BUGONIA (2025)

Genre: Comedy/Sci-Fi
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, J. Carmen Galindez Barrera, Marc T. Lewis, Vanessa Eng, Cedric Dumornay, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Rating: NC16 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 6 November 2025

Synopsis: Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

Movie Review:

It’s best to go into Bugonia knowing as little as possible. Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest film thrives on surprise—on the bizarre, the unsettling, and the inexplicably funny. To describe too much of what happens would rob audiences of that peculiar pleasure that comes when his stories unfold with both absurd logic and emotional precision. Suffice to say, Bugonia continues the filmmaker’s streak of surreal, darkly comic, and intellectually challenging works, firmly cementing his place as one of contemporary cinema’s true originals.

After the visual opulence of Poor Things (2023) and the chilly social experiments of The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), Bugonia feels at once intimate and expansive. Lanthimos blends the clinical detachment of his earlier films with flashes of tenderness and humour that feel hard-won, even fragile. The result is a film that’s as confounding as it is moving—a strange, dreamlike parable that lingers long after the credits roll.

Reuniting with one of his most trusted collaborators, Emma Stone, Lanthimos gets performances of remarkable range and depth. Stone, who has become his on-screen muse, once again disappears into the world he creates. She navigates his surreal tone with uncanny ease—her expressions oscillating between deadpan comedy and raw vulnerability. Jesse Plemons, who starred in Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness (2024), meanwhile, proves once more why he’s one of the most quietly compelling actors of his generation, grounding the film’s outlandishness with understated power. Both are almost certain to feature prominently when awards season arrives.

One of the film’s most pleasant surprises is Aidan Delbis, an actor on the autistic spectrum who delivers an endearing and nuanced turn. His performance adds a genuine emotional pulse to the film’s offbeat world, a reminder that Lanthimos’s cinema, however stylised, never loses sight of the human element. Alicia Silverstone also impresses in a small but memorable role that’s almost unrecognisable. Her presence adds an unexpected emotional gravity to the film’s stranger moments.

As always with Lanthimos, the visuals are meticulously composed. Every frame feels calculated yet alive, the camera moving with the eerie calm of a dream. The sound design, too, amplifies the surreal quality—silences stretch, whispers echo, and moments of violence or absurdity arrive with clinical precision.

Bugonia, which is based on the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan, is layered with symbolism—about nature (there are many shots of bees), transformation (the last section of the film will take you out of this world), and the often-destructive human need for control. There are images and motifs that seem to invite endless interpretation, from insect metaphors to ritualistic gestures, all rendered in the filmmaker’s trademark deadpan style. Cinephiles will no doubt spend moments unpacking what it all means, though Lanthimos would likely argue that meaning is beside the point; Bugonia is meant to be felt as much as understood.

Strange, beautiful, and defiantly original, Bugonia is a hypnotic experience that rewards patience and curiosity. Whether you find it profound or perplexing, one thing’s certain—you won’t forget it anytime soon.

Movie Rating:

(With its rich symbolism, absurd humour, and standout turns from Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, Bugonia emerges as a playfully enigmatic work from Yorgos Lanthimos)

Review by John Li