Ex Machina now on Netflix — Alicia Vikander’s overlooked performance

Published Feb. 2, 2026, Alex Garland’s 2014 science-fiction film Ex Machina is now on Netflix. The film centers on Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), who is invited to administer a Turing test to a robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander) at CEO Nathan Bateman’s (Oscar Isaac) remote compound.

The movie frames its central experiment around a modified Turing test. The review explains the original 1950 test introduced by Alan Turing and notes that in Ex Machina Caleb holds extended, in-person conversations with Ava through glass: if she can convince him she has human feeling and intelligence despite her visible machine parts, she will pass.

Caleb’s week of conversations with Ava gradually leads him to believe in her humanity and to develop romantic feelings, while his interactions with the erratic, sometimes cruel Nathan add tension. The film’s confined compound setting, intermittent lockdowns caused by computer glitches, and its small cast give it a stage-play feel that intensifies the sense of claustrophobia.

Ava’s appearance — a beautiful human face and silhouette layered over a see-through mechanical frame — was created with seamless effects, and Ex Machina won its sole Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The review emphasizes that Vikander performed Ava in-person (her face is entirely hers) rather than as a fully CGI motion-capture character, and that her restrained, slightly distant portrayal is deliberate and central to the role.

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