Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Artificial’ to World Premiere at New York Film Festival (EXCLUSIVE)

New York Film Festival audiences will be the first to see “Artificial,” director Luca Guadagnino‘s movie about OpenAI founder Sam Altman.

The buzzy drama, which Neon acquired after Amazon MGM dropped the nearly competed film, will world premiere on Oct. 5 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Guadagnino and the cast, including Andrew Garfield, Monica Barbaro, Yura Borisov, Ike Barinholtz, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman and Chris O’Dowd, are expected to attend.

“Artificial” stars Garfield as Altman and centers around the tumultuous time when the boss was controversially fired and then rehired by the AI giant. Barbaro plays Open AI’s chief technology officer Mira Murati, Borisov is the OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever who ousts Altman, and Barinholtz portrays Elon Musk. Producers on the movie include David Heyman, Jeffrey Clifford, Guadagnino, Jennifer Fox and Simon Rich.

“Artificial” became one of the buzziest films of the season after Amazon MGM announced in June that the movie would be “better served if it were released by a different studio.” The company’s decision to jettison the project raised more than a few eyebrows around town because it came just a few months after Amazon signed a major partnership with OpenAI, including a $50 billion investment. Plus, Altman attended the wedding of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos in 2025. Multiple studios, including Mubi and Focus, circled “Artificial” before it landed at Neon.

“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,” says NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim. 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 history with NYFF includes “Call Me by Your Name,” which was a main slate selection, “Bones and All” and “Queer,” which were spotlight selections, and “After the Hunt,” which opened last year’s festival.

The 64th edition of New York Film Festival, which takes place from Sept. 25 through Oct. 12, will also feature James Gray’s crime drama “Paper Tiger,” starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller; Ava DuVernay’s documentary “14th”; director Tony Gilroy’s music drama “Behemoth!” with Pedro Pascal, Olivia Wilde and Will Arnett; and Takashi Yamazaki’s kaiju sequel “Godzilla Minus Zero.”