Ex Machina (2014)

An awe-inspiring directorial debut for screenwriter Alex Garland, and my favorite film of the 2010s.


Directed by: Alex Garland
Cinematography by: Rob Hardy


English novelist turned screenwriter turned director, Alex Garland, put the up-and-coming production/distribution company A24 on the map with his astonishing directorial debut Ex Machina - a stylish, disquieting sci-fi thriller about artificial intelligence.


Founded in 2012, A24 first caught people’s attention with its eccentric millennial comedies, and has since become an absolute juggernaut of independent cinema, specializing in fresh and inventive, boundary-pushing films. In the last few years, A24 has reeled in a titularly fitting twenty-four Academy Award nominations, with six wins, including a Best Picture for Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight in 2016, itself a cinematic milestone. Just to see how the company has grown over half-a-decade, here are their notable films from each year.
2013: The Spectacular Now, The Bling Ring, Spring Breakers
2014: Enemy, Locke, Under the Skin, A Most Violent Year
2015: Ex Machina, Room


Between Ex Machina and his follow-up Annihilation (2018), Garland has proven to be an immaculate storyteller, crafting intelligent, deeply layered, philosophically rich, aesthetically innovative modern classics of the sci-fi genre, heralding him as one of the most exciting new talents, and best new visual artists in the industry. His hybrid technicartistic ability to reach into the future and manifest conceptual ideas visually is flabbergasting.


Alicia Vikander’s stunning performance as Ava, combined with the film’s Oscar-winning visual effects rendering her artificial body, make Vikander so believable as an android that it’s legitimately jarring when she puts on skin to look human later in the film; she seems more realistic when we’re literally seeing through her torso to her glowing circuitry. That inversion of belief speaks volumes to the power of film.



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