Bugonia Movie Review
Bugonia is a 2025 dark comedy thriller film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Will Tracy. Bugonia is a remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan. Originally, Jang was set to direct this rendition but due to health reasons, Lanthimos was hired in Jang’s place, while Jang consulted as an executive producer. Bugonia was theatrically released in the United States by Focus Features on 24 October 2025.
The story is centred around two conspiracy theory-obsessed men who kidnap a high-powered CEO of a major pharmaceutical company because they are convinced she is an alien set to destroy the human race.
The Good
The creative partnership between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone has given us Poor Things (2023), Kinds of Kindness (2024), and now Bugonia (2025); a collaboration quietly redefining modern cinema. If Lanthimos were not collecting accolades like infinity stones, his work might easily be dismissed as indulgent absurdity; Instead, it stands as a challenge to what mainstream cinema is willing to tolerate.
Emma Stone got an Oscar Nomination for best actress in a leading role for her portrayal of Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company. Emma Stone’s character exudes the kind of cold and calculating charm you would expect from someone who knows her place in the world, and that’s at the top of the food chain. You can see how someone would think she is an alien. She was so dedicated to the role that she had her head shaved on camera…
Fun Fact: As part of her agreement to the role, Emma Stone shaved Yorgos Lanthimos‘ head in solidarity.
The performance that truly anchors Bugonia, however, comes from Jesse Plemons as Teddy Gatz, a conspiracy-obsessed beekeeper whose descent down a rabbit hole, begins with the belief that dying bees are proof of a global cover-up. Plemons delivers a disturbingly controlled performance, blending paranoia, conviction, and quiet menace alongside Aidan Delbis who plays Don, Teddy’s autistic cousin, serving both as a moral counterweight and as our front-row witness to how innocence is slowly corrupted by obsession and fear.
Bugonia taps into a very real and very modern flaw in humanity: the way internet echo chambers allow like-minded individuals to reinforce belief systems devoid of logic or evidence until speculation hardens into “truth”; blinding us to the reality that we are a terrible and destructive lot who will blame everything and everyone else for our predicaments…
The movie is a visually striking rendition of paranoia, power, and modern conspiracy culture delivered in picturesque cinematography and it’s unsurprising it got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
The Bad
If Emma Stone got an Oscar Nomination for her performance in Bugonia then Jesse Plemons also deserved one. He is essentially the narrative engine of the movie setting the stage through which the plot unfolds while displaying remarkable psychological range and the dramatic irony of being blind to the hypocrisy of his actions, committing the very moral violations he claims to be fighting against.
Bugonia is an uncomfortable watch that can be precise and cold with sharply barbed satire, reminding you that Yorgos Lanthimos revels in getting under your skin, leaving you unsettled. Do you cry, laugh or applaud?… fade to black.
The Bugly
What does Bugonia even mean? Would have been brilliant if the movie offered a way for someone to understand or interpret the meaning of the title instead its never referenced and you will have to do your own research and end up on the internet echo chamber and stumble upon how its either a wrongly spelt flower or in reference to a folk practice in the ancient Mediterranean region based on the belief that bees were spontaneously generated from a cow’s carcass…
The implication is unsettling but elegant; something has to end, so something else can thrive, out of a bad situation comes something sweet, like honey… and thus a new conspiracy is nurtured.
Final Thoughts
Bugonia is not a movie that is universally liked it crawls under your skin, rearranges the furniture, and leaves without explaining itself. If you like your cinema strange, confrontational, and slightly accusatory, you might find it to be layered in metaphor but if not it can feel emotionally distant, even smug, like it’s daring you to keep up rather than inviting you into the narrative.
Have you watched Bugonia? I am tempted to watch the original film it was remade from for comparison.
Becoming The Muse 
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