Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman in first teaser for AI biopic 'Artificial'
After Amazon dropped the film, Neon will release Luca Guadagnino's OpenAI biopic in US cinemas on Christmas Day, with a New York Film Festival premiere in October.
Key points
- Director Luca Guadagnino's film about OpenAI chief Sam Altman is titled Artificial and will open in US cinemas on 25 December.
- Amazon MGM Studios dropped the project in June 2025 after news of OpenAI's involvement with Amazon sparked controversy.
- Neon, the distributor behind Parasite and Longlegs, picked the film up and will premiere it at the New York Film Festival in October.
- Andrew Garfield stars as Altman in the first teaser trailer, which The Guardian described as "creepy".
The first teaser for Artificial, the biopic of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, landed this week, and it has people talking for all the right unsettling reasons.
Andrew Garfield plays Altman, the most recognisable face in the current AI boom. The footage is brief. It is also, by most accounts, deeply strange.
What happened to the film before it even reached cinemas?
Amazon MGM Studios originally held distribution rights, then walked away in June 2025. The timing matters: reports linked the decision to tension around Amazon's own ties to OpenAI, the company Altman runs. A studio making a film about your business partner is an awkward position.
Neon stepped in. The indie distributor has a track record of backing films that make audiences uncomfortable in interesting ways.
What does this film have to do with AI news?
Quite a lot. Artificial is not a documentary, but it is the first major studio-level film to put the AI industry itself under a dramatic lens. Altman has become a public shorthand for the technology's promise and its controversies: OpenAI's products, its funding battles, its governance crisis in late 2023 when the board briefly fired him.
Hollywood making a film about Silicon Valley's AI moment is a signal of how far the subject has moved from trade press into general culture.
For ordinary viewers, the film may be the first time the story of how today's AI tools came to exist feels like something worth watching on a Friday night.
When and where can people see it?
The world premiere is at the New York Film Festival in October 2025. Neon releases it in US cinemas on 25 December 2025, positioning it squarely as awards-season viewing.
No UK or international release dates have been confirmed yet.
Common questions
Is this film officially connected to OpenAI or Sam Altman?
Neither Guadagnino nor Neon has confirmed any cooperation from Altman or OpenAI. The film appears to be an independent dramatic work, not an authorised portrait.
Who is Luca Guadagnino?
Guadagnino is an Italian director best known for Call Me by Your Name and the 2024 tennis film Challengers. He is known for slow, psychological character studies, which makes him an interesting choice for a story about the world's most scrutinised tech executive.
