With its impeccable pedigree and movie-star good looks, Harvard is cinematic shorthand for academic excellence. But most of the movies that say they take place at Harvard — including “The Social Network” — don’t. Since 1970, Harvard has had a policy of not allowing film crews on its campus, and filmmakers have had to find clever strategies to depict the Ivy League school.

The Hollywood spotlight will shine on Harvard in “The Social Network,” the highly anticipated Facebook movie that goes behind the ivy-covered walls to chronicle the birth of the massive online Friendfest. The flick, due out Oct. 1, is based on a book by Boston author Ben Mezrich about the origin of Facebook in a Harvard dorm room by alienated computer nerd Mark Zuckerberg.

The new Ben Affleck film “The Town’’ portrays the region as a haven for bank thieves, who pull off dramatic robberies donning masks with guns blazing, but the reality is far from colorful. It turns out the region isn’t “the bank robbery capital of America,’’ as the movie posters proclaim. Massachusetts ranked eighth in robberies per resident last year, down from number one in 2008. And most real-life bank robberies are more mundane.

Actress Melissa Leo isn’t prone to hyperbole, so when she says “The Fighter’’ is a “great motion picture,’’ she means it. Leo, who plays Micky Ward’s mom in director David O. Russell’s biopic of the Lowell-bred boxer, says the movie is beyond memorable. (“The Fighter’’ is due out in December.)

Ben Affleck’s Boston bank-robber tale is not only a contender for one of the 10 Best Picture nominations, but could land a nod in an acting category as well. “Either Jon Hamm or Jeremy Renner could easily end up in the Supporting Actor category,” said BoxOffice.com editor Phil Contrino, citing the film’s robust ticket sales.

Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” (made in Massachusetts) is one of the most financially successful films ever made. Not only that, it is one of the most widely decorated films ever made, collecting three Oscars as well as ranking highly on hundreds of top films lists including being named as one of the top 100 films ever made by Total Film, the 5th best film ever made by Empire, and the 48th best film ever made by the American Film Institute. Read more to discover the ten reasons why it deserves all the praise it gets.

Ben Affleck made off with a bigger-than-expected haul at the weekend box office in North America on Sunday as his heist thriller “The Town” surprised observers with a strong No. 1 opening.

According to Nikki Finke’s ”Deadline Hollywood” website, the Charlestown-set crime drama “The Town” is the surprise winner of Friday’s box office with a predicted $8.5 million gross.

It’s easy to see why Ben Affleck cast George “Slaine” Carroll Jr. as a shady character in “Gone Baby Gone.” Or why Affleck hired him to play a Charlestown bank robber in his new movie “The Town.” The 6-foot-tall Dorchester-born rapper is an intimidating physical presence with a raspy grumble of a voice flavored with a thick Boston accent.

When Ben Affleck needed to add some brawn to his shoot-’em-up flick “The Town,” he hired real-life Townie Dennis McLaughlin. McLaughlin, a 6-foot-2, 300-pound, fourth-generation longshoreman from the square mile, plays Rusty, henchman to actor Pete Postlethwaite’s (“In the Name of the Father”) villain Fergus Colm.

Arlington businessman Fred Gevalt has pumped $1 million into a feature documentary film that mocks the way America tries to keep its skies safe. “Please Remove Your Shoes” premieres Monday at the Boston Film Festival.

When we who write about the working class and underclass in Boston choose to do so, “crime fiction” (and its cinematic brother, film noir) often best serve our purpose. The crime novel is custom built to address issues of class warfare and the ills society foists on the people it flies over. When Dickens wrote about the underclass in London, I’m sure there were those who would have preferred he write about the Upper Crust–but that would be to miss the point. Dickens’s London wasn’t the London, it was a London. And so it is with Ben Affleck’s Boston.

Denis Lehane, who attended the premiere at Fenway Park on Tuesday (Affleck directed the adaptation of Lehane’s “Gone, Baby, Gone’’), said if anything, the movie is so visually gorgeous in its treatment of the iconic brownstones and the Bunker Hill monument, it will make people want to move to Charlestown. “My wife kept saying, ‘I can’t believe we live there,’ ’’ he said.

“Locked In,” formerly known as “Valediction,” is a made-in-Mass. thriller about a couple (played by Ben Barnes and Sarah Roemer) whose daughter is left in a coma after a car accident. The girl, however, continues to haunt her father who, at the same time, is being stalked by the creepy Renee (played by Eliza Dushku).

“Girlfriend,’’ an indie film shot entirely in Wayland, Massachusetts, made it onto the bill at the Toronto International Film Festival. But even cooler is the fact that the film has been a hit. Wayland-bred director Justin Lerner has already sold out two screenings in Toronto and has plans to host a third on Sunday.