Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that you never know what he’s going to do next. Will it be a Frankenstein reimagining like Poor Things, a quirky period piece like The Favourite, or a brain-teasing thriller like The Killing of a Sacred Deer? This time around, the enigmatic director is taking a stab at science fiction with Bugonia.
Bugonia is about a pair of conspiracy theorist cousins named Teddy (Jesse Plemons from I’m Thinking of Ending Things) and Don (newcomer Aidan Delbis) who believe that aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy are living on Earth and are bent on destroying it. And they believe that they have found one, a high-powered Fortune 500 CEO named Michelle Fuller (La La Land’s Emma Stone), so they kidnap her and try to force her to “take them to her leader.”
The screenplay for Bugonia was written by Will Tracy (The Menu), and it’s an English-language adaptation of a 2003 South Korean film called Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan (Hway! A Monster Boy). It feels like the next logical step for Yorgos Lanthimos in his progression as a true Hollywood filmmaker, as it is a very accessible movie, yet still feels very much like a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. It’s absurdist black comedy as only Lanthimos can do it, but it’s also very relatable and engaging.
Bugonia is a movie that kind of makes fun of itself. The characters of Teddy and Don are stereotypical conspiracy theorists—all that’s missing are the tin foil hats. But they’re played completely straight, so it’s the craziness of their beliefs that becomes comedic. Michelle is similarly an archetype of the success-driven female executive, right down to her no-nonsense wardrobe and self-defense training. The two worlds colliding is a power struggle that shouldn’t be entertaining, but somehow, it is. It’s a life-or-death situation, but it’s still both amusing and compelling.
The biggest difference between Bugonia and Lanthimos’ other films is the actors’ performances. Usually, Lanthimos gets straight-faced, wooden line readings out of his actors—it’s sort of his trademark. But here in Bugonia, he lets his actors go, and the results are terrific. Jesse Plemons’ Teddy is as intelligent as he is misguided, and he walks a tightrope between being strong and vulnerable. Emma Stone’s Michelle shows a similar dichotomy, trying to be fierce in the face of adversity but breaking down in private when she realizes the hopelessness of her predicament. Aidan Delbis’ Don is the closest to a normal Lanthimos performance there is in Bugonia. Don is developmentally challenged, so he does have a bit of the Yorgos stiffness, but it works with the character.
Together, the three play off of each other in a way that’s reminiscent of a contained thriller stage play. Each character is constantly trying to manipulate the other two and exploit any weaknesses that they suspect, with differing results depending upon the circumstances. It’s a fun little three-way fiasco, full of twists and turns, and even an untwist and unturn tossed in for good measure. It’s not really hard to see where Bugonia is going, but it’s hard to predict how it gets there.
The other immediately remarkable aspect of Bugonia is the score. Composed by Jerskin Fendrix (who also scored Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things for Lanthimos), the music is more traditional Hollywood than science fiction. It’s mostly fanfaring horns and soaring strings as opposed to spooky synthesizers and whooshing theremins. It shouldn’t work in the context of a movie that is ostensibly about tracking down aliens on Earth, but it does. It works very well.
Bugonia will not be for everyone. There are those who will think it’s silly, maybe even stupid. But people who get Yorgos Lanthimos will get this movie. And frankly, that’s probably the audience for which it was made.
GRADE: B+
Rating: R for bloody violent content, suicide, grisly images, and language
Running Time: 1 hour 58 minutes
Release Date: October 31, 2025
Studio: Focus Features
This post was last modified on October 30, 2025 6:08 pm