World premiere at Lincoln Center

Director Luca Guadagnino unveiled his tech-industry drama Artificial on Monday, 5 October 2026, at Alice Tully Hall during the 64th New York Film Festival. Written by screenwriter Simon Rich, the film dramatizes the 2015 creation of OpenAI as a non-profit research lab and the corporate showdown in November 2023 that briefly removed Sam Altman from his post. The premiere brought together cast members Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Ike Barinholtz, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Billie Lourd, Nicholas Hamilton, Will Price, and Will Angus alongside distributor Neon chief executive Tom Quinn. Screenwriter Simon Rich noted during the premiere that he wrote the script as a warning about the speed of artificial intelligence development, tracing his early concern to a gifted childhood classmate who entered AI research.

Garfield and the portrayal of Sam Altman

Andrew Garfield stars as OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, preparing for the role over two to three months by reviewing public appearances and conducting informal interviews with people who know the executive. An early attempt to apply facial prosthetics was abandoned after Guadagnino judged the results ineffective, prompting Garfield to apply Stanislavski acting methods and subjective accounts to build his performance. Garfield noted during the festival presentation that his perspective evolved after first seeing Altman testify before the United States Congress on AI regulation.

“We need to shine the light as bright as possible at the nooks and crannies of people we're giving all of our autonomy and power to.”

Yura Borisov plays OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who acts as the narrative moral center as technical capabilities outpace corporate safety precautions. Borisov, who connected with the role after noting he shared an 8 December birthday with Sutskever, depicts the co-founder leading the boardroom vote to dismiss Altman before employee protests and Microsoft intervention forced a reinstatement. Garfield spoke about the responsibility of depicting real figures.

“I feel a tremendous amount of compassion for what that must feel like, being on the inside of his soul, going like, that's not me.”

Production journey and studio shift

The 40 million dollar production originated at Amazon MGM Studios under producers David Heyman, Jeffrey Clifford, Jennifer Fox, Rich, and Guadagnino. Amazon MGM dropped the completed project earlier in 2026 after parent company Amazon entered a 50 billion dollar cloud infrastructure partnership with OpenAI through its AWS division. Distributor Neon acquired global rights to the film in June 2026, bypassing an initial plan to skip film festivals to mount an awards campaign starting at Lincoln Center. Electronic musician Damon Albarn composed the synthesizer-driven score.

Ensemble cast and winter theatrical release

Artificial lands alongside several autumn 2026 film projects examining technology figures, including Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning, Alex Gibney's documentary Musk, and Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's Elizabeth Holmes feature You Can See Everything. The ensemble features Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, Cooper Hoffman as OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Monica Barbaro as chief technology officer Mira Murati, and Will Angus as Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei. Additional roles are filled by Mark Rylance, Chris O'Dowd, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Koch, Angus Imrie, and Thaddea Graham. Neon will release Artificial in United States cinemas on 25 December 2026, before launching the film across the United Kingdom on 22 January 2027.