Luca Guadagnino’s new OpenAI drama Artificial has made its debut at the New York Film Festival, and the first reactions are calling it provocative, frightening and one of the director’s strongest films in years.
The dark comedy stars Andrew Garfield as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and recreates one of Silicon Valley’s most dramatic corporate crises: Altman’s sudden firing from OpenAI in 2023 and his return to the company just days later.
Early reactions have particularly praised Garfield’s transformation, along with Yura Borisov’s performance as OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Andrew Garfield transforms into Sam Altman
Garfield’s performance has quickly become the centre of the conversation around the film.
Critics have described his version of Altman as a complicated mix of charm, ambition and menace, with the actor portraying the tech executive during the internal battle that briefly removed him from control of one of the world’s most influential AI companies.
The film does not appear to treat the story as a conventional corporate biopic.
Instead, early reactions suggest Guadagnino turns the OpenAI crisis into a tense and darkly comic examination of power, control, ambition, greed and responsibility at the centre of the artificial intelligence boom.
Several critics have singled out Garfield’s performance as one of the film’s biggest strengths, praising the way he shifts between charismatic entrepreneur, eccentric executive and something considerably more unsettling.
Yura Borisov emerges as another standout
Garfield is joined by Anora breakout Yura Borisov, who plays Ilya Sutskever.
Sutskever was one of OpenAI’s most important technical figures and played a central role in the events surrounding Altman’s temporary removal.
Borisov’s performance has also received enthusiastic early responses, with critics highlighting the emotional conflict of a scientist confronting the implications of technology he helped create.
The dynamic between Garfield and Borisov appears to form much of the movie’s dramatic core, giving the corporate struggle a more personal dimension.
Elon Musk, Mira Murati and Geoffrey Hinton also appear
Artificial features a large ensemble playing some of the most recognisable names in the modern technology industry.
Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk, one of OpenAI’s original co-founders, while Monica Barbaro portrays former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati.
Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance appears as Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist often described as one of the pioneers of modern artificial intelligence.
The cast also includes Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd.
The screenplay was written by former Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich.
Guadagnino turns Silicon Valley into a dark comedy
Early viewers have repeatedly described Artificial as funny and frightening at the same time.
Rather than presenting the OpenAI drama as a straightforward reconstruction of corporate events, Guadagnino appears to use satire to explore the enormous power concentrated inside the companies developing artificial intelligence.
The film’s tone has been compared to a corporate thriller mixed with dark comedy, with critics praising its sense of urgency as AI continues to reshape technology, business and everyday life.
Music also plays an important role, with Damon Albarn providing an electronic and atmospheric score for the film.
For Guadagnino, whose recent work has moved between romance, horror, drama and sports cinema, Artificial represents another major stylistic shift.
Sam Altman has already seen Garfield’s transformation
Altman never met Garfield during production, but he unexpectedly encountered the film being shot close to his home.
The OpenAI chief later recalled walking outside for coffee and seeing cameras, along with an actor dressed like him and carrying a nearly identical backpack.
What surprised him most was Garfield’s physical impression of him, including the way the actor walked.
The strange encounter gave Altman an early glimpse of how closely the production was recreating his appearance and mannerisms.
Guadagnino, meanwhile, has said he was not concerned about how Altman or the other real-life figures depicted might respond to the movie.
For the director, people with significant power also carry significant responsibility to society — an idea that appears central to the film itself.
The movie nearly faced its own Silicon Valley drama
Artificial also experienced complications behind the scenes.
The $40 million film was originally associated with Amazon MGM Studios, but the company later dropped the project after entering into a major partnership with OpenAI that included a reported $50 billion investment.
In June, Neon stepped in to complete the film.
That unusual production history has only added another layer to a movie already centred on the relationship between technology, corporate power and Hollywood.
An awards campaign is already taking shape
Following its New York Film Festival premiere, Artificial is already positioning several cast members for awards season.
Garfield and Rylance are expected to compete in the supporting actor category, while Borisov will be campaigned as a lead actor.
Barbaro is expected to compete in supporting actress.
The early response suggests the film could become a serious awards contender, particularly for its performances.
‘Artificial’ arrives this Christmas
Artificial will open in cinemas on Christmas Day, distributed by Neon.
With Andrew Garfield transforming into one of the most powerful figures in technology, Yura Borisov earning some of the strongest praise of his career and Guadagnino turning a real corporate crisis into a dark satire about the AI age, the film is already emerging as one of the season’s most talked-about releases.
And if the first reactions are any indication, Artificial may be less interested in explaining how artificial intelligence works than in asking a more uncomfortable question: what happens when the people controlling it become more powerful than the systems designed to hold them accountable?
