Bugonia (2025)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
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.
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41 films that influenced Bugonia
What critics say influenced Bugonia
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.
He's established like Philip Seymour Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd from The Master — Plemons played his son in that, foreshadowing him becoming a kind of contemporary PSH — if he were a conspiracy theorist…
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…
While they do not appear to be too different from our current reality, with the exception of the fantastical Poor Things (2023), they always operate within their own rules and logic.
For those who have seen his previous work, like Poor Things, this would seem to bode really well, as Lanthimos has proven himself to be a director capable of addressing these complex themes within the context of a fictional story.
Like Lanthimos’s previous film, Poor Things, Bugonia depicts our mundane world and its sci-fi elements in equally stunning fashion.
Monstrous people (Dogtooth), monstrous societies (The Lobster), monstrous…monsters (Poor Things).
…in comparison to Lanthimos’ previous work, Poor Things, Bugonia is much less stylized, deceptively simpler on a visual level, but nevertheless thematically dense.
…which led to the latter’s Best Actress win at the Oscars for fantastical comedy Poor Things…
Monstrous people (Dogtooth), monstrous societies (The Lobster), monstrous…monsters (Poor Things).
Bugonia ultimately ends up feeling more akin to Dogtooth…
I haven’t been this physically impacted by a Lanthimos film since I watched Dogtooth (2009).
Bugonia, a delirious sci-fi thriller by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, 2009; The Favourite, 2018; Poor Things, 2023)…
From Dogtooth to The Lobster to The Killing of a Sacred Deer to Poor Things, Lanthimos regularly delivers bizarre, twisted, provocative, and uncompromising cinematic experiences…
Fans of The Favourite, Dogtooth, and Kinds of Kindness might disagree, though.
Monstrous people (Dogtooth), monstrous societies (The Lobster), monstrous…monsters (Poor Things).
From Dogtooth to The Lobster to The Killing of a Sacred Deer to Poor Things, Lanthimos regularly delivers bizarre, twisted, provocative, and uncompromising cinematic experiences…
…the two-Greeks-one-fucked-up-fable Lanthimos/Efthimis Filippou combo (Dogtooth, The Lobster, Kind of Kindness)…
At least since 2009’s Dogtooth—through the likes of The Lobster, The Favourite, Poor Things, and Kinds of Kindness—Lanthimos has put the human species on trial.
But audacious storytelling is the norm for the director of The Lobster.
He’s created perhaps his most insightful story about the modern world since The Lobster…
It feels like the filmmaker is adhering to American sensibilities, circa Killing of a Sacred Deer.
The hostage situation recalls The Killing of a Sacred Deer…
Bugonia is far more in conversation with Dogtooth and The Killing of a Sacred Deer…
…the Greek hipster auteur Yorgos Lanthimos went from a respected cultivator of sicko arthouse barn-burners, discomfort fests like Dogtooth and The Killing of a Sacred Deer…
From Dogtooth to The Lobster to The Killing of a Sacred Deer to Poor Things, Lanthimos regularly delivers bizarre, twisted, provocative, and uncompromising cinematic experiences…
…nor entice me nearly as much as Alps (2011) or The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)…
Think of The Favourite and how beyond all its ornate rituals and ironclad hierarchies, the line between power and disgrace remained so tenuous.
The filmmaker behind provocative and quirky stories, such as Poor Things and The Favourite, brings a wildly bizarre, dialogue-heavy film called Bugonia.
Once again Lanthimos is collaborating with director of photography Robbie Ryan (The Favourite, Poor Things).
Since they first collaborated on period piece The Favourite in 2018, director Yorgos Lanthimos and actor Emma Stone have had a fruitful working relationship…
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (whose The Favourite and Poor Things topped my 10 Best lists for 2018 and 2023 respectively)…
Fans of The Favourite, Dogtooth, and Kinds of Kindness might disagree, though.
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…
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Themes
Bugonia, and in turn Save the Green Planet!, are as much of a social commentary as Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)…
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…as unpredictable as Plemons but with the benefit of her expressive eyes, as soulful and wide as E.T’s.
…as soulful and wide as E.T’s…
Fendrix pulling in favours from John Williams’ classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind score…
The telling is good, but even the most dynamic plot twists on Twilight Zone had a grim logic behind them.
…it hearkened back to the twists from Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone TV series, although not quite as impactful as the show’s most legendary episodes.
…it all plays out like a madder, more heightened version of Misery, if James Caan’s character was accused of spraying neonicotinoid pesticides on bees…
If you’ve wondered what it might be like to watch Misery – one of the inspirations for Save The Green Planet! – for tragicomic laughs, then now is your chance…
In terms of sheer optics, this film can hold its own with 2025's best including Sinners, Twinless, and The Plague.
…like what many fans did with Ryan Coogler’s recent film Sinners (2025) despite Coogler himself stating that whatever supposed allegory is being tied to the film isn’t what he intended in an interview with NPR…
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…it feels a little in line with a bottle episode you might see on an older TV show, which were episodes done with fewer sets and cast members than usual, often to save money. See Breaking Bad’s “Fly,” for maybe the best-known fairly recent example.
Jesse Plemons, who has a history of portraying rather unwell men since Todd Alquist in Breaking Bad…
The result looks something like Nosferatu’s younger sister.