Critics who caught Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI drama at its New York Film Festival premiere Monday night are calling it provocative and terrifying. The film dramatizes the 2023 boardroom chaos at OpenAI, when CEO Sam Altman was fired and then rehired within days.
‘Artificial’ Reactions From Critics
Matt Neglia, editor-in-chief of Next Best Picture, called the film “as entertaining as it is terrifying,” adding it’s “a brilliantly written human story about power, control, ambition, and greed that might be the most urgently relevant film of our time,” according to Variety. He described the overall experience as “provocative, engaging, and downright horrifying,” and said it’s “the movie of the moment that we may not even be able to look back on if the vision of the future it presents comes true.”
Variety’s own Clayton Davis went further, calling ‘Artificial’ “Guadagnino’s best film in a decade” and writing that stars “Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov soar to new heights.” Film critic Jairo Jiménez praised the movie as “a feverish, visceral corporate drama that proves what is truly artificial was never in the machines, but in the boardroom,” calling it “an essential film,” per Variety.
The Performances Drawing Early Buzz
Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman, and Neglia singled out the performance as one of Garfield’s “most unsettling and transformative,” one that “equally captures his disarming charm and unnerving malice,” according to Variety. Yura Borisov, who plays former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, also drew praise from Neglia as “magnificent” in a role he described as “wrestling with the moral implications of the creation he has helped unleash upon the world with intelligence and empathy.”
The ensemble also includes Ike Barinholtz as OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and Mark Rylance as Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, Variety reported.
Why The Film Took A Winding Path To The Screen
The reactions arrive after a bumpy production history. Amazon MGM Studios dropped the $40 million project months before release, following the company’s partnership with OpenAI that included a $50 billion investment, according to Variety. Neon closed a deal in June to complete the film instead.
Guadagnino told The Hollywood Reporter that screening the film for various studios exposed what he called an “elephant in the room”: potential conflicts of interest. “Once you understand the nature of every company’s business, despite and beyond their love for the movie, you realize that some decisions are not the decisions they would’ve made in a vacuum,” he said. He added that the shifting relationship between Hollywood and Silicon Valley tycoons makes “the idea of art, the idea of representation, very slippery,” comparing the current climate to how a film like Citizen Kane “could probably not be done” today.
A Hollywood Reporter account noted a separate Vulture report had claimed the production required extensive reshoots after on-set disasters, but producers disputed that account, saying some actors departed because of contractual stop dates for other projects. The 34-day shoot took place in September 2025 and wrapped on schedule, and a source familiar with Amazon’s oversight said the film did not go over budget, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Guadagnino also addressed concerns about Altman’s reaction to the film directly with Vulture, saying, “I think that people that have a lot of power should be very much aware that you must be responsible for the community.” He told The Hollywood Reporter the film was shot on 35mm, with no artificial intelligence used anywhere in its making. “I’m an old-fashioned guy.
I’m analogic. I shoot on 35. I believe in good old performance,” he said, invoking filmmaker Jean Renoir’s belief in “leaving the door open to reality on a movie set.”
What’s Next For Artificial
‘Artificial’ opens in theaters on Christmas Day from Neon. Wider critical reviews and audience reactions are expected to follow as the film moves from its festival premiere toward its theatrical release.
Reporting from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter contributed to this story.
Don't stop here
Every Score. Every Story. One Home.
Breaking sports, entertainment and news from across the Total Apex network, updated all day.
Get the Full Story →
