Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media

Culture
Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media
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February 2024 sees the 20th anniversary of the world’s biggest and perhaps most recognised social network, and the one that arguably launched the social media craze: Facebook. Regardless of your platform preference, it’s estimated that 60% of the world uses some form of social media to chat, share, protest, celebrate and connect with others across the globe, and has changed the world around us – for better and for worse. The enormous influence of social networks is, naturally, reflected in the stories we see on the big screen. Here, we take a look at the best movies of the past 10 years that depict how social media affects our lives.

By Victoria Luxford

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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The Social Network (2010) – What kind of mind is able to change the world so fundamentally? That’s the question asked in David Fincher’s drama, where Jesse Eisenberg plays a dramatised version of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of Facebook. The authenticity of the film’s plot points is questionable, but the movie nonetheless provides a fascinating look at the vision and conflict it took to create one of the internet’s biggest and most successful platforms. The Social Network has been hailed as one of the most important films of the 2010s, described by some critics as “The Citizen Kane of the Internet Age”. Fincher has been reported as saying that a sequel isn’t out of the picture, but making it would be “a can of worms”.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Past Lives (2023) – A contender for this year’s Oscar race has social media right at its heart. Childhood sweethearts Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) are separated when Nora’s family moves from South Korea to New York. Years later, the two reconnect on social media and begin to question the nature of destiny. Given the distance, much of their connection is formed over video chat and messaging, showing the ways in which we can keep in touch with those we care about even if they are on the other side of the world.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Eighth Grade (2018) – The first generations of kids born into social media are now all grown up, and comedian Bo Burnham’s touching coming-of-age story shows how the effects of such platforms can be both positive and negative for young people. Eighth grader Kayla (Elsie Fisher) navigates the pressures of teenage life, pretending to be a positive motivational creator on social media when, in fact, she is timid and lonely in real life. This contrast sets her on a path of personal growth, as she learns to follow her own advice. A thoughtful and uplifting story that will speak to many growing up at a time when ‘likes’ equal popularity.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Unfriended (2014) – The growing impact of connected devices has given birth to a whole new genre of filmmaking, dubbed ‘screenlife’ by movie aficionados. Similar to the found-footage movies of the 2000s, screenlife is perfectly exemplified in the supernatural horror genre – such as in this film, which unfolds entirely through a video call between high school friends haunted by a figure from their past. Putting a modern spin on both supernatural horror and the teen slasher movie, Unfriended may not be an entirely realistic depiction of the social media experience (or at least we hope not!), but it does illustrate how much the online world surrounds every aspect of the stories we tell.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) – The past meets the present as retro arcade video game character Ralph (voiced by John C Reilly) must travel through the internet in order to save his friend. It’s a fun satire about the volume of information available nowadays, as Ralph tries to get famous on a video platform and discovers the difficulties of online hate before learning to accept who he is. The best family movies are ones that tackle real issues in a gentle way, and this Disney-produced social media adventure feels relatable even years later.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Chef (2014) – Many of the films on this list are about the dangers of the internet, which is, of course, fertile ground for drama and horror. This cosy comedy, however, depicts its potential for renewal. Jon Favreau plays a celebrated chef who loses his job at a top restaurant after ranting at a critic online. With an unexpected blank slate, he starts a food truck and uses Twitter to build hype for his new business and rediscover his passion for food. A light, fun story co-starring Robert Downey Jr, Sofia Vergara and Scarlett Johansson, it’s nice to see a representation of online life that doesn’t have anything sinister simmering beneath the surface.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Catfish (2010) – A documentary so successful it became its own verb. To ‘catfish’ someone is to start an online relationship with them while pretending to be someone else. The term came from this documentary in which filmmaker Nev Schulman begins an intense online relationship with a woman, named Megan, over Facebook, only to discover she isn’t all she seems. Incredibly tense and well-documented, the film was one of the first to explore the dark side of the internet and the potential dangers posed by those with dishonest intentions. Fourteen years later, it’s remarkable how the film predicted many of the online traps commonly recognised today.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Nerve (2016) – Catfish directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman also made this fast-paced thriller that examines how far someone could go to attract an online audience. It imagines an app where people can either be Players or Watchers, with Players acting out random Truth or Dare stunts for the entertainment of the Watchers. It’s a suspenseful and obviously heightened portrayal of live online gaming communities, but also a fictional warning of how quickly the need for attention can get out of hand.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Zola (2021) – While many online campaigns have resulted in films getting made, one was made by a post itself. Zola is not exactly a film ‘about’ social media, but rather an unbelievable story born from it. The film is based on a Twitter thread composed by waitress and stripper A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King, about a misadventure with a fellow exotic dancer who convinces her to travel to Florida. Chaotic – and X-rated – the film has become a cult hit among viewers intrigued by the wild antics of the characters involved. However, it also shows how real life can inspire fascinating entertainment when it’s chronicled online.