Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial’ Reveals First Look and Plot Details Starring Andrew Garfield

The first look at Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, starring Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, has been revealed by the New York Film Festival.

The film has been added to the Main Slate of the 64th New York Film Festival and will have its world premiere on October 5, 2026, at Alice Tully Hall in New York. The 64th New York Film Festival will run from September 25 through October 12.

Guadagnino’s Artificial is a thrilling, funny, and deeply human drama that explores the high-stakes consequences of artificial intelligence and technological ambition.

Here are the plot details for Artificial:

In 2003, Soviet-born computer scientist Ilya Sutskever (Yura Borisov) began studying artificial neural networks under University of Toronto professor Geoffrey “Godfather of AI” Hinton (Mark Rylance). A decade later, while employed by Google, Sutskever fatefully crosses paths with a young entrepreneur named Sam Altman (Garfield), the eventual co-founder and CEO of OpenAI. Among our boldest auteurs, Guadagnino (previously at NYFF with Call Me by Your Name, Bones and All, Queer, and After the Hunt) takes his biggest swing yet for this headlong plunge into our doomsday moment, with a script by Simon Rich that probes the increasing gray areas between human and machine, truth and lies.

The cast of Artificial includes Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever, Mark Rylance as Geoffrey Hinton, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman as Greg Brockman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch, Billie Lourd, Will Angus, Thaddea Graham, Nicholas Hamilton, Angus Imrie, and Will Price.

NYFF Artistic Director Dennis said, “The most remarkable thing about Luca Guadagnino’s sly and sobering new film is that it finds the perfect tone to tell the story of how we arrived at the AI precipice. Artificial traces this trajectory with clear-eyed horror, dark humor, and a sense of existential urgency. If ever there was a movie for its moment, this is it.”

Guadagnino’s Artificial became one of the season’s most talked-about films after Amazon MGM dropped the movie in June. The studio said it would be “better served if it were released by a different studio.” This surprised many because Amazon had recently announced a major partnership with OpenAI worth $50 billion. Several studios, including Mubi and Focus, later showed interest in the film before Neon acquired it.

Following its New York Film Festival premiere, Artificial will head to the BFI London Film Festival for a gala screening on October 11.