The first reviews for Andrew Garfield‘s new movie Artificial are in!
The 43-year-old actor plays OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in director Luca Guadagnino‘s new movie, which had its world premiere at the 2026 New York Film Festival earlier this week.
The movie focuses on the five-day period in 2023 when Sam was removed as CEO of OpenAI before returning to the company days later.
Following the premiere, critics are sharing their thoughts, and several are comparing the movie to Andrew‘s 2010 hit The Social Network.
Keep reading to find out what critics are saying about Artificial…
What are critics saying about Artificial?
The movie currently has a 92% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 13 reviews as of Wednesday (October 7).
The early response has been overall positive, with particular praise going to Andrew and Yura Borisov, who plays OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Variety‘s Clayton Davis called it Luca‘s “best film in a decade” and praised Andrew and Yura‘s performances.
“Hopefully, this is a film that can be more than a reminder of all that we might lose,” TheWrap notes in its own review, calling it a “sensual, terrifying audit of our present and future apocalypse.”
Next Best Picture‘s Matt Neglia described the movie as both entertaining and frightening while praising Andrew‘s transformation into Sam, adding that it “might be the most urgently relevant film of our time.”
LA Times critic Joshua Rothkopf called it “the spiritual sequel to The Social Network,” going on to say that it arrives “at a vision as scary as Colossus: The Forbin Project.”
Notably, Andrew starred as Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for the role.
Not every review has been as enthusiastic. The Guardian gave Artificial three out of five stars, noting some “genuinely chilling” elements while calling it “muddled” and a “tonal jumble of a film.”
Consequence gave the movie a B, noting that it doesn’t surpass other true stories about Silicon Valley and that the movie is “not steeped in subtlety.”
Screen International criticized the screenplay for failing to “offer any real insight” into the makers of the technology, calling it “surprisingly toothless.”
Who else stars in Artificial?
In addition to Andrew and Yura, the cast includes Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk and Mark Rylance as AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton.
Jason Schwartzman, Zosia Mamet, Cooper Hoffman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch and Billie Lourd also appear in the movie. Saturday Night Live alum Simon Rich wrote the screenplay.
Artificial is scheduled to open in theaters on December 25 through Neon.
Sam recently revealed what Andrew got right about playing him, as well as what he thinks the movie appears to have gotten wrong. Andrew also disputed one of Sam‘s claims about their alleged interaction.
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