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Ex Machina

Billionaires, am I right you guys? They’re so narcissistic and selfish that they think they are exclusively in the right and are doing all they can to better the world. But oftentimes, the reality is that they are making the world better for themselves and their billionaire compatriots, while making it a whole lot worse for everyone else. And the thing that drives them to this point is oftentimes not divine intervention or chasing a calling, but rather it is driven by insecurity and loneliness. As David Ehrlich said back in 2015 in his review of Ex Machina, “Added to my evolving thinkpiece on AI stories that are really about how threatened men feel by the women around them.” Whether David was referencing Oscar Isaac’s character or Alex Garland, the director of the film, is up to you.

Ex Machina came out back in 2015, which makes it the most recent film I’ve written about here since A Real Pain almost a year ago. I spent most of 2025 trying to stay on top of all the films currently being released, while taking a break in between to knock off a bunch of films on the “100 Best Films of the Century” list that I’d never seen before. Ex Machina missed the cut, placing 142nd on the Readers’ Choice edition of the list, but it made it onto my watchlist for 2026. My partner had watched this in the house years ago before I really took a liking to the sci-fi genre, and I’m glad I waited until I had a better appreciation for it because oh boy did this rock my socks off. This was somehow the directorial debut for Alex Garland, who you may also know for directing films like Annihilation and Civil War, while also serving as a writer for 28 Days Later along with the sequels. That a film such as Ex Machina could be his first credit as a director is nothing short of impressive, but what’s more is that he came up with the idea for the film when he was just 12 years old. Garland took a fancy to coding on his family computer and thought the machine sometimes had a mind of its own. Fast forward to 2012 when Garland is working on Dredd, and during his research on consciousness, sentience, and embodiment, he “had an epiphany.” He wrote the idea down and saved it for another day, which turned into what we now know as Ex Machina.

I can’t sit here and pretend like I am smart enough to participate in intellectual discourse about AI, sentience, coding, or what humanity actually is, but I can sit here and tell you that this film didn’t punish me for that. One of the big drawbacks to a lot of sci-fi films can be that they make their audience feel dumb by adding in a lot of technical jargon to make the movie or its characters seem smart. As the saying goes, you don’t have to bring someone down to bring someone else up – and Alex Garland really took that to heart. The dialogue, while still rooted in philosophy and analytics, doesn’t confuse its audience with complex and tech-specific lingo – Nathan (Oscar Isaac’s character) even says so much himself when asking for Caleb’s (Domhnall Gleeson’s character) opinion after his first meeting with Ava (the AI android played by Alicia Vikander). “Just… Answer me this. How do you feel about her? Nothing analytical. Just how do you feel?” While we can view Nathan as just being used as a proxy for the audience’s lack of knowledge on the analytical side of things, I choose to view it as really hitting home on the bigger theme within the film: it’s not about what, it’s about how. Nathan, once again, hit on this later in the film when talking with Caleb about the software used for Ava’s facial expressions. “Here’s the weird thing about search engines. It was like striking oil in a world that hadn’t invented internal combustion. Too much raw material. Nobody knew what to do with it. You see, my competitors, they were fixated on sucking it up and monetizing via shopping and social media. They thought that search engines were a map of what people were thinking. But actually, they were a map of how people were thinking. Impulse. Response. Fluid. Imperfect. Patterned. Chaotic.” This movie is all about feeling, not thinking. Sci-fi typically either falls into the bucket of overly smart and “nerdy” movies or into the bucket of over-the-top action, with muscly guys killing aliens with their bare hands. But Ex Machina, to its credit, falls into an entirely different bucket. It is nuanced, restrained, quiet, and subtle, while also remaining intense and keeping its audience invested from the word “go.” Just think about it – we never once hear Nathan, Caleb, or Ava raise their voice at any point in the movie. The “action” portion of the movie doesn’t come until the climax about 90% of the way through the runtime, but even then, it is incredibly subdued and understated. This is the real magic of the movie for me.

A writer can write a screenplay to have refinement and subtlety, but it is on the actors to actually hit the mark and bring those pages to life. Garland did his part with the screenplay, but our main trio of actors really went above and beyond with their performances. Let’s start with our billionaire tech bro Nathan, played by Oscar Isaac. I’ve always liked Oscar Isaac – he has shown such range in his acting abilities for quite a while now; whether it be a white meat babyface good guy like Poe in Star Wars, or a Duke on the precipice of war like Leto Atreides in Dune, or a narcissistic billionaire who lives in a massive compound by himself in the middle of nowhere who is hellbent on creating the perfect AI humanoid, no matter the cost. Isaac tows the line really well in his performance where we get just enough charisma that a small part of you can’t help but like him, but there is so much mystery and harshness to him that from the moment we are introduced to him sparring on a punching bag, we feel uncomfortable with him. You know something is off, and that he can’t be trusted, but he also brings enough to the table that you can’t just walk away, and you need to know more. His intelligence and bravado lead him to think that he has cornered Caleb at the climax, only to realize that he was outsmarted himself and that his bravado will actually lead to his downfall. As I mentioned earlier, one of the best things about this performance is the subtlety behind it: Nathan never once raises his voice, even when he is frustrated with Kyoko, or catching Caleb red-handed in trying to set him up. He never goes over-the-top with technical jargon or philosophical theorizing; his character is based entirely in feelings and emotions.

