The Artificial first reactions out of NYFF crown Andrew Garfield’s Sam Altman as the most unsettling tech portrait of a crowded season.
New York just hosted a two-night showdown between Hollywood’s two biggest tech movies, and the Artificial first reactions suggest Luca Guadagnino won it. Less than 24 hours after Aaron Sorkin walked The Social Reckoning down a Union Square red carpet, Artificial had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on Monday, and early viewers came out describing Andrew Garfield‘s Sam Altman as the scariest character on screen this year, AI or otherwise.
Andrew Garfield’s Sam Altman Is the Headline
The early consensus is less “great biopic” than “warning siren,” and almost every reaction starts with Garfield. Viewers kept circling the same idea: his Altman is charming and soft-spoken on the surface and quietly frightening underneath, a performance several called a career best.
The Sorkin Comparison Everyone Is Making
The timing invited it, and critics did not resist. With The Social Reckoning opening Friday, several reactions framed Artificial as the real successor to The Social Network, and Joshua Rothkopf went furthest, suggesting Guadagnino had beaten Sorkin at his own game.
A Horror Comedy, With Yura Borisov as Its Heart
The tone is the other big talking point: a film that plays as a pitch-black comedy before curdling into something closer to horror. Yura Borisov, as OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, was singled out as the moral center, and Ike Barinholtz‘s Elon Musk drew laughs.
Not Everyone Was Sold
The praise was not unanimous. A few viewers found the tone uneven and the final stretch too long, which is worth watching as full reviews arrive.
The first full review is just as heated. Deadline’s Pete Hammond called it “perhaps the most important movie you will see this year,” and our own review is up now.
Who Plays Who in ‘Artificial’
Simon Rich‘s script tracks OpenAI from Sutskever’s student days with Geoffrey Hinton in Toronto through the November 2023 boardroom crisis, when Altman was fired and then brought back within days. Garfield plays Altman, Borisov plays Sutskever, Monica Barbaro plays chief technology officer Mira Murati and Cooper Hoffman plays Greg Brockman. Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk, Mark Rylance is the film’s voice of caution, and Jason Schwartzman turns up as an unnerving figure who shows Sutskever a possible future. Chris O’Dowd and Billie Lourd round out the ensemble. Damon Albarn wrote the score, and the film runs two hours and 20 minutes with a PG-13 rating.
The Anora Connection
Here is a detail nobody is talking about yet: the two big tech movies of the week share a lineage. Borisov earned an Oscar nomination for Anora, and his Anora co-star Mikey Madison, the film’s best actress winner, plays whistleblower Frances Haugen in The Social Reckoning. Neon, which released Anora and won best picture with it, is now releasing Artificial, so the studio behind that awards run is betting on Borisov again.
That bet came cheap. After Amazon MGM Studios, where the film was developed, dropped it, Neon reportedly took it on without paying an upfront fee in exchange for committing to a $15 million marketing spend, according to The Hollywood Reporter. If the reactions hold, that is one of the shrewdest acquisitions of the year.
What It Means for the Awards Race
When we first saw the Artificial trailer in September, the question was whether Guadagnino could make boardroom politics cinematic. NYFF just answered it. Our Golden Globes predictions already had Garfield and Albarn’s score in the race, and Monday night makes both look safer.
The bigger picture is a season crowded with tech titans: Alex Gibney‘s Musk is in theaters, Nathan Fielder‘s You Can See Everything tackles Elizabeth Holmes, and Sorkin’s film opens Friday after a Silicon Valley debut of its own. Artificial arrives last, on Christmas Day, and if these reactions hold, it will have the final word. It is also another feather for a festival having a banner year, as our NYFF64 lineup breakdown laid out.
