. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Rushes through a coruscating series of exhilarations and desolations, triumphs and betrayals, and ends with what feels like darkness closing in on an isolated soul. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The Social Network is one of those movies that cares more about whether something "feels" real than whether it is. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: The Social Network is terrific entertainment - an unlikely thriller that makes business ethics, class distinctions and intellectual-property arguments sexy Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Weeks after seeing it, moments from it will haunt you. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: It's the finest film in many years to open the New York Film Festival. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The Social Network combines a multitude of impressions and conflicting first-person accounts in a trajectory that is refreshingly coherent. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's astonishing that a movie mostly set in front of computer screens and in deposition rooms, a movie where the end is already known, has the hold of a suspense film. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is the 2010 Oscar season's first drama to live up to the hype and expectations associated with it. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Thanks to David Fincher's straightforward direction, Aaron Sorkin's Oscar-level script and a half-dozen sharp performances, this is one of the best movies of the year. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: 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. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: 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. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Is The Social Network one of the fall season's best big movies? Without question. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The writing is strong, and the drama -- the drama of betrayal -- is ever present. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: What a joy to sit in a theater and be engaged, surprised, challenged, amused. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Fincher gives the story the vitality and clear, coherent tension of a thriller. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Fincher has made quite a few terrific films, from Se7en to the underrated Zodiac. But this time he's outdone himself. The Social Network is riveting from start to finish, and a master class in directing. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: [P]roof that Fincher's directorial verve can imbue virtually any tale with urgency, be it the search for a killer or the search for a killer app. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It has the staccato wit of a drawing-room comedy, the fatal flaw of a tragic romance and the buzzy immediacy of a front-page headline, all powered by a kinetic engine typically found in an action flick. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It may be the year's best movie. Read more

Leah Rozen, TheWrap: At last, a movie you can actually discuss afterward. And not just on Facebook or Twitter. No, you'll want to chew it over in person, with friends, for hours. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A film this rich emits all kinds of literary and cinematic reverberations. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: Despite the fun of the parties, the intrigue of the legal wranglings and the humour of the dialogue, Fincher and Sorkin never let us forget that we're complicit in their story (or at least 500 million of us are). Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Brilliantly directed by David Fincher, this provocative film probes the impetus for invention, the changing face of social interaction and the limits of friendship -- the old-fashioned kind and the version linking 500 million Facebook users. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Continues Fincher's fascinating transition from genre filmmaker extraordinaire to indelible chronicler of our times. Read more

Eric Hynes, Village Voice: The Social Network succeeds, per journalism's most basic directive, in showing not telling. And like great journalism, a great film can capture the reality of the present -- and even make art out of it. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: The Social Network's first act is its best -- a hellishly precise youth movie rattling along on a clamor of computer jargon. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: What looks on paper like a static series of dead-end conversations comes to life as a vital, engaging, even urgent parable for our age. Read more