Yorgos Lanthimos
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…brought back to life by tubes attached and “Poor Things”-style cathodes hooked up…
It's a chaotic take that's more Poor Things than Universal Monsters, albeit a traditional Frankenstein interpretation.
When films like Poor Things tackle similar ideas of independence and choice, it begs the question from those looking for how The Bride! tries to make its own mark, and sadly, it doesn't completely.
It’s obvious that Gyllenhaal envied Emma Stone’s sex-toy portrayal in Poor Things, the Yorgos Lanthimos gyno-obscenity.
When Lady Gaga’s Joker: Folie à Deux and Emma Stone’s Poor Things already exist as superior Bride of Frankenstein motifs of recent years…
…if one wanted a good modern Bride of Frankenstein riff, Poor Things remains available for you to watch.
Frankenstein (2025)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
influenced by Poor Things (2023), Bugonia (2025)
Themes
Lanthimos’s similarly themed Alasdair Gray adaptation, Poor Things…
Poor Things (2023; Disney+, Hulu, rentable): Emma Stone plays a sort of female Creature in Yorgos Lanthimos’ adaptation of a novel that riffs on the Frankenstein mythos.
Having recently seen a variety of films inspired by Shelley’s work, including Poor Things, Lisa Frankenstein, and The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster…
…unlike the brilliant and far more interesting film on the Frankensteinian theme: Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things…
…on to Penny Dreadful and Poor Things…
Given the influence of Shelley’s novel on everything from Godzilla and Jurassic Park to Under the Skin and Poor Things…
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced The Favourite (2018), The Lobster (2015), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Visuals
Lanthimos presenta un estilo sobrio –que a veces recuerda a trabajos como Barry Lyndon (1975)–, donde vemos lo que tenemos que ver, trabajado y, cabe aclarar, sin caer en la corriente de los minimalistas: aquí sí pasan cosas.
But much like Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Barry Lyndon or The Shining, the longer I watched the more I wanted to know more.
There's a comic perversity that recalls "Barry Lyndon" but it's not just the dramatics, it's the style as well; the wide lens-ed shots, the natural lighting and the obsessively delivered period details Kubrick was known for are all there.
The cinematography by Robbie Ryan beautifully emulates the look of classics like “Barry Lyndon,” bathing moments in Gothic candlelight or tracking through green forests where lovers slap and play.
Set in the court of Queen Anne during the early 1700s, with jaunty dollops of classical music playing in ironic counterpart to all the low-minded chicanery, the movie is “Barry Lyndon” meets “Dangerous Liaisons” meets “All About Eve,” with blood flourishes lifted from Peter Greenaway.
Though its stunning, candlelit interiors and setting invite comparisons to “Barry Lyndon,” “The Favourite” is more akin to a film like “Jackie Brown” for the way it represents both an expansion of and slight departure from its director’s established sensibility.
I also thought of Dogtooth, the insane 2009 Greek film about an isolated family.
A dark suburban fairytale that takes cues from Yorgos Lanthimos ("Dogtooth") and Michael Haneke ("Funny Games"), while firmly remaining its own strange beast, "Borgman" hovers perilously over a stiff upper-class family whose bearings are unmoored by the appearance of a mysterious vagrant fellow (Jan Bijvoet).
In the same black, poisoned vein as " Dogtooth " and " Funny Games " pumps Alex van Warmerdam’s "Borgman," another darkly comic thriller about domesticity crumbling into violence and even insanity.
Warmerdam’s direction recalls Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Dogtooth, another film about a comfortable family unraveling via occultish psychological manipulation.
At its weakest, Borgman recycles the deranged-family satire of films like Funny Games or Dogtooth, making similar points about the terrifying conformity of suburban existence.
Early reviews emerging from the Croisette have already compared the film to both Yorgos Lanthimoss Dogtooth, and the more severe works of Michael Haneke, two touchstones that absolutely hit the mark.
The Shining (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), The Lobster (2015), Bugonia (2025)
Visuals Characters
The camera work, alternating between wide, clinical compositions and claustrophobic Steadicam shots, builds a sense of dread that feels almost Kubrickian…
…his Teddy channels an array of movie nutcases — from “The Shining’s” Jack Torrance to “Dr. Strangelove’s” Jack D. Ripper…
Lanthimos reminds me of Stanley Kubrick, both in the austere formality of his shots (the hotel is reminiscent of the one in "The Shining") and in the way he looks unsparingly at the flaws and foibles of human beings.
Lanthimos and his DP, Thimios Bakatakis (with whom he collaborated on Dogtooth and its predecessor Kinetta), render the hotel in a manner reminiscent of The Shining.
