Movie Review: THE SOCIAL RECKONING

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 9th, 2026 / 01:40 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison, Jeremy Strong, Betty Gilpin, Gbenga Akkinagbe, Wunmi Mosaku, Bill Burr, Portia Doubleday
Writer: Aaron Sorkin
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Distributor: Columbia/Sony
Release Date: October 9, 2026

THE SOCIAL NETWORK was released in 2010. A drama about the founding of Facebook, with Mark Zuckerberg (as played by Jesse Eisenberg) turning it from a misogynistic university online rating of women students’ looks to a worldwide commodity encompassing everything, the movie was written by Aaron Sorkin, who won an Oscar for his screenplay, and directed by David Fincher.

Now Sorkin has written THE SOCIAL RECKONING another fact-based look at Facebook a decade or so on from THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Sorkin has also taken on the directing reins. He’s arguably not as concerned with eye-catching imagery as Fincher was, but his gift for sharp dialogue and story momentum shows up just as reliably.

While midway through the closing crawl, several nonfiction books, including BROKEN CODE by Jeff Horwitz and THE POWER OF ONE by Frances Haugen, are oddly referenced as “research material,” that these tomes don’t get a “based on” writing credit suggests that Sorkin took a number of liberties.

Even so, the protagonists in THE SOCIAL RECKONING are named Jeff Horwitz played by Jeremy Allen White, Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, and Mark Zuckerberg, played this time around by Jeremy Strong.

A prologue shows us a young white woman (Portia Doubleday) being appallingly racist to two police officers. We gradually learn the relevance of this to what follows.

THE SOCIAL RECKONING’s primary timeline slides around from 2019 and 2021. In 2019, Jeff arrives at the San Francisco office of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. He’s late for his interview because he couldn’t figure out how to operate his rental car’s GPS. His prospective new boss Christina (Betty Gilpin) is nonplused that a tech reporter wouldn’t know such a thing, but Jeff makes the distinction that he’s not a tech reporter – fresh from the D.C. beat, he’s an investigative reporter who will be examining what’s newsworthy in the tech world. Jeff’s editor Andy (Gbenga Akinnagbe) is a bit more enthused than Christina about the possibilities here.

At about the same time, Frances – dedicated, grouchy, idealistic – is an engineer on Facebook’s social integrity team, the group tasked with policing the site for hateful or violence-prompting posts. (Ah, the good old days.) When the unit is dissolved, Frances starts to have questions, does some research, and finds the algorithms are actively herding a not-insubstantial percentage of users toward extremist Facebook groups.

When her bosses don’t want Frances exploring this further, to say nothing of not wanting to do anything themselves, she reluctantly contacts Jeff as a reporter. At first, she just wants to alert him to the matter without any further involvement herself. Jeff is frustrated that she won’t go on the record; she’s horrified that, when it comes to the technology involved, she has to explain almost every word to him.

Even people unfamiliar with the historical record know where this has to be headed. This is partly because we see Zuckerberg being prepared for a Congressional hearing (with Wunmi Mosaku and Bill Burr both excellent among those playing his advisors). More importantly, if THE SOCIAL RECKONING doesn’t go where its set-up is pointing, there won’t be a movie – or at least the movie would clash so vehemently with expectations that it would need to be handled a whole different way.

No worries. Filmmaker Sorkin is indeed doing a combination agitprop journalistic thriller and character study. While it will be news to almost no one that a lot of social engagement online has devolved into something that’s at minimum irritating and at maximum homicidal, and there’s a lot of blame to be shared, THE SOCIAL RECKONING serves as a handy, punchy shorthand guide about part of how it got that way. It’s stimulating and educational, if maybe not as shocking in October 2026 as it might have been a while ago.

Meanwhile, true to life or no, we also have Frances increasingly consider her own motivations and what sort of person she wants to be. Madison keeps us engaged throughout. White has less to do emotionally but does it with precision and verve. Strong does a brilliant job of modulating Zuckerberg, going almost whisper-quiet on what is arguably his biggest moment.

THE SOCIAL RECKONING gives us the regular cinematic pleasure of showing us intriguing people on a compelling journey and provides some solid practical information besides.

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