Domhnall Gleeson gives us another great performance as Caleb, the young and lonely programmer at Bluebook who thinks he just won a randomized lottery to spend a week with his CEO at his house. My biggest complaint with his performance, as is the same with most of his performances, is why is he forced to use an American accent?? So many of his characters, Caleb included, have no real logic behind them being American…why can’t we hear that glorious Irish accent? I don’t think his American accent is technically bad (I don’t think it is amazing either though), but I just don’t understand why it was pivotal to this character for him to be American – why couldn’t he just be a dude from Ireland who moved to the States for a coding job for the biggest search engine in the world? Anyways…I really liked his performance here! You can basically copy and paste what I said about Oscar Isaac and place it here, but instead it applies to a shy and socially awkward guy who is more in the “victim” camp than the “victimizer” camp. The constant hesitation to form any sort of camaraderie with Nathan due to that mystery we talked about earlier is always met with just enough fascination with both Nathan himself and his work that he keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into this hole with Ava. He can’t help but develop feelings for Ava (which was Nathan’s plan all along) while at the same time feeling hesitant to form any camaraderie with her as well. He is the perfect foil for Nathan, an unassuming loner who is playing right into his hand, until he outsmarts him…but even then, he still played right into Ava’s hand as well, which inevitably leads to his downfall as well.

Finally, we have Alicia Vikander playing Ava, the AI android created by Nathan, who is being examined by Caleb via the Turing Test. Alicia had the hardest role to play by far, as she was not even playing a human being, but she also wasn’t playing a full on “robot” either. This performance had the most nuance of all, and was the most impressive to me – the way she would just ever so slightly stiffen the way her neck moved when she would turn to look at something, or the little glide steps she would take as she walked around, left you almost feeling like you were in the uncanny valley. The moments when the power would cut off and she would have the slightest drop of her smile to show her concern for Caleb in the moments they had to themselves was so intricate and could have gone so much worse in someone else’s performance. All three actors truly brought their best to the table, and it helped elevate the movie from good to great.

We have to give some kudos as well to the partner departments here, like the VFX team, the sound editing team, and the composers of the score. According to Wikipedia, there were no special effects, greenscreen, or tracking markers used during the filming – Ava’s robot body was achieved almost entirely by Vikander wearing a full bodysuit made of polyurethane. The sound editing, especially with Ava, was truly incredible as well; every time Vikander would make those slightly robotic movements with her neck, there was the softest metallic sound that helped indicate there was machinery moving and not muscles and skin. Again, the nuances of this film…just so good. And finally, the score. What a treat! Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow killed this, and the movie was very quickly added to my “Favorite OST” list on Letterboxd. As expected, it was synth-heavy and very “tech” sounding, but there were some little production and instrument choices that gave it just a little bit of a human touch that helped keep those lines blurred of whether Ava was a conscious being or just a robot. Chef’s kisses all around.

With all of that being said, let’s see how some categories make us feel.

By the Numbers

  • Release date: April 10, 2015
  • Budget: $15 million
  • Box office: $37.3 million
  • Run time: 108 minutes (1 hour, 48 minutes)
  • Letterboxd rating: 4.0 ★
  • My Letterboxd rating: 4.5 ★
  • Rotten Tomatoes: 92% (Certified Fresh🍅)
  • Accolades: 125 total nominations, 42 total wins
    • 2 Academy Award nominations, 1 win (Best Visual Effects – won; Best Original Screenplay – lost)
    • 1 Golden Globe nomination, 0 wins (Best Supporting Actress – Alicia Vikander)
  • One: This was Alex Garland’s first feature film that he directed