Lanthimos’ bone-dry humour mixes with his giddy, wandering Steadicam – you’d think he’d just discovered the device, or seen The Shining once too often – to distort a familiar world of hospital wards, living spaces and city streets, where the family’s upper-middle-class mansion is surveyed through wide-angle lenses that render the rooms palatial tombs.
Imagine a remake of Cape Fear shot like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, with Max Cady recast as a child, and you’ll have some idea of the strangeness of Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
Wolf (2021)
Directed by Nathalie Biancheri
influenced by The Lobster (2015), Dogtooth (2009)
Themes Plot Visuals
Writer/director Nathalie Biancheri applies that harsh environment to species-dysmorphia, and while it sounds conceptual as it evokes some similarities with Lanthimos’ The Lobster , Wolf fails to cast an impressionable howl.
The film’s core premise — a young man who believes himself to be a wolf undergoes therapy at a clinic — could lend itself to dark humor à la The Lobster (2015).
“Wolf” is dystopian, and in fact, Biancheri’s picture has a “The Lobster” – Yorgos Lanthimos’ sensational and bizarre 2015 dramedy – vibe.
Most viewers will have little trouble recognizing shades of Yorgos Lanthimos in Wolf’s frigid aesthetics and topical absurdism as apparent talking-points in service of the film’s half-satirical, half-dystopian lens, and as far as form is concerned, Biancheri proves remarkably competent at staging disquieting sequences à la Dogtooth or The Lobster (both happily zoocentric in their choice of metaphors).
It’s easy to quickly draw comparisons to Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster (in my opinion one of the best movies ever made).
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos toyed with some of these ideas in “The Lobster,” but fashioned a suitably surreal parable to accompany them.
Her All About Eve-esque relationship with Emma Stone’s Abigail is at the crux of The Favourite.
Often satirical, “The Favourite” also grasps the complexity of circumstantial, patriarchy-defined enmity among females, obliquely bringing to mind everything from “ The Women ” and “ All About Eve ,” to “ Mean Girls ” and " The Handmaiden ."
Hell, a similar plot transpired in the Oscar-winning drama, All About Eve!
Set in the court of Queen Anne during the early 1700s, with jaunty dollops of classical music playing in ironic counterpart to all the low-minded chicanery, the movie is “Barry Lyndon” meets “Dangerous Liaisons” meets “All About Eve,” with blood flourishes lifted from Peter Greenaway.
The Favourite, a combination of All About Eve and Barry Lyndon, begins in the court of Queen Anne ( Olivia Colman ).
The arrival of Abigail is when this movie takes an All About Eve turn.
Funny Games (2008)
Directed by Michael Haneke
influenced The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), Dogtooth (2009)
Themes Visuals
It's also the kind of casually brutal film that brings to mind Euro assaults like Michael Haneke's "Funny Games."
Aparece el dilema aterrador con el que el director austriaco solía deleitarse, sobre todo en la época de “Funny Games” (1997), donde estableció un nuevo y perverso modelo para agitar las emociones de la audiencia.
That said, it’s hardly your conventional horror movie, and people aren’t exactly running out to identify with sadistic no-win hypothetical scenarios (there’s a reason hardly anyone went to see Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” when he remade it in the States).
Lars von Trier (“Breaking the Waves”), Michael Haneke (“Funny Games”), and Ulrich Seidl (“Import Export”) are clearly Lanthamos’s idols, but he doesn’t possess the intellectual or practical rigor of those established filmmakers.
The cool detachment of Lanthimos’ approach owes a great deal to Kubrick, and to the Michael Haneke of “Caché” and “Funny Games.”
He’s manipulating us, conning us into accepting something terrible, much like Michael Haneke did when he made his slasher flick send-up Funny Games—and then made Funny Games again, in English.
Like fellow award contender One Battle After Another, Bugonia is very much a picture of and for our time…
I kept thinking about how “Bugonia” fits into the broader 2025 movie landscape, especially alongside films like “One Battle After Another” and “Eddington.” All three are grappling with a country caught in a feedback loop of distrust, grievance, and institutional fatigue.
As an “explainer” of sorts about the current sociopolitical state of America, Bugonia shares something in common with other 2025 movies like Eddington and One Battle After Another.
Bugonia joins a handful of other movies, including Weapons, One Battle After Another, and Eddington, that dig into Americana as it exists today.
…it wouldn’t be too early to label Bugonia one of the key cinematic texts of the 2020s alongside Ari Aster’s Eddington and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another…
…as evidenced by other films recently released like Eddington (dir. Ari Aster, 2025) and One Battle After Another (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025), these are the nuanced conversations we need to be having.
