Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos takes a sharp turn into sci-fi satire with Bugonia, a film that starts with a kidnapping and ends with the extinction of humanity. Emma Stone plays Michelle Fuller, a steely CEO of a biomedical conglomerate, who gets abducted by two men in cheap tracksuits who believe she is an alien. Jesse Plemons is Teddy Gatz, a beekeeper who has spent years spiraling into conspiracy theories after his mother was left brain-damaged by one of Michelle's drug trials. Aidan Delbis plays his cousin Don, a gentle but mentally challenged man dragged along for the ride.

Shot on a $55 million budget, the largest of Lanthimos's career, the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August 2025 and opened in US theaters on October 24. It grossed $43.7 million worldwide. The score comes from Jerskin Fendrix, who also composed for Poor Things. Robbie Ryan's cinematography contrasts the sterile glass of Michelle's home with the cluttered, buzzing warmth of Teddy's countryside house. Bugonia is a remake of the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet!, but Lanthimos and screenwriter Will Tracy have twisted it into something unmistakably their own. [edit]

Outside a sleek modernist house in the English countryside, two men in filthy silver tracksuits and cheap Halloween masks wait in a van. Teddy Gatz, a warehouse employee at the megacorporation Auxolith, has spent years obsessing over his boss, CEO Michelle Fuller. He is convinced she is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy, sent to destroy humanity. His evidence: the collapse of his bee colonies, the failed drug trial that left his mother Sandy in a vegetative state, and a thousand internet rabbit holes. His cousin Don, a gentle man with a learning disability, has been pulled into Teddy's plan out of loyalty and a desperate need for purpose.

They ambush Michelle as she returns from a late run. The abduction is clumsy but effective. They drug her, shave her head, Teddy believes her long hair is how she communicates with her alien kind, strip her, cover her in lotion, and chain her to a bed in their basement. Over the next four days, Teddy interrogates her, demanding she confess and arrange a meeting with the Andromedan emperor. The lunar eclipse is his deadline.

Michelle keeps her cool. She never raises her voice. She insists she is just a businesswoman who made bad decisions. The film cuts between the basement interrogation and flashbacks: Sandy's trial, Teddy's childhood, the moment his mother stopped recognizing him. Teddy rants about corporate poisoning, techno enslavement, the death of the bees. The world is dying, he says, and Michelle is the one killing it.

Don grows uneasy. He starts to see Michelle as a person, not a monster. In a quiet moment alone with her, she offers him a way out: free her, and she will take him to Andromeda. But Don sees no future for himself. He turns his gun on himself and pulls the trigger. Teddy finds the body and hardens. The countdown continues.[edit]