Visionary filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, the acclaimed director behind Poor Things and The Favourite, returns to the big screen with Bugonia — a provocative new thriller that digs into paranoia, conspiracy thinking, and the widening social divides fueled by technology. The film marks his latest collaboration with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, following their acclaimed work together in Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness.
Lanthimos shares that the story is deeply rooted in the way people interpret — and misinterpret — the world around them.
“In the world that we live in now, people live in certain bubbles that have been enhanced by technology,” Lanthimos says. “Having certain ideas about people is reinforced depending on which bubble you live in, creating this big chasm between people. I wanted to challenge the viewer about the things that we’re very certain about, the judgment calls that you make about certain kinds of people. It’s a very interesting reflection of our society and the conflict in our contemporary world.”
Watch the Trailer:
A Dangerous Plot Led by Paranoia
In Bugonia, two young men — Teddy (Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) — kidnap Michelle (Stone), a high-profile CEO. Their motive: an unshakeable belief, fueled by online conspiracy theories, that she is an alien intent on destroying Earth. As their panic intensifies inside the confines of a basement, their delusions and shifting perspectives create a warped battleground of fear, confusion, and misplaced conviction.
A Director at the Top of His Craft
Lanthimos is a six-time Academy Award–nominated filmmaker celebrated for his bold visual style and genre-defying stories. His most recent feature, Poor Things, earned the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, garnered 11 Oscar nominations, and won four — including Best Actress for Emma Stone. His other internationally recognized films include:
- The Favourite
- The Lobster
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
A Korean Classic, Reimagined
Bugonia is adapted from the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet! Screenwriter Will Tracy reinterpreted the story during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, channeling the period’s intensity and anxieties into the script.
“We were locked-down, and I was probably losing my mind a little bit in this little apartment in Brooklyn,” Tracy says. “I wrote it in about three weeks, and I’ve tried not to analyze it too much, but I’m sure something in that atmosphere made its way into the script – that claustrophobic feeling that I don’t think I would have been able to write if not in those circumstances.”
An Emotional Roller Coaster
Plemons recalls being struck by the film’s dynamic tone.
“The tone of it is so wild and varying — it’s so funny and so tragic, and the way into these very big conversations is so left-field and unexpected,” says Plemons. “It’s a really strange but honest portrait of the times we’re living in, how confusing and absurd it all is.”
Stone, who also produces the film alongside Lanthimos, describes Bugonia as intimate yet thematically vast.
“It has that sort of microcosmic quality,” says Stone, who produced the film with Lanthimos in their fifth project together. “There’s a sort of insanity and a commentary in the midst of a really small environment, which I think Yorgos tends to be drawn to. We’re in a basement, and it’s really just people talking to each other a lot of the time, having perspectives that feel maybe incorrect or twisted. But they reveal these different versions of humanity and what can happen in a downward spiral of convincing yourself of something.”
A Cinema-Sized Experience
Lanthimos insists that Bugonia is best seen on the biggest screen possible.
“Most films should be enjoyed like that, in a cinema with other people. It’s a communal experience, but especially this film, the way it’s filmed on VistaVision, a beautiful format, and the sound design that Johnnie Burn has done, along with Jerskin Fendrix’s score,” Lanthimos says. “It’s just a very full and dramatic experience, both in its hilarity and its horror, that can only be experienced fully in a cinema.”
Coming Soon to Philippine Cinemas
A gripping descent into fear and conviction awaits when Bugonia opens in Philippine theaters November 5.
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