'The Social Network' and 12 More Movies That Defined a Generation

Peter Travers: Rolling Stone Magazine

The Social Network (2010)
Can a movie really define a generation? The Social Network comes damn close. It uses the tangled roots of Facebook, created by anti-social Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) to show how technology is winning the battle against actual human contact, creating a nation of narcissists shaping their own reality like a Facebook page. If youth can't see itself in this movie, it's just not paying attention. Here are 12 other movies from the past half century that caught a generation in the act of defining itself.



Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
A never-better James Dean, in the only one of his three starring roles that ironically did not get him an Oscar nomination, captures teen alienation better than anyone had up till that point. Dean's death at 24 the year of Rebel's release cemented his iconic status. As his character Jim Stark tells a cop: "If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused, and didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything, if I felt that I belonged someplace..."

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
No one expected that this tale of 1930's-era bank robbers, played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, would reflect a 1960's world of sex, violence and a need to rebel. But it did. Director Arthur Penn, who died this week, used his movie to mirror the world in which he lived. He succeeded in classic style.

The Graduate (1967)
Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock gets out of college with no hint of where to go ("Plastics?") at a time when every other graduate seems to be starting a revolution. Time has only enhanced this satire's comic bite. Some scenes could be right out of The Social Network, as when Benjamin's asks Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), the older, married woman he's screwing, "Do you think we could say a few words to each other this time?"

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick gave the 1960's a head trip to define itself in this futuristic tale of space travel. It seems prescient now that HAL 9000, the film's hero and villain, is a machine with a human fear of death: "I'm afraid," he famously tells Dave, the astronaut who disconnects him: "Dave, stop. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it."

Easy Rider (1969)


A Clockwork Orange (1971)


All the President’s Men (1976)


Star Wars (1977)


This Is Spinal Tap (1984)


The Breakfast Club (1985)


Do the Right Thing (1989)


Fight Club (1999)



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