New York — Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial” premiered Monday night at the New York Film Festival, with early reactions from film critics praising the Sam Altman-centered drama as provocative, unsettling and among the director’s strongest work in years.
Next Best Picture editor-in-chief and critic Matt Neglia called the film “as entertaining as it is terrifying.” He described it as a sharply written story about power, control, ambition and greed that could be “the most urgently relevant film of our time.”
Neglia also praised Andrew Garfield’s performance as Altman, saying the actor captures both the OpenAI CEO’s charm and his more disturbing qualities. Yura Borisov, meanwhile, was praised for playing the brilliant mind behind OpenAI while grappling with the ethical consequences of what he helped create.
He also highlighted Damon Albarn’s electronic and atmospheric score, as well as Guadagnino’s visual style. Neglia called the movie potentially the director’s funniest and scariest to date, describing it as “provocative, engaging, and downright horrifying.”
Editor Eric Kohn described “Artificial” as a “pitch-perfect dark comedy,” writing that Garfield balances the character between “movie monster, buffoonish mogul, and evil genius.” Kohn called it a fun and frightening experience that reflects the contradiction at the heart of the story.
Film critic Jairo Jiménez praised Guadagnino for taking aim at Silicon Valley through an intense and satirical approach. He called the movie a “feverish, visceral corporate drama” and argued that its central idea is that what is truly artificial was never the machines, but the boardroom.
Variety’s Clayton Davis was similarly enthusiastic, calling “Artificial” Guadagnino’s “best film in a decade” while praising Garfield and Borisov for reaching “new heights.”
The film is set during the turbulent period in 2023 when Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, was fired and subsequently rehired by the artificial intelligence company. Its own path to theaters was also complicated. In June, Neon finalized a deal to complete the $40 million production after Amazon MGM Studios abandoned the project months earlier following its major partnership with OpenAI, which included a $50 billion investment.
Guadagnino has said he is not concerned about how Altman or others portrayed in the film might react. Speaking to Vulture, the director said he was not “afraid” of their response and argued that people with significant power need to understand their responsibility to the community.
Altman has never met Garfield, but the tech executive recently acknowledged that the actor resembled him closely while filming near his home. In a Vanity Fair cover story, Altman recalled walking down the street to get coffee and seeing cameras along with a man dressed like him and carrying the same backpack.
“It was very strange,” Altman said, describing the experience as feeling like he had entered “some weird glitch of the simulation or something.”
“Artificial” marks another collaboration between Guadagnino and Garfield following their work together on 2025’s “After the Hunt.”
The film also stars Ike Barinholtz as OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Borisov as former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Mark Rylance as Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton. Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd are also part of the cast. “SNL” alum Simon Rich wrote the screenplay.
Ahead of the premiere’s conclusion, Neon’s awards plans for the film were also revealed. The studio will campaign Garfield and Rylance in the supporting actor category, while Borisov will compete in lead actor. Barbaro will be submitted in supporting actress.
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