The tech backlash is now in theaters — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Four 2026 films — Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning, Nathan Fielder's You Can See Everything, Alex Gibney's Musk documentary, and Luca Guadagnino's Artificial — take critical portrayals of Big Tech founders, marking a visible departure from mythologizing treatments like David Fincher's 2010 Social Network.
- The Social Reckoning frames Mark Zuckerberg as a destabilizing villain, drawing on whistleblower Frances Haugen's allegations — first reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2021 — about Instagram's mental health impact on teens and Facebook's role in spreading misinformation.
- Gibney's Musk documentary has faced unusual distribution interference: X blocked ads, Musk threatened legal action against Gibney, and TikTok has continued refusing to run Musk ads — a stance that stands out given Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison's role leading the consortium that purchased TikTok's US business last year.
- Amazon backed out of distributing Guadagnino's Artificial in June, months after announcing a $50 billion investment in OpenAI; the film is now set for wide release on December 25th, which could land near OpenAI's impending IPO.
- You Can See Everything gave Fielder unusual access to Holmes and her partner William Evans in the rental home where they lived during the month before Holmes began serving her 11-plus-year prison sentence, with the film turning on whether Holmes's push for 'radical transparency' is genuine.
- HBO, now controlled by Skydance Corporation (run by Larry Ellison's son David), has reportedly committed to airing Gibney's Musk documentary on its platform in January, even as TikTok continues to hold back the film's ads.
Why it matters: The intersection of Big Tech money and Hollywood is becoming a story in itself: Amazon pledged $50 billion to OpenAI and then quietly dropped a Sam Altman biopic, while TikTok's ongoing ad block on the Musk documentary traces directly to the Ellison family's political and financial entanglements. Studios financially tied to the subjects of critical films are visibly reluctant to amplify those portrayals — which makes the films that do emerge, like Artificial's December 25th wide release, more commercially and culturally loaded than a typical prestige biopic.
Ask SkimNews
