‘Bugonia’ turns conspiracy paranoia into a darkly comic showdown

Review

By Zoe Hare

Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia” arrives as a 120-minute English-language thriller-comedy about two conspiracy-driven young men who abduct the CEO of a big company because they suspect her of being an alien intent on destroying Earth. It follows Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in the film, as well as Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone. It's directed by Lanthimos from the screenplay by Will Tracy and is based on the 2003 South Korean movie Save the Green Planet!.

What makes the film so instantly appealing is the pairing at its center. The early festival and review coverage has repeatedly framed Stone and Plemons as the engine of the movie, with reviewers talking of their confrontations as intense, cutting, and often very funny in a dark type of way. Variety called the film a “riveting duel,” ScreenDaily “terrific” and “dynamite” in Lanthimos’s bang-up setup.

As significant, “Bugonia” feels just as sharply in its time. The film had premiered in competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, and the official synopsis refers to what has become an official “fear,” “power,” and “certainty” satire in an age of misinformation. AP’s festival coverage characterized it as being about a disturbed, conspiracy-obsessed man saving humanity attempting to abduct a pharma executive he believes is an alien, which lent a premise that’s ridiculous in theory but creepily close to the real world’s fears.

The film’s greatest success emerges from its balancing act between its genre play and its social critique. Reviewers have noted Lanthimos’s keen visual mastery, the sicklesomeness of its humor, and the manner in which the film keeps tightening the screws as the plot becomes increasingly absurd. Variety’s affection for Lanthimos being “at the top of his visionary nihilistic game” sums up the film’s appeal: It is stylized, caustic and firmly committed to its otherworldly logic. But some have also said “Bugonia” doesn’t always defend its own ideas well.

The Guardian called it very well made but ultimately “less than the sum of its parts,” with the film working hard to arrive at a decision that lands harder than anything that comes before. That would indicate that the film might find its most satisfying output from a series of performances, moods and sharp set pieces rather than a pure, unified organism. But all in all, “Bugonia” looks like just another unmistakably Lanthimos project — disciplined, unsettling, funny, designed to provoke debate in viewers over what it means. Even if it creaks beneath the pressure of its premise, the film’s performances and black-comic bite keep the show going, making it one of the most intriguing — and divisive — titles to come out of the festival circuit.. Reviewers have noted