The Last Screenwriter

The Last Screenwriter is a 2024 English-language Swiss science fiction drama directed by Peter Luisi, billed as the first feature-length English-language film whose screenplay was written entirely by ChatGPT. Its running time is given as 72 minutes on the film's own site and Wikipedia (Screen Daily put it at 76). It was released free on its website, lastscreenwriter.com, and on YouTube on 5 July 2024, as a not-for-profit project.

Luisi wrote the first prompt, which in part asked for a plot in which a screenwriter realises he is less good than artificial intelligence at writing. He then had ChatGPT 4.0 produce the characters, a step-by-step outline and individual scenes, between 18 and 22 December 2023, in English because he says ChatGPT is much better in English than German. His only edits were shortening repetitive dialogue and cutting some scenes, and the filmmakers say neither he nor the cast could change a word. Luisi has called the story "perhaps the most personal story I have ever told", and has described his own role as like a director, assistant writer or editor working with the AI. The prompts and script are published on the site, and Luisi's wider claim that the AI wrote it alone has been questioned by outlets that argue his idea and editing shaped the work.

Luisi is a Swiss filmmaker whose earlier credits include Vitus, Switzerland's 2007 entry for the foreign-language Oscar according to Screen Daily. He also edited this film and produced it with David Luisi through Spotlight Media Productions. Principal photography took place in January 2024 with a cast of professional UK actors, led by Nicholas Pople, Bonnie Milnes and Anna Arthur; Rafael Kistler shot it, Martin Villiger composed the music, and the site lists funding from the Federal Office of Culture, the Zurich film foundation and SRG SSR. Wikipedia gives a budget of $850,000, while Screen Daily described the project as self-financed after Luisi's funding applications were turned down.

The world premiere was set for 23 June 2024 at the Prince Charles Cinema in London, but the cinema cancelled it on 18 June after some 160 to 200 complaints (the figure varies by report) about "the use of AI in place of a writer"; it said it had not known the script was AI-written when it accepted the private hire. Luisi said he respected the decision but thought the cinema should not have backed down over a vocal minority, and the film was then shown to a closed audience on 23 June. Luisi also said the Locarno Film Festival did not select it. It later played as a free-entry screening at Croatia's Cinehill Film Festival in July 2025. On YouTube the full film had 115,223 views when read on 2 October 2026.

Reviews were unkind. Kevin Maher of The Times gave it two stars out of five, calling it "bizarre, unintentionally hilarious and certainly worthy of exhibition", and Swiss broadcaster SRF found the characters shallow and the twists predictable. Book and Film Globe's William Schwartz called it a silly modern-art project that works "surprisingly well as mockable camp", and noted that the script's AI character, written as a lifelike avatar, appears in the film as a device resembling an Amazon Alexa.

Wikipedia notes that The Diary of Sisyphus was the first feature film written with AI, and that The Last Screenwriter is the first in English. Coverage framed the cancellation as part of the argument over AI in creative work that followed the 2023 Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes, and Luisi said he made the film to start a conversation about AI's effect on filmmaking.