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The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin and Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, the other principals involved in the website's creation. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book.[3] The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010.

The film received widespread acclaim, with critics praising it for its editing, acting, score, direction and screenplay. However, some people, including Zuckerberg himself, criticized the film for its many inaccuracies. The Social Network appeared on 78 critics' Top 10 lists for 2010; of those critics, 22 had the film in their number-one spot. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers 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." It was also Roger Ebert's selection for the best film of the year.

It received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Fincher), and Best Actor (Eisenberg), and won three for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. At the 68th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

In late 2003, 19-year old Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg is dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright. After returning to his dorm, Zuckerberg insults Erica on his blog and creates an on-campus website called Facemash, which allows users to rate the attractiveness of female students and uses pilfered photographs. He receives six months of academic probation after traffic to the site crashes parts of Harvard's network. Facemash's popularity attracts the attention of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their business partner Divya Narendra, which leads to Zuckerberg working on their dating website called Harvard Connection.

Zuckerberg approaches his friend Eduardo Saverin with an idea for what he calls Thefacebook, an online social networking website exclusive to Harvard University students. Saverin provides $1,000 seed funding, and the site becomes popular throughout the student body. When they learn of Thefacebook, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra believe Zuckerberg has stolen their idea, while also stalling on developing their own website. They raise their complaint with Harvard President Larry Summers, who is dismissive and sees no potential value in either a disciplinary action or in Thefacebook website itself.

Saverin and Zuckerberg meet fellow student Christy Lee, who asks them to "Facebook me", a phrase which impresses both of them. As Thefacebook grows in popularity, Zuckerberg extends the network to Yale University, Columbia University and Stanford University. Lee arranges for Saverin and Zuckerberg to meet Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who presents a vision for the company very similar to that of Zuckerberg. He also suggests dropping the "The" from Thefacebook. At Parker's suggestion, the company moves to Palo Alto, with Saverin remaining in New York seeking advertising support. After Parker promises to expand Facebook to two continents, Zuckerberg invites him to live at the house he is using as the company headquarters.

While competing in the Henley Royal Regatta for Harvard, the Winklevoss twins discover that Facebook has expanded to Oxford, Cambridge and LSE, and they decide to sue the company for theft of intellectual property. Meanwhile, Saverin objects to Parker making business decisions for Facebook and freezes the company's bank account in the resulting dispute. He later relents when Zuckerberg reveals that they have secured $500,000 from angel investor Peter Thiel. However, Saverin subsequently sues when he discovers that the new investment deal allows his share of Facebook to be diluted from 34% to 0.03%, while maintaining the ownership percentage of all other parties.

The entire story is intercut with scenes from depositions taken in lawsuits against Zuckerberg and Facebookone filed by the Winklevoss twins, the other by Saverin. The Winklevoss twins claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea, while Saverin claims his shares of Facebook were unfairly diluted when the company was incorporated. At the end, Marylin Delpy, a junior lawyer for the defense, informs Zuckerberg that they will settle with Saverin, since the sordid details of Facebook's founding and Zuckerberg's own callous attitude will make him highly unsympathetic to a jury. After everyone leaves, he sends a friend request to Erica Albright on Facebook, and refreshes the page every few seconds waiting for a response.

An epilogue reveals the following information: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss received a settlement of $65 million, signed a non-disclosure agreement, and rowed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, placing sixth; Eduardo Saverin received a settlement of an unknown amount and his name was restored to the Facebook masthead as a Co-founder of Facebook; the website has over 500 million members in 207 countries and is valued at 25 billion dollars; and Mark Zuckerberg is the world's youngest billionaire.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said, "What attracted me to [the film project] had nothing to do with Facebook. The invention itself is as modern as it gets, but the story is as old as storytelling; the themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class and power. [...] I got a 14-page book proposal that Ben Mezrich had written for his publisher for a book he was going to call The Accidental Billionaires. The publisher was simultaneously shopping it around for a film sale. That's how it wound up in my hands. I was reading it and somewhere on page three I said yes. It was the fastest I said yes to anything. But Ben hadn't written the book yet, and I assumed that Sony was going to want me to wait for Ben to write the book, and I would start a year from now. They wanted me to start right away. Ben and I were kind of doing our research at the same time, sort of along parallel lines."[7]

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The Social Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia