Sacha Baron Cohen Officially Resurrects Another of His Most Infamous Characters in Directorial Debut [Exclusive]
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Ali G is officially returning to a much different world 20 years after his last on-screen appearance. Sacha Baron Cohen has kept his controversial white poseur, once hailed as one of Channel 4‘s greatest television characters for his time on The 11 O’Clock Show and Da Ali G Show, tucked away for a while now. Yet, like Borat Sagdiyev before him, the character has been shockingly brought out of retirement to help tackle the issues of today that most frighten and disturb the British comedian in Ali G: Who Iz I. However, he’s not alone among Cohen’s characters in his big return to theaters.
In Cohen’s directorial debut, Ali G: Who Iz I?picks up with the titular walking cultural appropriator “after twenty years spent ‘chillin’, tokin’ and bonin’” right as he learns that his longtime girlfriend is eight months pregnant. With another mouth to feed and more responsibility on the way, he quits lazing around and heads to America in hopes of reclaiming his past glory through the power of documentary with real people, only to find new adversaries overseas who pose a serious threat to himself and his family. It’s a return to Cohen’s guerrilla style of comedy, full of self-admittedly juvenile humor and biting satire pointed at the state of society, political extremism, bigotry, and hypocrisy by those in power. As part of that approach, Collider can share an exclusive sneak peek that welcomes back one of his personas from Who Is America? — Israeli anti-terrorism expert Erran Morad.
The footage straddles the line between funny and chilling as Morad introduces himself to a group of men as an Israeli military colonel with plenty of experience in terror attacks. So familiar with terrorism is he, in fact, that he started two attacks himself. Then, he starts questioning each of his apparent mentees, starting with a Republican Party chairman from El Paso, Texas. He is adamant about trying to stop illegal immigration, claiming that there’s been “huge amounts of terrorism” and deadly gang activity. Morad then jumps from one man to another, often local working-class Americans, several of whom go as far as calling President Joe Biden worse than Hitler for his lack of action and agreeing that there is genocide happening against white conservatives. Cohen, in character, then subtly turns the tables on them, listing the hilariously many jobs immigrants “aren’t” going to do and instead simply says “they’re coming to kill you.”
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Fandom Should You Join? Harry Potter · Lord of the Rings · Star Wars · Star Trek
Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you put on when you need cheering up, how deep you go into the things you love, what you argue about, what you keep on your shelf. Answer them and we will tell you where you belong. Four of the biggest fandoms on earth are taking new members, and they could not be more different from one another.
⚡Harry Potter(Wizarding World)
💍Lord of the Rings(Middle-earth)
⚔️Star Wars(A Galaxy Far Away)
🖖Star Trek(The Final Frontier)
01
What do you put on when you need cheering up? Nobody is brave about this one.
02
How deep do you go into something you love? There is no shallow end here, only different deep ends.
03
What do you and your friends actually argue about? Every fandom has one argument it has been having for years.
04
How do you feel about a room full of strangers? Every one of these comes with a very big room.
05
Where would you rather spend a week? Pick on instinct rather than on budget.
06
What do you believe about people, mostly? All four of these stories have an answer, and they disagree.
07
What is actually on your shelf? Look over at it before you answer.
08
What do you actually want from a story? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your fandom.
Membership Confirmed Your Fandom Is…
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely
different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you
would be having within a week.
Wizarding World · Books 1997 · Films 2001
Harry Potter
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts
works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war
so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting
you.
You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within
about five minutes and has never stopped.
This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every
single person in your life would be.
The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you
do with things you love.
The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the
arguments are about to start all over again.
Middle-earth · Books 1954 · Films 2001
Lord of the Rings
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where
somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth
rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something
enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it.
This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly
alarming, and it has good reasons for that.
Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all,
which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes.
Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make
that argument.
Star Wars · Lucasfilm · Since 1977
Star Wars
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one
where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of
it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a
grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that.
Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly
1980 with no sign of resolution.
The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score
and the look of a used and dented galaxy.
You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good
time.
Star Trek · Paramount · Since 1966
Star Trek
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the
argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in
space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major
franchise still willing to say the future might be better.
The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that
makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else.
Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is
appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar.
You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you
will always find somebody willing to have it.
‘Ali G: Who Iz I?’
For as comedic as Moran can be portrayed with his ever-changing military rank and overly extreme methods of combating the greatest “evils” in society, Cohen says he also serves to put a mirror up to people who think like him and take fear of the “other” too far. In his recent TIME article on the power of satire following his appearance on the cover, the comedian detailed how that approach applies to all of his characters in some way. They’re all designed to get people to be a little more open and honest with their core beliefs to expose how, for as much as each figure he plays is angled as an exaggeration, they’re all ultimately not as far from reality as expected.
“Each of my characters has a specific mechanism to encourage people to drop their guards and show what they really believe, prejudices and all. Borat, an antisemitic journalist, exposes Jew hatred, xenophobia, sexism, and casual racism. Erran Morad, a stereotype of a tough-guy Israeli commando—’I’ve been in 14 terror attacks,’ he says in my new movie Ali G: Who Iz I?, ‘and started two’—exposes Islamophobia and the ludicrous things people will do when they’re gripped by an irrational fear of ‘the other.'”
As for the main character of Ali G: Who Iz I, Cohen says he “works on another level. He’s not extreme—he’s just extremely dumb. But his absurd questions lead powerful people to underestimate him and answer in earnest, revealing their own biases.” The film has earned no shortage of criticism for what’s been viewed as an outdated and, at worst, racist main character because of his ludicrous levels of appropriation, though Cohen himself argues that Ali G being so problematic is not only the point, but exactly why he needed to be brought back at this time. “All the prejudices my characters are designed to expose haven’t just lingered—they’ve metastasized. They’re fueled by the greatest propaganda machine in history—social media—and now by its monstrous child, AI.” Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Swimer, Dan Mazer, and Keisha Zollar all co-wrote the new comedy with Cohen, which will only dive deeper into the satire throughout its 90-minute runtime.
Ali G: Who Iz I? arrives in theaters for one weekend only on October 23. Check out our exclusive sneak peek in the player above.
Release Date
October 23, 2026
Runtime
89 Minutes
Writers
Sacha Baron Cohen, Keisha Zollar, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer, Dan Swimer, Peter Baynham
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