The New York Film Festival has traditionally not been a place for studios to launch one of their big awards contenders. The event has served more as a curation of the best films from previous festivals than as a first stop for something major. This narrative obviously got a major asterisk when “Marty Supreme” exploded with its world-premiere surprise screening last year, and other studios clearly took notice of how successful a launch pad that was. Something like “Behemoth!” fizzled as a contender in its NYFF debut, but after the first screening of Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial,” the Best Picture race may have gotten the shakeup it needed. The reception has been generally positive, and it seems like another strong entry in Guadagnino’s filmography, but many are curious how strong it will be in this year’s already competitive awards race, given how timely by design the film is.
It’s been nearly a decade since the Academy recognized a Luca Guadagnino film. Even then, “Call Me By Your Name” only received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Adapted Screenplay in an incredibly weak field. Since then, “Suspiria,” “Bones and All,” “Queer,” and “Challengers” all received plenty of respect but were either too niche in appeal or too abrasive to be fully recognized during awards season. Last year’s “After the Hunt” was projected to be his return to the Oscar conversation, but sank instantly with the bad buzz it received at its Venice premiere. Many have taken away the wrong lessons from this recent run: that “the Academy doesn’t like Luca,” “he doesn’t make Academy films,” or other narratives that imply he will never get in with them again. With a filmmaker as beloved as he is and working as often as he does, it’s only a matter of time until the stars align for him to get a film nominated for Best Picture again. The question now, however, is: could “Artificial” be that film?
Perhaps the film’s best asset is its distributor, NEON. Those following this year’s awards race know that, unlike most years, NEON doesn’t have an undeniable contender they’re pushing. Obviously, in the past they’ve had the Palme d’Or winner, this year’s being “Fjord,” but aside from that award, the reception since its Cannes premiere has only grown shakier. It’s liked enough that it could still get nominated, but there is certainly room for NEON to prioritize something else as their major Best Picture play, should they choose to do so. They also have Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s beloved “All of a Sudden,” but the three-hour-plus drama may be too daunting for most voters to earn him another Best Picture nomination. For many people, the film exists in the shadow of his previous Best Picture nominee, “Drive My Car,” and if enough voters see it as a step down, it could fail to gain traction as a film that desperately needs recognition. There’s a world where it becomes enough of a critics push to get it into the ten, but on paper “Artificial” perhaps has the most going for it of these three.
A big narrative around the film is the nature of its release. Not just the moment in time in which it’s coming out, where artificial intelligence seems to be a bigger threat every day, but the film’s own troubled release. Amazon, which distributed four of Luca’s last five films, also had the distribution rights here; however, earlier this year they dropped the film. Many speculated it was due to Amazon’s ties to the film’s subject, OpenAI, which isn’t the hardest theory to believe. Either way, NEON eventually rescued the film, giving it a Christmas release and a New York Film Festival premiere. Given how much of a hot-button issue AI is, this uncertain chapter only heightens “Artificial’s” urgency, Streisand effect, and all. Whether it earns enough goodwill to receive a Best Picture nomination will depend entirely on the film’s overall reception as more people see it. Currently, it’s sitting at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 74 on Metacritic.
A few slots in the Best Picture race are open right now, and there’s room for a colder, politically charged film like this to fit in there as a film of the moment. It would certainly need to be positioned as NEON’s first or maybe second priority for it to happen, but even then, it may not register widely enough for such a push to work. The film is inherently quite upsetting, and many people won’t like it because they’re reluctant to engage with something as pressing and frightening as what’s depicted here. Particularly for general audiences, how many people are going to go out during the holidays for a two-and-a-half-hour movie about how doomed we all are? It obviously doesn’t need to be a box office hit if critics push it enough during the precursors, but we still have a long way to go before we can gauge the film’s full reception. Not that there’d be any biases or asterisks to apply to the reviews from this screening, but with such a limited pool of reviews, there’s room for consensus to fluctuate. With what we have, though, assuming there isn’t a drastic dip in reception, the reviews here are good enough to push this into the Best Picture conversation with the right campaign.
The main push for the film, likely even more than Best Picture, will certainly be Andrew Garfield in Best Supporting Actor. His chilling and often funny portrayal of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is certainly the film’s highlight. It’s rare for actors to get lone nominations for their films, particularly in the Supporting categories, but something as striking as Garfield’s work here is the kind of thing that should get recognized. There are also plenty of examples of lone nominees getting many precursors but being shut out of the Academy Awards because of their film’s weakness; think Timothée Chalamet in “Beautiful Boy.” That being said, it feels unlikely that the film’s fate would be a lone Andrew Garfield nomination, as there’s plenty else for the Academy to recognize. Best Original Score is another aspect that has been constantly singled out following the world premiere screening, and rightfully so. The work is very distinct and fittingly unsettling, capturing the uncertainty and weight of each scene. It’s a category that seems to align more with Best Picture than many others, unless you’re a branch favorite like John Williams, which composer and songwriter Damon Albarn is not. However, his work on the score and original songs for the film is so strong that it would certainly come along if the film is in Best Picture. The festival even had Albarn perform one of the songs for the audience before the movie began to set the tone for the evening, which was melancholy, to say the least. Best Original Screenplay would likely be in the conversation as well, as Simon Rich’s witty writing is incredibly showy in both its bouncy dialogue and intense tonal balance. After “Digger” and “Behemoth!” exited the race this month, “Artificial” has room to rise and land in a very competitive lineup.
A big show of support for “Artificial” would need to come from international groups like the Golden Globes and BAFTA awards, which, despite seeming oxymoronic, seem much more receptive to films on particularly American-centered political issues. Obviously, despite its American setting, the issues covered here are global. Still, it fits into the same register of representation as “The Apprentice” or “Don’t Look Up,” both of which those two voting bodies supported. Another great indicator would be a Best Ensemble nomination at the Actor Awards. Even without other actors competing for individual nominations, Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman, Yura Borisov (who is admittedly fantastic in the film but probably has no shot at cracking the highly competitive Best Actor category), and the rest of the cast all really boost the film and make it feel like a true ensemble. There is certainly a world where it gets a Best Casting nomination at the Oscars for how it balances all these names and such recognizable figures they’re playing.
If the early buzz for “Artificial” peaks here and the film fizzles out over the next few weeks, so be it. Contenders come and go, and it’s always hard to assert dominance this late in the race unless you’re a craft juggernaut like “Dune: Part Three” inevitably will be. But for a film as biting and timely as this, it’s hard to imagine its voice going quiet. You don’t need to ask AI to verify that, though it will still be interesting to see which of the three NEON contenders for Best Picture- “Artificial,” “Fjord,” and “All of a Sudden” crack the Best Picture lineup as its exceedingly rare for any studio to land three films in the final ten.
Are you excited to see “Artificial?” Do you think it will be nominated for Best Picture? How many nominations are you predicting for it? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, and check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
