Bugonia, the newest movie from Yorgos Lanthimos, features a simple-enough structure, some stunning performances, and some twists that make it damn hard to write about without getting into spoilers. So the second half of this review will be doing just that, following the Editor’s Note below.
Emma Stone stars as Michelle, a high-powered CEO whose company is nebulously guilty of the sorts of sins that plague every major corporation in the 21st century. She lives a precise, well-ordered life — a life disrupted by conspiracy addict Teddy (Jesse Plemons), who kidnaps her with some help from his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis). Teddy, you see, has been doing his own research online, and has come to the conclusion that Michelle is an alien. So of course he’s determined to stop her and her kind.
Lanthimos keeps the energy light, especially at the beginning, as the film slowly lays out the close bond between Teddy and Don as well as their devotion to their cause. When the pair attack Michelle, it’s slapstick farce, in part because an earlier look at Michelle’s daily routine included the revelation that she’s trained in self-defense — a fair bit of luck on the boys’ part is involved in capturing her.
Related Video
From there, the cat-and-mouse game between abductor and abductee ends up being the thrust of this movie, a three-hander which includes two actors who might be the most acclaimed of their generation. On one side of the table, you have Michelle, calmly trying to gain control over the situation she’s in while avowing her status as a human. On the other side, you have Teddy, convinced that she’s lying. Teddy’s got the power, at least initially — but power’s an easy thing to lose hold of, especially with someone as clever as Michelle involved.
Bugonia is notably the fourth collaboration between Stone and Lanthimos, but it’s really Plemons who’s the standout here. As always, when appreciating Plemons, it’s fun to remember his humble beginnings as Landry on NBC’s Friday Night Lights, and the way that Coach always called him “Lance.” Here, he’s in top form, selling Teddy’s commitment to his beliefs even when pushed to the breaking point, and hitting that perfect note right between deranged and relatable.
As Teddy’s lowkey accomplice, Aidan Delbis makes for a deliberately pleasant counterweight to Teddy’s obsession, while also drawing out Teddy’s inner tenderness. Also, of course, Stone is also a standout, keeping her cards very close to her chest while capturing the inherent hypocrisy found in any CEO’s daily routine, all while trying to find a way to a less cringe-y version of girlbossing. It’s also the kind of movie where its limited number of locations means that each one is given incredible depth of detail in the production design; the contrast between Teddy’s humble country home and the stark modernism of Michelle’s office tells so much of the story on its own.
Bugonia (Focus Features)
Kidnapping scenarios like this one always come with a ticking clock, especially as the body count increases, so as Bugonia draws closer to the end, the anticipation around how this scenario will resolve itself grows. And here’s where we get into spoilers.
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for the ending of Bugonia.]
At a certain point into Bugonia, it becomes pretty clear that the most “shocking” possible ending is one in which Teddy is at least vaguely right about what’s going on. So that’s exactly the ending we end up getting.
The ol’ “alien the whole time!” twist doesn’t come around that often, mostly because it’s a pretty bugnuts plot element to throw into the mix. Yet with a willfully maverick director like Lanthimos involved, somehow the least plausible answer on paper becomes the most likely one — a singularly strange sensation.
There’s a certain perverse glee to be found in the Bugonia production team’s creation of the alien environment, costumes, and makeup revealed when Michelle returns to her mothership. It’s almost reminiscent of ’80s BBC sci-fi in its bright poppy extremes. And if that was where the movie left us, it’d be one thing: A silly capper to the madness that preceded it, a wild escalation justifying all of Teddy’s beliefs about the alien threat among us. Except the actual ending proves to be far, far more bleak, in a way that might prove polarizing for audiences. I sure hated it, at least.
In the end, Michelle and her fellow aliens decide the experiment that was humanity is a bust, and it’s time to call it a day, leading to the mass extermination of every person on the planet. Seriously, Bugonia simply glories in the pageantry of corpses scattered around the globe; tableau after tableau of death having come in the middle of life’s most monumental or mundane moments.
The sequence goes on for at least twice as long as necessary to sell its point — literally cut it in half and it becomes somewhat more palatable. Or at least less annoyingly repetitive in its grimness. The end result is like watching an autopsy in real time. With a laugh track.
What’s key to understanding Bugonia is not its director, but its writer, Will Tracy. The movie is based on the South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, and plot-wise aligns pretty closely with its source material. Yet it’s still not hard to draw a clear connection between Bugonia and Tracy’s previous film as a writer, 2022’s The Menu — a movie which also concludes with an extremely violent, nihilist view on humanity.
For those who loved The Menu, the odds are exceptionally good that Bugonia will also have equal appeal. Bugonia in fact amplifies the chaos of that movie’s ending on a global level, trading in John Leguizamo dressed up like a s’more with Emma Stone in alien cape and cowl, sadly surveying the end of civilization — which has, at least, led to the return of the bees.
Perhaps there’s catharsis to be found in the end of the world, considering the current state of it. But viewed in a news-free vacuum, Bugonia doesn’t make its case for humanity earning this fate, and takes a little too much glee in depicting its demise. It reminded me of a quote from a great Dude, regarding being a nihilist: “That must be exhausting.” Rushing to the conclusion that “people suck, kill them all” feels like the laziest possible option, sparing the filmmakers the challenge of coming up an actual answer to the real problems of this world. Not that hope is an easier emotion to maintain, especially these days. But it at least leaves you with options.
Bugonia enters wide release on October 31st, 2025. Check out the trailer below.