The Lodge (2020)
Directed by Severin Fiala
influenced by The Lobster (2015), The Favourite (2018)
Visuals
Franz and Fiala achieve this through an immersive sound design, droning music and the heavy blues, grays and browns evoked by the claustrophobic camerawork of DP Thimios Bakatakis, who shot Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
Accomplished cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis, who shot Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer , shapes another forbidding canvas of gloom and shadow, pierced by interludes of startling luminosity.
There’s a clinical effect to their visuals that recalls Yorgos Lanthimos ( The Lobster , The Favourite ), as characters are framed against sparse backgrounds, and the camera lingers on awful sights.
The script does a decent job at connecting the dots, but at the end of the day, the biggest help here is Thimios Bakatakis’s (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer) cinematography.
From the arrival scene at the lodge which cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis ("The Lobster") has composed to mimic the Overlook Hotel in miniature to the roving through the rooms of a creepy dollhouse which seems to foretell the future, one continually notes references to better horror films.
There’s a clinical effect to their visuals that recalls Yorgos Lanthimos ( The Lobster , The Favourite ), as characters are framed against sparse backgrounds, and the camera lingers on awful sights.
I kept thinking about how “Bugonia” fits into the broader 2025 movie landscape, especially alongside films like “One Battle After Another” and “Eddington.” All three are grappling with a country caught in a feedback loop of distrust, grievance, and institutional fatigue.
Bugonia is somewhat reminiscent of another 2025 Emma Stone film, Eddington, in that it highlights the extreme impact social media has in spreading conspiracy theories and enabling confirmation bias.
Between Bugonia and Eddington, 2025 has been a big year for darkly comedic satires about the brainrot people can get from the internet.
As an “explainer” of sorts about the current sociopolitical state of America, Bugonia shares something in common with other 2025 movies like Eddington and One Battle After Another.
Bugonia joins a handful of other movies, including Weapons, One Battle After Another, and Eddington, that dig into Americana as it exists today.
…it wouldn’t be too early to label Bugonia one of the key cinematic texts of the 2020s alongside Ari Aster’s Eddington and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another…
Caché (2005)
Directed by Michael Haneke
influenced The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Themes Visuals
The sins of the patriarchs and the prices to be paid are themes older than the Bible and as relevant as the bourgeoisie; Haneke’s “Cache” (2005) and Ruben Ostlund’s “Force Majeure” (2014) are just two recent films to hoist smug family men on their own petards.
The cool detachment of Lanthimos’ approach owes a great deal to Kubrick, and to the Michael Haneke of “Caché” and “Funny Games.”
Mr. Lanthimos’s techniques — a hovering, prying camera, an atmosphere of chilly, cerebral detachment — owe a debt to the films of Michael Haneke , in particular those like “Cache” and “Funny Games” that subject the guilty conscience of the bourgeoisie to painful deep-tissue massage.
“You’re not a god,” Steven is mocked by Andie MacDowell’s Rita on TV in Groundhog Day, one of the visual punchlines giggling from the mise en scène.
For much of the first hour, Lanthimos and co-writer Efthymis Filippou keep us speculating on what’s going on between them, especially when we see Steven nestling down for a cosy night’s viewing of Groundhog Day with Martin’s mother (a very droll cameo from Alicia Silverstone).
Partway into The Killing of a Sacred Deer , someone mirthlessly watches a scene from Groundhog Day , that classic comedy about being trapped in a cycle of endless repetition.
Can it be an accident that when the good doctor sits down to watch Groundhog Day with Martin and his mother (Alicia Silverstone), in some sort of twisted matchmaking scheme, all we hear is Andie MacDowell telling Bill Murray that he’s no god?
Martin also invites the doctor to his own, not-so-great home, getting him interested in a movie on TV, “Groundhog Day” chosen specifically by Martin, and going to bed early so that his widowed mother (Alicia Silverstone) can flirt with Steven.
He invites Steven over to his house for dinner with his mother (Alicia Silverstone) and to watch his favorite movie, Groundhog Day.
The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)
Directed by Peter Greenaway
influenced The Favourite (2018)
Themes Visuals
The Favourite often puts you in mind of Peter Greenaway's equally irreverent and raunchy The Draughtsman's Contract.
Lanthimos’ fussily composed shots and smothering aesthetic excess sometimes bring to mind the English director Peter Greenaway, whose 1982 murder mystery, The Draughtsman’s Contract , also took place in a world of merciless aristocrats and severely trimmed hedge mazes.
"The Lobster" is reminiscent of other dystopian novels and films such as "1984" and "A Clockwork Orange."
It’s all too droll and tinged with loveless sadism to go down easily, a “1984” for a loveless, disconnected but Facebook “connected” age.It hurts.