Best Scene

  • Tearing Up the Dance Floor: Since this movie is pretty weighty, I thought it would be fun to start us off with objectively the most fun scene in the entire thing. “You tore up her picture.” // “I’m gonna tear up the fuckin’ dance floor dude, check it out…” What an iconic line, delivered masterfully by Oscar Isaac. The thing that helps make this scene so fun is that Caleb has just watched Nathan tear up a drawing of Ava’s and he is firmly on his high horse and ready to confront Nathan. However, he finds Nathan blackout drunk and ready for a good time. And believe you me, I had a good time with this scene.
  • You Shouldn’t Trust Him: Our first scene with Ava where she starts to plant the seeds in Caleb’s mind for breaking her out. This includes one of the subtleties I talked about from Vikander, where as soon as the power is cut, she drops her face ever so slightly to show that she means business. Gleeson plays this perfectly as well with being concerned over the power outage but also confused with Ava’s sudden change in tone and her saying that Nathan can’t be trusted. Lots of nuance and great acting from these two in this scene.
  • The Real Test: I’ve referenced this scene multiple times already, so it’s about time we actually watch it. This is not the best scene in my opinion, but this is where we get the best performances out of Isaac and Gleeson. You can see how high and mighty Nathan is, feeling as though he’s ratted out Caleb’s plan to break Ava out, while also revealing that Caleb was the real test, not Ava. But then how quickly (and with such disdain) Caleb reveals that he was the one a step ahead the whole time, having already set the plan in motion the day before. The final turn, though, comes right after this scene ends…
  • Go Back to Your Room: And here it is. Not only my favorite scene of the movie, but the best one as well, in my opinion. We get the final step of Ava’s plan, which should be rightfully referred to as The Prestige – the final and shocking twist of her magic trick, which shows what was really happening the whole time. Ava has used Nathan and Caleb against each other, to her benefit, so she can indeed escape and be free to explore the world and all of its traffic intersections so she can finally people watch. Not only is the acting and directing great here – I love that each time Nathan is stabbed, it is so quietly and calmly done, it doesn’t even seem violent in a way, just a simple means to an end – but the soundtrack also kicks into sixth gear. The original score has been fantastic throughout the film up to this point, but their use of “Bunsen Burner” by CUTS for this climactic scene is just so beautiful; it helps accentuate the calm but decisive actions of Ava and Kyoko. Beautiful.

What’s Aged the Best

  • That score, baby. I had actually heard a bunch of it before I ever saw the movie, because I’m a music nerd like that. I always really liked it, but after having watched the movie now it resonates even more.
  • I mean, the entire premise of the movie has aged incredibly well. It feels like it could have come out today and it would arguably resonate even more than it did eleven years ago when it actually came out. The way that Nathan acts and the way he views his work just felt so prescient in today’s age of billionaires and tech guys who are really pushing AI down our throats.
  • The VFX – the fact that they never once used a green screen for this movie is incredible, and the fact that Ava’s body was accomplished with a bodysuit and digitally painting out some stuff is just remarkable. I never once felt like I was looking at something digitally altered or poorly CGI’d, which really helped keep me invested the whole time. In lesser hands that could have been really distracting.
  • The title is so good. I don’t even really know what it means, but it just sounds great. I know that “ex machina” is like some sort of film term derived from “deus ex machina” but that’s about it. But I can’t really think of a better title for this movie.
  • “I’m gonna tear up the fuckin’ dance floor dude, check it out…”
  • Nathan’s fashion sense has aged really well because you can tell he just doesn’t care at all. He’s not like these other Silicon Valley billionaires who are either wearing expensive suits or dressing like a 16-year-old, he’s just in A-shirts and baggy sweatpants the whole time and can’t be bothered. Love it.
  • Ava’s motif – for all my music friends out there, you might have picked up on this as well. In a lot of movies, different characters have their “theme” music, or a motif, that usually plays when they are on screen. Think of Darth Vader, or Jaws, or Superman. Ava has her own motif as well, and Ben and Geoff were really smart in crafting it: they use mostly bell synths that are played lightly, and it is in a major key, which give it an innocent and almost infantile feel, which absolutely informs how we are supposed to feel towards Ava. She is like a newborn baby, learning about the world for the first time and has such a childlike and innocent curiosity that we can’t help but gravitate towards. It is quite brilliant, give it a listen here.
  • Wherever the heck Nathan’s compound is. I still have no clue where that was supposed to have been (I don’t think it is ever mentioned?) – I know Caleb says that he works and lives on Long Island, but Nathan is in the middle of nowhere. Regardless, it looks absolutely beautiful.

