One of the most divisive and H๏τly-discussed topics in the modern film industry is the use of artificial intelligence. Specifically, movies like 2024’s The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez have been criticized for how the filmmakers used AI software to alter the voices of actors who appear on-screen. Such movies have been especially lambasted as they compete for Best Picture at the Oscars in 2025, raising questions about their cinematic authenticity and whether films and their actors should be given awards for AI-generated content.

While there has been public backlash about AI being used to edit the way a movie looks and sounds, its presence in film production has only grown more prevalent. Each year, AI continues to evolve and more and more films use it, making it clear that such technology will remain in the world of cinema for the foreseeable future. So far, Oscar-nominated movies like Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist are only a couple of films that have garnered controversy for utilizing AI voice-editing technology.

9

In Event Of Moon Disaster (2019)

This Film Used AI To Make A Fake Speech By Richard Nixon

Produced by the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, this 2019 short film stands out for being made with the sole purpose of educating people about the power of AI technology. In Event of Moon Disaster depicts U.S. President Richard Nixon delivering a speech to the public in the event that the Apollo 11 mission failed, and the astronauts couldn’t return to Earth.

While the movie had actor Lewis D. Wheeler playing Nixon, according to ZDNet, the filmmakers had Canny AI use their deepfake technology to visually recreate the former president. At the same time, they reached out to the Ukrainian software startup Respeecher to generate Nixon’s voice with AI.

Such innovative technology allowed In Event of Moon Failure to win a News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Media: Documentary in 2021. This achievement helped provide a strong preview of AI’s evolution and Hollywood’s increasing use of it to create content for film and television. Not long after this film’s release, Respeecher became famous for using their technology to clone the voice of a young Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian.

8

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021)

This Documentary Used AI To Recreate The Late Bourdain’s Voice

This 2021 documentary explores the life and career of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who died in 2018. Leading up to the film’s release, director Morgan Neville revealed to The New Yorker that he contacted a software company to create an AI model of Bourdain’s voice that would recite words written by the real Bourdain before his death, such as an email written to the latter’s friend, David Choe.

This revelation sparked much controversy as it raised an ethical debate about using AI to replicate a person’s voice, particularly a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ person’s. According to ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, Neville stated that he had received the blessing of Bourdain’s estate and his literary agent to use AI to recreate the late chef’s voice. However, Bourdain’s ex-wife, Ottavia Bussa-Bourdain, who is also the executor of his estate, contradicted Neville’s claim on X, saying, “I certainly was NOT the one who said Tony would have been cool with that.”

7

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

AI Was Nearly Used To Recreate Val Kilmer’s Voice For The Film

The sequel to 1986’s Top Gun managed to have Val Kilmer reprise his role as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. However, years before the film’s shooting began, Kilmer had been treated and operated on for throat cancer, causing him to lose his natural speaking voice. Kilmer thus worked with the software company Sonantic to synthesize a model of his voice using AI and archived audio recordings.

Sonantic had succeeded in generating a new voice for Kilmer, and Fortune claimed that the actor repeated this process for his role in Top Gun: Maverick. Despite this, director Joseph Kosinski revealed to USA Today that Kilmer spoke with his actual voice in the final cut, but that it had been “digitally altered and blended a little bit just for clarity.” This makes Top Gun: Maverick a high-profile case of AI almost being used to edit a character’s voice for a film, so it didn’t receive much controversy when it premiered in 2022.

6

Alien: Romulus (2024)

This Alien Reboot (Sort Of) Brought An Iconic Character Back To Life

Alien: Romulus heavily used practical effects to bring its terrifying Xenomorphs to life. Nevertheless, in an ironic twist, the filmmakers used artificial intelligence to create an android character resembling Ash, played by the late Ian Holm, in the original Alien. This new android, Rook, was portrayed using an animatronic head and torso based on Holm’s likeness using the actor’s headcast from the Lord of the Rings films.

Before recreating Ian Holm for Alien: Romulus, the production team behind the film gained permission to do so from Holm’s estate. While actor Daniel Betts was hired to voice Rook in the film, the production team used AI to modify the dialogue to make him sound more Holm. Despite receiving criticism for using AI to recreate Holm’s appearance and voice in Alien: Romulus, director Fede Álvarez defended his decision in an interview with the Los Angeles Times:

“We’re not bringing someone back to life and saying, “Ian would have done it that way.” He would have obviously done it differently. We had an actor who was on the set, who worked on the dialogue, who worked with the actors. It’s not like we skipped hiring an actor.”