Recommended If You Like: 1984, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Under the Skin.
Writers Dana Fox ("Isn't It Romantic"), Tony McNamara ("The Favourite") and Aline Brosh McKenna ("The Devil Wears Prada") coalesce, bringing essential vibes from former projects into this one’s duality theme.
Estella’s initial excitement about working for the Baroness allows Stone to display the same pure-hearted exuberance that won her an Oscar for La La Land , but as the character begins to understand the cutthroat nature of the Baroness’ world, the actress slowly starts to recall the sly cunning that marked her performance in The Favourite .
Five writers labour to concoct a narrative connecting Estella to Cruella, with nods to "The Devil Wears Prada," "Phantom Thread" and "The Favourite" along the way, while also not straying too far from "101 Dalmations" lore.
Stone, on the other hand, evokes her demented performances from Birdman and The Favourite.
This film, credited to a handful of writers for both script and story (including Tony McNamara of The Favourite, also co-starring Stone), wants very badly to be a Disney version of The Devil Wears Prada with a dash of Phantom Thread (though some of the plot twists feel directly lifted from Joker) thrown in for size.
Fiona Crombie’s credits include “The Favourite,” and here she’s matched and upped her game considerably.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced The Lobster (2015), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Themes Visuals
"The Lobster" is reminiscent of other dystopian novels and films such as "1984" and "A Clockwork Orange."
This sneaky narrative flip-flop draws comparisons to another work of shrewd satire, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, which also poked fun at both sides of an ideological divide, seriously debating which camp was more toxic.
Here we have a clinically efficient nightmare society a la Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" given a romantic twist.
“The Lobster” is being marketed as a comedy, and it is frequently funny, but only in the way “A Clockwork Orange” is frequently funny.
Instead, the cumulative effect feels like a scene in A Clockwork Orange, another Kubrick film, where its hero watches violence with his eyes pried open.
His caustic, often disturbing style shows shades of Stanley Kubrick a la A Clockwork Orange and the best moments of both The Lobster and The Killing of A Sacred Deer are flat out brilliant.
John and the Hole (2021)
Directed by Pascual Sisto
influenced by Dogtooth (2009), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), The Lobster (2015)
Themes
Where movies such as The Lobster or a film such as David Croenenberg’s Cosmopolis , there may be strange messaging, or narrative structure, yet we can see the point of it all.
But the movie’s a constant visual wonder, with cinematographer Paul Ozgur’s 4:3 aspect ratio tapping into the paranoia lingering over each scene, and the stellar production design by Jacqueline Abraham (whose credits range from “The Lobster” to “Lady Macbeth”) endows each room of the home with an expansive quality that adds to the impression of a self-contained universe defined by John’s curiosity.
The film reminded me of "Dogtooth," but boasts its own singular vision.
Like Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth and other recent films that build human stories off strange, extreme behavior, John and the Hole has the quality of a petri dish placed under a microscope.
It’s obvious these two have taken a liking to the works of Yorgos Lanthimos, specifically a film like Dogtooth , where the characters, and their actions are borderline inhumane.
But like “Dogtooth” or “Benny’s Video,” it works as a kind of suburban surrealism, set in a posh modern home surrounded by woods.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Directed by Adrian Lyne
influenced The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Plot Characters
Then we’re reminded of Fatal Attraction as Martin worms his way deeper into Steven’s life, starts dating Kim, and exhibits stalker-like tendencies.
The viewer, accordingly, is forced to think wronged Anne Archer from Fatal Attraction: How long has this been going on, anyway?
The Art of Self-Defense (2019)
Directed by Riley Stearns
influenced by The Lobster (2015), Dogtooth (2009), The Favourite (2018)
Themes Visuals
The Art of Self Defense, which also premiered at this year’s SXSW, is a darkly quirky film (think Napoleon Dynamite meets The Lobster).
No Retreat, No Surrender by way of The Lobster, The Art of Self-Defense and its lightly dystopic dojo might be the year's strangest genre mashup.
Similar to Yorgos Lanthimos (particularly in the vein of Dogtooth and The Lobster ), there is a brilliant minimalist aesthetic that extends to not the physical style of the movie, but also to the way that relationships exist between characters.
Fight Club by way of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster), Riley Stearns’ screed on “might is right” toxic masculinity is a giggly black comedy that cowers down a twisty-turny rabbit hole.
It brings to mind the monotone yet naturalistic style offered up in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster or The Killing of a Sacred Deer .
My first thought was that it’s like a cross of “The Lobster” and “Kick-Ass,” a dour existentialist parable mixed with a goofy martial arts flick.