Bugonia (2025)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are brilliant together, blurring empathy and delusion into a fascinating powerplay.
Cinematographer Robbie Ryan foregoes Lanthimos trademarks like fish-eye lenses and wide-angle shots and uses VistaVision to create a film that can feel both expansive and intimate at the same time.
There’s a lot to consider here - faith, manipulation, belief, and trust in each other, the institutions we rely on, and in a government designed to protect its people. What happens when that trust is lost? A sobering snapshot on the world right now.
NO
Not always a consistent viewing experience - elements of the film lag, especially in the middle act.
Builds to a plot development that seemed to make half the room thrilled and half the room deflate and check out. And so it goes with Yorgos Lanthimos.
I definitely admire this more than I love it.
OUR REVIEW
For all of his critical acclaim and awards success, writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos seldom plays nice with his audience. A filmmaker who challenges viewers to see the world through an imperfect lens, he exposes the fractures that seed the polarizing spaces we inhabit. Lanthimos is a confrontational filmmaker, but rarely inaccessible. Fearless in his storytelling, he draws out many brave and daring performances from his actors. A Lanthimos film often can make us uncomfortable, disturbed, unsettled. But we are almost always on the edge of our seats, curious about what may come next.
In Dogtooth, his Oscar-nominated breakthrough, a husband and wife isolate their children from the outside world, redefining language and abandoning cultural norms to maintain control through fear. The Lobster, released in 2015, turns dating and relationships into an act of conformity. 2018’s The Favourite finds Oscar winner Olivia Colman portraying a queen in failing health, her crown coveted by two rapacious cousins. And in Poor Things, Lanthimos’ 2023 film which earned four Academy Awards, including Emma Stone’s second Best Actress prize, he reimagines Frankenstein as a provocative, controversial story of sexual liberation and gender expectations.
With Bugonia, Lanthimos and Stone collaborate for the fourth time, creating a loosely inspired remake of the 2003 South Korean film, Save the Green Planet!. In that film, a man kidnaps someone he believes to be an alien. Here, Lanthimos and screenwriter Will Tracy reshape the story through a more modern and deeply divided world. Here, two cousins, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Donny (Aidan Delbis), abduct pharmaceutical CEO Michelle Fuller (Stone) at her home after a long workday.
Teddy is the planner; Donny, a reluctant accomplice. Michelle, new in her role, presents herself as something of a progressive, championing diversity and a sensible work-life balance, but also someone obsessed with her success and privilege. Teddy, however, believes Michelle is the leader of the Andromedans, a race of extraterrestrials sent to oversee Earth’s eventual destruction. As his mother (Alicia Silverstone) remains in a coma following a failed medical trial by Michelle’s company, Teddy connects the dots and convinces himself that Michelle can save his mother’s life.
As determined as Teddy is, Donny is not so sure. Delbis, an actor on the autism spectrum and making his feature film debut, finds a great counterbalance to Teddy’s insistence that they are making decisions for not only his mother, but for the good of all humanity.
As he justifies his beliefs, Teddy, along with a willing Donny, shave Michelle’s head with Teddy indicating that this removes the way the Andromedans communicate with each other. Her skin retains a milky, creamy sheen as Teddy forces her to apply an antihistamine cream each day to further block transmission. Unlike the obtuse angles and use of fish-eye lenses from previous Lanthimos films, cinematographer Robbie Ryan keeps the camera in close, shooting in VistaVision, the modernized revival of Paramount Pictures’ groundbreaking 1950s technology which gives movies a more realistic and authentic look and feel. The result is intimate and invasive, much of the film unfolding as a psychological tug-of-war around belief, curiosity, and manipulation.
Plemons is stunning, playing Teddy as someone quietly unraveling while trying to hold to his truths and beliefs. Not only is he convincing, but he feels authentic and genuine in his understanding of what is occurring. Too proud to acknowledge that he is also driven by fear, Plemons embodies a character who is agitated and erratic, but trying to stay strong for his cousin, mother, while maintaining a steady determined demeanor.
Bugonia (a title originating from Greek mythology and meaning “life emerging from decay”) feels symbolic and timely. The idea that something new can grow from what has possibly been broken is smart and emblematic of the world we find ourselves in. Lanthimos and Tracy explore how things like conspiracies, one’s personal faith, and personal desperation can meld together. This is a film that shows us how easily people can be manipulated and how conviction can masquerade as truth.
Though with all its strengths, Bugonia never fully blooms. The acting is stellar, the craft is impeccable, but once we establish what is truly going on here, the film begins to wilt around the edges. A major reveal in the third act will likely divide audiences. Some will appreciate the big swing it takes, while others will feel the air sucked completely out of the room.
Bugonia is at its best when you are least comfortable with what’s happening on screen. Bizarre, funny, brutal at times, and unexpectedly heartfelt in certain moments, we are left wondering what might be most frightening: 1) a world run by aliens; 2) or one in which conspiracy theories and unhinged beliefs can become almost like an infection you cannot cure.
Whether you surrender to the charming madness of Bugonia, or actively resist it, Yorgos Lanthimos forces us to confront how we see, how we think, and what we choose to believe. He has strong opinions about our world, and is not at all afraid to use metaphor, absurd humor, or on-the-nose storytelling to drive home his points.
The film is far from perfect, with a middle section that occasionally spins its wheels and feels as if it is at risk of going nowhere. Though when all of this clicks effectively, Bugonia will leave you exasperated, fascinated, or somewhere in between. Feeling nothing, with a Yorgos Lanthimos film, is simply not an option.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by: Will Tracy
Based on the 2003 film and screenplay, “Save the Green Planet!” by Jang Joon-hwan
Release Date: October 24, 2025
Focus Features