Phil Lord and Chris Miller Tapped as Guest Artistic Directors for AFI Fest 2026

Phil Lord and Chris Miller attend the 'Project Hail Mary' premiere at New York's Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center on March 18, 2026. (Photo by Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Amazon MGM Studios)

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have a new project on the horizon.

The Project Hail Mary helmers have been tapped as guest artistic directors for the American Film Institute’s upcoming edition of AFI Fest presented by Canva. As part of the gig, the pair curated a selection of films that inspired their Ryan Gosling-starrer, which earned north of $684 million worldwide from Amazon MGM Studios. Those titles include Harold and Maude, The Muppet Movie and Rififi. They will also sit for a special event, An Evening with Lord and Miller, during which they will sit for a Q&A following a showing of the sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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As guest artistic directors, they follow in the footsteps of other helmers like Pedro Almodóvar, Bernardo Bertolucci, Guillermo del Toro, Ava DuVernay, Greta Gerwig, David Lynch and Agnès Varda.

“Project Hail Mary answered the prayers of movie lovers this year,” offered AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale. “And it is AFI’s honor to welcome two of the most inventive, entertaining and impactful storytellers in the world to AFI Fest 2026 as our guest artistic directors.”

Added Lord and Miller in a statement: “We feel so lucky to be the guest artistic directors for AFI Fest 2026. After years of dragging our friends and families to screenings of films we love, we are delighted to get to do it for hundreds of strangers. We chose four films that inspired us not only while making Project Hail Mary but also as filmmakers and people. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Hal Ashby and Fozzie Bear.”

The milestone 40th installment of AFI Fest is set to take place at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatres on Oct. 21-25. The fest opens with the U.S. premiere of Travis Knight’s animated Wildwood, and will feature showings of Netflix’s The Mosquito Bowl from filmmaker Peter Berg and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgard, Ray Nicholson and Berg, and Sian Heder’s Being Heumann. The full fest lineup will be unveiled on Sept. 29. In the meantime, passes are now available for purchase.

Lord and Miller’s longtime partnership has also produced the Spider-Verse and Lego Movie franchises, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, the 21 Jump Street franchise reboot, Cocaine Bear, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Afterparty and Clone High, among other projects.