Bugonia: The New Lanthimos Film Explained

Bugonia is a new film by Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director behind Poor Things, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. It stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, and it opens in theaters October 24.

The genre tag is sci-fi comedy — which, coming from Lanthimos, means something different than it would from almost anyone else. His comedies are uncomfortable. His sci-fi is cold and strange. The combination is worth paying attention to.

The title itself has a meaning. Bugonia refers to an ancient belief — the idea that bees could spontaneously generate from the rotting carcass of a bull. It's a myth about life coming from death, about people believing things that aren't true because they want them to be. That's not a coincidence. The film is, at its core, about conspiracy theories and what happens when someone believes one completely.

Bugonia is based on Save the Green Planet, a 2003 Korean film directed by Jang Joon-hwan. If you haven't seen it, the original is a genuinely unclassifiable thing — part thriller, part dark comedy, part science fiction, and entirely its own problem.

The story follows a man who becomes convinced that aliens are disguised as humans and are planning to destroy Earth. He kidnaps a corporate executive he believes is one of them. What follows is hard to describe without spoiling it, but it goes to places most films won't.

Lanthimos taking this as source material makes complete sense. His whole filmography is built around people operating inside systems of belief — arbitrary, violent, or just completely detached from how the rest of us see the world. The Lobster, Dogtooth, The Killing of a Sacred Deer — all of them are about characters locked inside a logic that nobody outside can fully accept. A man who kidnaps someone because he genuinely believes they're an alien fits that pattern exactly.

Willem Dafoe also appears in the cast, which adds another layer of unpredictability.

This is the third time Stone and Lanthimos have worked together. Poor Things won her an Oscar. Kinds of Kindness came out the same year — a stranger, more fractured film that split audiences pretty hard.

There's something specific about what she does in his films. She plays characters who are either completely unaware of how the world works, or completely certain they understand it better than everyone else. Both versions are unsettling. Both versions are funny in ways that make you feel slightly guilty for laughing.

Plemons is a different kind of actor — quieter, more internal. His best performances are the ones where you can't tell what he's thinking until it's too late. Put those two in a Lanthimos film about conspiracy theories and you have something that could go in a dozen different directions.

Lanthimos has shown work at Cannes repeatedly. His track record at festivals is strong. Whether Bugonia goes that route or goes straight to a theatrical release in October, the audience for it already exists.

The card at the 96-second mark links to a Scientific American piece on why people believe conspiracy theories. That's not accidental — it's the actual subject of the film.

Conspiracy thinking isn't about stupidity. That's the easy read and it's wrong. It's about the need for the world to make sense. If something bad happens, it's easier to believe someone planned it than to accept that reality is random and indifferent. The alien-in-human-disguise premise in Save the Green Planet is a version of that — a man who has built an entire explanatory system around his fear and his loss, and who acts on it with complete conviction.

Lanthimos has always been interested in what happens when someone's internal logic runs all the way to its conclusion, regardless of consequences. That's what makes his films feel so off. The characters aren't crazy in the way films usually depict crazy. They're just following their own rules.

Bugonia, from what the trailer signals, is working in that same territory — but in a register that's more overtly funny than Sacred Deer or Dogtooth. Whether that makes it more accessible or just differently uncomfortable, we'll find out October 24.

If you want context before October, three films are worth your time.

First, Save the Green Planet — the original. It's on streaming in most markets. Watch it without reading too much about it first.

Second, Poor Things — the last Lanthimos-Stone collaboration. It shows you what this pairing can do when it's fully working.

Third, The Lobster — which is probably the cleanest entry point into his sensibility if you're new to him. It's funny and then it isn't and then you're not sure what just happened.

Kinds of Kindness is optional. It's his most recent work and it's genuinely strange — an anthology structure, no single narrative, Stone in multiple roles. Some people love it. A lot of people don't finish it. Either way it tells you something about where his head is right now.

Bugonia opens October 24 from Searchlight Pictures. Lanthimos has earned the benefit of the doubt. So has Stone.