Bugonia ★★★★

Released: 31 October 2025

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons

Cinema as an art form can come in various shapes and sizes. Some directors prefer to deliver quieter projects, while some love playing around on blockbusters and exploring the use of CGI. A fraction like taking the unconventional route by creating films that are oddly peculiar. Yorgos Lanthimos loves the latter. Following the success of Poor Things, the filmmaker has been on a roll making film after film. Now, just over a year after Kinds of Kindness, he is back with Bugonia, a film that is literally out of this world. 

Bugonia, which acts as a remake of Jang Joon-Hawn’s 2003 Korean film Save The Green Planet, focuses on two alien conspiracists who go on to kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of a major company. Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) have a new unhealthy hobby, they are obsessed with the concept of CCD, colony collapse disorder. Teddy, especially, believes he’s cracked the code by discovering that aliens in the Andromeda galaxy are targeting Earth with the aim of destroying it. The motive for kidnapping Fuller boils down to them believing she is an alien spy sent to determine the future of the planet.  

The film has long been in the works, with Succession and The Menu screenwriter Will Tracy developing the script in 2020. During Lanthimos’s screen talk at this year’s London Film Festival, he revealed that the screenplay was gifted to him by friend and fellow director Ari Aster, who also serves as a producer. Arguably, Bugonia can be regarded as Lanthimos’s most accessible film to date. It’s clear cut, very few characters in view and continues to have his signature dark humour. There is something rather deep within the core of the narrative that links to how as a society we are constantly provided with miscommunication and truths that aren’t trustworthy enough to believe. In one aspect there is a slight political undertone, but mostly it’s on the environmental side of things. The film educates us by noting that bees are dying, despite pollinating one-third of the world’s food supply and that we humans are ruining this beautiful green planet. Tracy’s script is clever in its way of embedding these messages in the midst of its craziness.  

After winning Best Actress at the 2024 Oscars for her role as Bella Baxter in Poor Things, it became no surprise that Stone would become a frequent collaborator with Lanthinmos, both of which clearly bring out the best work in each other. Bugonia, Stone’s fourth project with the director, is brilliant and cold as Michelle. Plemons, also a returning collaborator after starring in Kinds of Kindness, has more of the spotlight this time round. Teddy, despite his seriousness on the alien subject, is so wildly frantic that you can’t figure out his next move. One thing for sure is, he knows which direction the world is heading too and fights to figure out the truth. Plemons is one to watch going forward with performances such as this. 

In comparison to previous Lanthimos projects, Bugonia is an easy watch but don’t underestimate the power of that. It’s an intense ride and at times you’re questioning whether Fuller is an alien or not. As the saying goes, the truth is out there and as an audience we are left guessing until the very last second. The film’s messages are known throughout – we are a wasting species, ones that aren’t afraid to ruin the good of our planet for the sake of financial gain. It’s almost like looking in a mirror at our traits as a society, it’s terrifying.