5

Here (2024)

Robert Zemeckis Used AI Recreate A Young Tom Hanks

Director Robert Zemeckis has always experimented with new filmmaking technology whenever he could. He dabbed with artificial intelligence to create his 2024 film, Here, which showed its two lead actors growing old together as decades pᴀssed in a single room. A significant highlight of this movie is the AI deepfake technology used to de-age actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in real time so they portray their characters at various points in their lives.

While this technology saved the filmmakers a lot of time that could’ve been spent altering the actors’ appearance in post-production, this alone didn’t make their voices sound any younger. As a result, Zemeckis and Zemeckis and his team had Respeecher use their AI technology to de-age Hanks’ voice in Here. This strengthened the illusion crafted in the film by making Hanks’ younger self sound more believable.

4

Better Man (2024)

AI Was Used To Help A CGI Monkey Sing

Singer Robbie Williams’ biopic Better Man made the bold move of presenting the pop star as a computer-generated monkey. While Williams provides the musical vocals for his simian counterpart, actor Jonno Davies provides the normal voice and the motion capture performance for the film’s lead character.

However, as stated in a Tweet from Respeecher’s X account, the team behind Better Man had the software company help create Williams’ voice in the film. The extent to which Respeecher’s AI technology was used to model the singer’s voice in Better Man is unknown.

However, considering the plot of this biopic and Respeecher’s use in prior films, it’s possible the AI was used to de-age Williams’ voice to make his film character sound like he did when he was younger. On the other hand, the AI could’ve been used to alter Williams’ voice during the film’s musical numbers.

3

Endurance (2024)

AI Helped Revive The Lost Crew Of The Endurance

This 2024 documentary explores the history of the sailing ship Endurance, in which Sir Ernest Shackleton helped his crew survive the Endurance’s sinking into the ocean after their vessel became trapped in ice on their Trans-Antarctic voyage in 1914. Just as explorers were able to recover the Endurance in the documentary, so too did the filmmakers use AI to bring back the crew’s voices.

The team behind this documentary had specialists at Respeecher use AI to recreate the voices of Shackleton and his crew using wax cylinder recordings of them. Respeecher also claimed on X that they received aid from voice actors who replicated the way these men spoke. Thanks to this AI technology, the film Endurance was able to have the voices of Shackleton and his men read the words that the real historical figures wrote in their diaries over a century ago, making the documentary even more immersive.

2

Emilia Pérez (2024)

This Musical Gained Even More Controversy For Its Use Of AI

One of the multiple controversies surrounding writer/director Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez is the reported use of AI during the film’s post-production. In an interview with The Guardian, the movie’s re-recording mixer Cyril Holtz revealed that he worked with Respeecher to increase the vocal range of actor Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the film’s тιтular character.

Using AI, Holtz and Respeecher mixed Gascón’s singing voice with that of French pop star Camille, who co-wrote the music for the movie. Holtz justified this use by AI as a necessity, claiming that Gascón’s natural voice couldn’t hit certain notes while singing in the film. He added that this was due to the transgender Gascón having already transitioned into a woman, preventing her from accessing the registers she had before.

However, Holtz claims the use of AI was a backup plan and that the filmmakers tried to make Emilia Pérez sound as good as possible before resorting to getting help from Respeecher. Either way, this use of AI didn’t prevent Gascón from receiving an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the film.

1

The Brutalist (2024)

This Oscar-Contender Used AI To Polish Its Dialogue

Director Brady Corbet and A24’s historical drama, The Brutalist, has received plenty of buzz after receiving positive reviews and competing for several awards, including multiple Academy Awards. However, the movie has come under fire after the revelation that the filmmakers used AI to improve the vocals of its cast digitally.

Specifically, they utilized AI to alter parts of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’s dialogue, in which their characters speak in a Hungarian dialect. Though Brody and Jones practiced with dialect coaches in preparation for the film, Corbet wanted to perfect the dialogue to make sure it sounded 100% authentic to everyone and anyone who watched it.

The Brutalist‘s use of AI has still proven especially controversial as both Brody and Jones have been nominated for Academy Awards for their performances in the film. In an interview with Variety, Corbet defended the use of artificial intelligence in The Brutalist:

“Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents. Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”

Source: ZDNet, The New Yorker, ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, X, Fortune, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian