Ali G Returns After 20 Years in First Trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Iz I?

Ali G is back, and somehow becoming a responsible father is part of the plan.

Amazon MGM Studios has released the first official trailer for Ali G: Who Iz I?, bringing Sacha Baron Cohen’s tracksuit-wearing alter ego back to the center of a feature film more than two decades after Ali G Indahouse. The new comedy is heading to theaters on October 23, 2026.

The trailer confirms that Cohen is not simply dusting off Ali G for a cameo or nostalgia sketch. Who Iz I? is built around the character again, mixing a scripted setup with encounters involving real people — territory Cohen has spent years turning into an unusually dangerous form of comedy.

This time, Ali has a new problem: adulthood.

Ali G Is Heading to America

The official setup finds Ali shocked to discover that his longtime girlfriend Julie is eight months pregnant. With a child on the way and another mouth to feed, he heads to the United States in an attempt to reclaim his former glory.

Naturally, the trailer suggests that his idea of getting his life together looks nothing like anyone else’s.

The footage leans into the mockumentary and prank format associated with Cohen’s best-known work. Ali interacts with people outside a conventional scripted comedy setup while cameras follow his attempt at a comeback. Morgana Robinson co-stars as Julie.

That makes Who Iz I? an interesting return for the character. The 2002 movie Ali G Indahouse was a more traditional scripted comedy, while Cohen later became internationally known for blurring fiction and reality in projects including Borat and Brüno. The new film appears to bring more of that real-world format into Ali G’s world.

Sacha Baron Cohen Is Directing This One Himself

There is another major first hidden behind Ali’s return: Ali G: Who Iz I? marks Sacha Baron Cohen’s feature directorial debut.

Cohen has obviously been the creative force behind his characters for decades, but this time he is taking the director’s chair as well as playing the lead. The film is an Amazon MGM Studios release and a Four By Two Films production in association with Working Title Films.

The project had been kept relatively secretive before its reveal, which makes the first trailer the clearest look yet at what Cohen has been building.

And yes, it is going to theaters rather than debuting quietly on streaming. Amazon MGM has set an October 23 theatrical release, giving Ali G a proper big-screen comeback.

It Has Been More Than 20 Years Since Ali G Indahouse

Cohen first introduced Ali G to television audiences in the late 1990s before the character became the centerpiece of Da Ali G Show. The joke was never simply that Ali was ridiculous. His confidently clueless interviews regularly encouraged public figures to keep talking long after they probably should have stopped.

That approach helped establish the style Cohen would later push much further with Borat.

Ali received his first feature film with Ali G Indahouse in 2002, but the character has not led another movie since. That makes Who Iz I? his first starring feature in roughly 24 years.

Cohen has occasionally revived his older characters, but this is a much bigger commitment than a brief appearance. Amazon MGM is positioning Who Iz I? as a theatrical return built around Ali himself.

Ali G: Who Iz I? Faces Backlash as Campaign Urges Cinemas to Drop the Movie

Since that first trailer landed, Who Iz I? has picked up a controversy of its own. NewsCord, a UK media-monitoring campaign group, is asking cinema chains not to book the film, arguing that Ali G leans on outdated and racist stereotyping of Black British culture. The campaign runs on form emails supporters can send directly to booking desks at chains including Odeon, Cineworld, Vue and Cinemark, and according to the campaign’s own count, reported by Variety, it has generated more than 36,000 emails since launching in the days after the trailer went up.

Cohen appeared to anticipate exactly this reaction. Posting the trailer to X, he wrote: “In an age where a comedian’s career can be ended by a single un-PC joke, I thought I’d play it safe and bring this guy back.” It reads as a deliberately provocative way of framing the character’s return, not a response to the backlash that followed — the post went up alongside the trailer itself, before the campaign had built any real momentum.

The clearest sign of how muddled this has gotten came from Picturehouse. NewsCord circulated a reply from the chain stating it had “no plans to screen this film on its release” and treated that as a win. Variety looked into it and reported that the message was Picturehouse’s standard reply to any query about a title that hasn’t yet been booked or scheduled — not a decision about Who Iz I? specifically. No booking either way had actually been made.

That distinction matters, because as of Variety’s reporting, no major cinema chain had confirmed pulling or refusing to screen the film. Phil Clapp, head of the UK Cinema Association, addressed the pressure campaign directly, telling Variety that cinemas “are not there to act as censors or arbiters of public taste.” Amazon MGM and representatives for Cohen had not commented at the time of that report.

Can Ali G Still Work in 2026?

That may be the most interesting question surrounding the movie, and the backlash over the trailer is now part of answering it.

Ali G was created in a very different media environment. Part of the original character’s effectiveness came from placing an absurd fictional interviewer opposite people who were not always sure what they were dealing with. More than two decades later, Cohen is vastly more recognizable, hidden-camera comedy is everywhere, and anyone can identify a celebrity with a phone in seconds.

The first trailer suggests Cohen’s answer is not to recreate Da Ali G Show exactly as it was. Instead, Who Iz I? gives Ali a new personal setup, sends him into modern America and combines that story with the real-world encounters Cohen has continued refining throughout his career.

Whether the disguise still fools enough people is another question entirely.

But after more than 20 years away from the center of his own movie, Ali G officially has another shot.

Ali G: Who Iz I? opens in theaters October 23, 2026.