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Ingrid Goes West (2017) – Think of your favourite influencer. To what lengths would you go to be their friend? For Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza), it involves moving to Los Angeles, spending a large inheritance on renting a swanky house, and infiltrating the life of Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), an Instagram star who turns out to be much less interesting than her posts suggest. Sensationalised for comedy, the story is nonetheless an interesting look at who we choose as heroes when we become adults, and how we can come to feel like we know the people on our small screens as intimately as we do our friends.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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The American Meme (2018) – Where would social media be without memes, and what happens to those who become them? This interesting documentary explores this unusual path to stardom, talking to everyone from global superstar Paris Hilton to celebrity royalty Hailey Bieber about how they use their platforms to build an audience. Exploring the highs and lows of going viral, it’s a truly enlightening look at the ways in which social media has influenced our culture, and how being famous can mean something entirely different in this day and age.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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The Circle (2017) – Movies have been used as cautionary tales about where we may be heading, and thriller The Circle offers a very alarming vision of a potential future. Tom Hanks, normally a friendly face on film, here portrays a tech CEO who introduces the world to The Circle, a social network that keeps track of its members a little too closely. Co-starring Emma Watson and John Boyega, it’s a useful reminder that, at a time when everyone and everything is accessible, boundaries have never been more important.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Fyre (2019) – One of the most notorious festivals of the 2010s was undoubtedly Fyre Festival, an event that promised high-paying customers a luxurious music experience, only for revellers to arrive on an island that was not remotely prepared to host them. The disaster is well known, but this documentary explores how such a fantasy can be sold on social media, with influencers and celebrities taking to Instagram to promote the event before anything had been planned. We also see how quickly news can spread, as posts from Fyre attendees illustrated the appalling conditions to a captivated world experiencing perhaps a smidge of schadenfreude.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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The Tinder Swindler (2022) – When Catfish first played in cinemas, the idea of assuming a false identity online was a relatively new one for most. Twelve years later, we would see how far the deceit can go with the story of Simon Leviev, who posed as the son of a billionaire to attract women across the globe on Tinder, before conning them out of large sums of cash. The intricacy of his plot is startling, as is the number of women he was able to scam and the amounts he was able to extract from them. Viewers’ scepticism about how anyone would fall for this con slowly erodes, as we hear from the victims and see the images he posts and the narratives he creates in order to seem legitimate.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Mainstream (2020) – Andrew Garfield knows all about the spotlight, having shot to international stardom as one of the actors who portrayed Spider-man. Here, he plays the opposite of a superhero in Link, a performance artist who mocks society’s obsession with social media, only to become exactly the thing he claimed to hate. While obviously a satire of how many of us are glued to our phones, the film also warns against going too far in the opposite direction.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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The Hater (2020) – While most of the films on this list offer an American perspective, satire The Hater is a Polish story that underlines the global reach of social media. Diving into the dark side of the web, it delves into troll farms, a cottage industry in which companies profit from spreading ‘fake news’, disseminating misinformation and making negative comments. While fictional, this thriller holds up a mirror to the potential dangers posed by bad actors online, and how logging off can be the healthiest thing to do when you don’t know what to believe.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Sweat (2020) – Another Polish production, this time examining how finding a large audience that loves what you do can be a wonderful thing, but it is no substitute for genuine human connection. The sparkling drama film follows Polish fitness influencer (Magdalena Koleśnik), who has many fans and loyal followers yet craves the intimacy of a real-life connection, ultimately revealing how things can seem perfect through a carefully edited post – and how our personal lives need as much attention as our social feeds.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Searching (2018) – Every parent’s worst nightmare gains a digital footprint in this screenlife thriller from the producers of Unfriended. Star Trek actor John Cho stars as a father whose daughter goes missing, leading him on a digital hunt to find her before it’s too late. The edge-of-your-seat story explores how someone’s online life can be used to piece together their whereabouts, turning regular people into detectives working behind their own screens. A sequel, Missing, arrived in 2023, indicating that this concept has retained its relevance.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Love, Guaranteed (2020) – In the same way it transformed art, commerce and communication, social media has also revolutionised dating. Online romance was once the purview of the very lonely, but few singles today can say they haven’t at least tried one of the many popular dating apps. Nothing is guaranteed, however, which is the concept behind this charming rom-com about a man (Marlon Wayans) who sues a dating company after going on 1,000 dates without success. A warm and sentimental reminder that, whether online or offline, love can take its time finding you!

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media.
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Ready Player One (2018) – We end with a film that may do for social media what Back to the Future did for society: offer a glimpse of the future that may or may not be accurate! This adaptation of the novel by Ernest Cline imagines OASIS, a game/social network where anyone can be anything, do anything, and inhabit any space. While the reality the characters inhabit outside of the OASIS isn’t positive, Steven Spielberg’s movie does focus on the limitless potential of our online selves to be creative and passionate, and to fight for a world that’s a little bit more inclusive.

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Social Cinema: The Best Movies About Social Media

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