What’s Aged the Worst

  • I mean we could also make the argument that the entire plot of the movie has aged awfully, because of how true it feels, and how it feels like we are absolutely headed in this direction sooner rather than later. AI is absolutely being forced down our throats in our everyday now, including right now. I’m writing in the WordPress engine, and there is constantly an option on the sidebar for me to use AI to help me write a sentence or design a cover art for this post. It has become inescapable now and I hate it.
  • Nathan’s drinking problem is so 2015. If he was a thirty-something tech bro in 2026, he would be switching out his alcohol for green juice and micro-dosing shrooms.
  • Caleb deciding to completely forgo reading any of the NDA that Nathan gave to him because he is just so taken with the idea of being able to say “he was there” when this big discovery was made in the AI industry. I get that he felt pressured and all that (I probably would’ve signed it under duress too) but like, come on man.
  • The room that Caleb stays in. Really Nathan? That’s the guest room in this multi-billion-dollar estate/laboratory that you have? There are no windows, it’s pretty small given how much land and space Nathan has, but most egregious – that TV! That’s like a 45-inch TV at best, what are we doing here.
  • The box office numbers for this movie make me sad. I know it’s an A24 film and they never do too well at the box office simply because they are a smaller distributor than say a Paramount or Warner Bros studio, but I just feel like this movie deserved better! On the other hand, I like that it was made by A24, because it allowed Garland to make exactly the movie he wanted to without shareholders and C-suite execs getting in the way of his vision. So, I guess it’s not that bad actually.

The Jason Clarke Award (What’s Their Name Again?)

Okay so I technically had to go to the credits to find an answer here. Don’t blame me, this movie essentially has three actors in the entire thing, plus Sonoya Mizuno who plays Kyoko, but I didn’t know her from anything else and had never seen her before. So technically, nobody wins this. But in the spirit of handing out awards (we are in awards season now after all), the winner here is Corey Johnson. You may not have even seen him – he is the helicopter pilot who flies Caleb in and Ava out of Nathan’s property. He’s had small roles for most of his career, but I know him best from his role as Ray in The Bourne Ultimatum. Congrats, Corey!

The Jack Nicholson Award (Big Impact, Small Role)

Again, not a lot to choose from here, and it feels like Sonoya Mizuno has to win by default, right? I mean, Corey Johnson’s role adds absolutely nothing to the movie (no offense), and basically all the other credited actors are for the previously used android bodies that Nathan had stored in the closets of his bedroom (weird). I don’t want to take away from Sonoya’s performance here, because I actually think it is quite good – playing an android that is disguised as a human, but it makes total sense when you realize they are in fact an android, is not the easiest thing to do. Plus, she tore up that dance floor with Oscar Isaac. Congrats, Sonoya!

The Roger Deakins Award (Best Cinematography)

There isn’t one specific shot or scene here, but really just a full movie filled with excellent cinematography. Some of my favorites came whenever the power cuts would happen – the lights changing from a soft white to a harsh red would immediately signal the changing of tones from whatever was happening in the scene. A lot of the shots from the hallways of the house are really beautiful too, just something about capturing the entire length of the hallway coupled with how the set design team decided to light them, it really worked for me. Someone on YouTube put together a great three-minute compilation of the best shots from the film, give it a watch here.

Trivial Pursuit

  • Nathan’s house is actually a hotel called the Juvet Landskapshotell in Valldal, Norway.
  • Oscar Isaac said he based his portrayal of Nathan on Bobby Fischer and Stanley Kubrick.
  • Ex Machina won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on just a $15 million budget, beating out the likes of The Revenant ($135 million budget), Mad Max: Fury Road ($150 million budget) and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens ($200 million budget).
  • When Caleb sits at Nathan’s computer and begins typing, the code he writes implements the “Sieve of Eratosthenes” – an algorithm used to identify prime numbers. But in the movie, the program also selects a specific sequence of numbers that resolve to the ISBN 9780199226559, which corresponds to Embodiment and the Inner Life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds, a book on the intellectual history of artificial intelligence.
  • The three main characters all bear meaningful biblical names: Ava is another form of Eve, the first woman; Nathan was a prophet in King David’s court; and Caleb was one of the scouts Moses sent to survey the Promised Land.
  • Jake Gyllenhaal was the original choice to play Nathan, but the two sides could not come to a contractual agreement.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

  • Alicia Vikander: 2 (Vikander appeared in The Green Knight with Joel Edgerton, who appeared in Black Mass with Kevin Bacon)
  • Domhnall Gleeson: 2 (Gleeson appeared in The Kitchen with Margo Martindale, who appeared in Rails & Ties with Kevin Bacon)
  • Oscar Isaac: 2 (Isaac appeared in Sucker Punch with Gary A. Hecker, who appeared in Hollow Man with Bacon)
  • I checked all the major acting credits for this movie, and the highest number was two. The theory lives!

Would My Mom Like This Movie?

Probably not. The main focus is technology and AI, which she doesn’t really care about at all. There are definitely aspects of it that she would enjoy and be invested in, but I think overall she would probably find it kinda weird that a guy was falling in love with a robot.

Conclusion

This movie rules, man. I had such a good time with it, and I haven’t really stopped thinking about it for the last four days since I watched it. I couldn’t really think of much that I would have changed about it, from the casting to the screenplay to the sound editing to the directing to the on-location shooting in Norway with the gorgeous scenery throughout. Just a really masterful movie where everyone involved understood their assignment and hit it out of the park. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I might have to go watch this one again.