The Social Dilemma
Directed by Jeff Orlowski
- documentary
- drama
The story
This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.
What it’s like
Talking-head interviews shot in plain, tightly framed rooms, with former tech insiders sitting in front of bookshelves and muted office backdrops, give the film a clinical, almost confessional feel. Its dramatized sections play out in a cool, blue-grey digital palette: a family's dinner table lit by the flat glare of phone screens, a teenager's bedroom washed in pale notification glow, and shadowy server-room corridors that look like surveillance footage. Graphics are sleek and glossy, and the score is a restless electronic pulse that tightens whenever the argument turns to manipulation. The pacing is brisk and lecture-like, with frequent cuts between experts and fictional scenes, so the mood is anxious and urgent rather than contemplative. The emotional register runs from indignant to quietly grieving, following a family slowly unsettled by what their devices are doing to them. Intensity is low on screen: no gore or physical violence, though it touches on teen self-harm and suicide and carries sustained unease about manipulation and surveillance. Suited to a focused evening of watching, or to anyone curious about how their feeds are designed.
More films like The Social Dilemma
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved The Social Dilemma and we’ll explain which ones fit you.
