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● Movie Guide · Last updated May 18, 2026

The Social Network: Plot, Cast, Ending & Where to Watch

2010 · United States of America · Drama · 2h 01m · English

The Social Network is a 2010 United States of America drama film directed by David Fincher. This guide covers the plot, full cast, an overview of the ending, where to watch, and similar films you might want next.

Read Ending Explained → Movies Like The Social Network Where to Watch
DramaEditorial pick
Original Title
The Social Network
Director
David Fincher
Writers
Aaron Sorkin
Country
United States of America
Runtime
2h 01m
Release
Oct 1, 2010
§ 01 Plot · 6 min read

The Social Network Plot Summary

The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Based on the 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, the film portrays the founding of the social networking website Facebook. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book.

● Quick takeaway

The Social Network (2010) is a United States of America drama film, directed by David Fincher, running 121 minutes. In 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg begins work on a new concept that eventually turns into the global social network known as Facebook. Six years later, Mark is one of the youngest billionaires ever, but his unprecedented success leads to both personal and legal complications when he ends up on the receiving end of two lawsuits, one involving his former friend. Stars Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. Critical reception: IMDb 7.8/10, Rotten Tomatoes 96%, Metacritic 95/100. Tagline: "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.." This guide covers the plot, full cast, ending, and where to watch.

§ 02 Cast · 6 roles

Cast and Characters

Jesse Eisenberg headshot
Jesse Eisenberg
as Mark Zuckerberg
Eisenberg's performance is calibrated around a refusal — the refusal to play reaction. In every deposition cutaway, the lawyers in the room are watching for the tell, and Eisenberg gives them nothing; the camera catches the calculation underneath. His delivery of the chair-royalty rejoinder and his blog-post voiceover early in the film establish the cadence Sorkin's script requires: speed without warmth, articulation without disclosure. The closing forty-second hold on his face is built entirely on the trust Fincher places in the actor to keep the inner narration legible without ever once externalising it.
Andrew Garfield headshot
Andrew Garfield
as Eduardo Saverin
Garfield is the film's emotional anchor and the only character given a moment of public breakdown — the broken-laptop scene in the Palo Alto office after the dilution paperwork registers. His earlier scenes are tuned to a quieter register: the careful neckwear at the Phoenix punch event, the New York hotel-room phone calls, the smile he holds when Sean Parker condescends to him at the Sequoia pitch. The arc he is playing is a man who keeps mistaking a friendship for a partnership and a partnership for a friendship in the same conversation.
Armie Hammer headshot
Armie Hammer
as Cameron Winklevoss / Tyler Winklevoss
Hammer performs both Winklevoss brothers via on-set face-replacement work with body-double Josh Pence, and the technical achievement disappears inside the performance. He gives Cameron the institutional patience — the boathouse line about being Harvard gentlemen — and Tyler the legal impatience, the brother who has decided long before Cameron that the analogue ladder is broken. The film's running joke about how identical they sound is the screenplay's quiet way of conceding that the distinction the script keeps insisting on is partly cosmetic.
Josh Pence headshot
Josh Pence
as Tyler Winklevoss (Body Double)
Pence performs every Winklevoss scene on set as Tyler opposite Hammer's Cameron, and his face is then replaced in post with a second Hammer performance shot on a green-screen plate. The collaboration is more than a technical credit — Pence and Hammer worked out the brothers' physical rhymes and divergences in rehearsal, including the small differences in how each one carries his shoulders in the boathouse and deposition scenes. The Henley sequence in particular depends on the body work Pence laid in long before any face replacement was applied.
Justin Timberlake headshot
Justin Timberlake
as Sean Parker
Timberlake is the film's most dangerous character precisely because he is the most charming. The Napster-and-Plaxo backstory is buried inside the performance as a low-grade paranoia about lawyers and investors that the steakhouse dinner monologue turns into a recruiting pitch. The Stanford-bar scene with the Victoria's Secret anecdote, the dropped 'The,' the Palo Alto rental house with the slip-and-slide — Timberlake plays the entire arc as a man who knows exactly how short his runway is and is performing the future tense at full volume to outrun it.
Max Minghella headshot
Max Minghella
as Divya Narendra
Minghella plays the third Winklevoss-side plaintiff as the one who reads the room earliest. His deposition cutaways are tuned slightly hotter than the twins' — he is the partner who has already concluded, before the brothers have, that the Harvard administrative apparatus is not going to deliver redress and that the only remaining venue is a Boston federal court. The scenes in which he argues for moving faster are the screenplay's quietest argument that the Winklevoss case might have been winnable on a different schedule than the one Cameron's manners allowed.
§ 03 · Spoiler Zone · Read with care

Ending Overview

How does The Social Network end? Our spoiler-aware breakdown walks through the final act beat by beat — including the choices, motivations, and ambiguous final shot that viewers most often debate.

Read full Ending Explained →
§ 04 Watch · Updated May 18

Where to Watch The Social Network

Availability may vary by region and change over time.

A
Amazon Video
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● Available
A
Apple TV Store
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G
Google Play Movies
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Y
YouTube
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§ 06

Frequently Asked

What is The Social Network about?

In 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg begins work on a new concept that eventually turns into the global social network known as Facebook.

Where can I watch The Social Network?

See the Where to Watch section below for the current streaming, rental, and purchase options in your region.