Bugonia (2025) Reviews: What Critics Said

Editorial note: This is a roundup of published criticism of Bugonia. Celluloid has not screened the film for this piece, and it carries no Celluloid rating. The critics are named and linked under Sources.

Is Bugonia worth watching?

Critics lean towards yes, with real reservations: Bugonia was widely enjoyed as a tense, darkly funny two-hander, and Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons drew near-universal praise. Admirers found it gripping, gonzo and sharply satirical. Sceptics felt it was Lanthimos in a familiar groove, with little new to say, and a few found its cruelty hard to justify.

What is Bugonia about?

Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered chief executive of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying the Earth. Yorgos Lanthimos directed from a screenplay by Will Tracy, and the film is a remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! It was released in 2025 and runs 119 minutes. Emma Stone plays the executive, Michelle, and Jesse Plemons plays her captor, Teddy, with Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias and Alicia Silverstone. Release details and where to watch are on the Bugonia film page.

What critics praised

Reviewing its competition premiere at Venice, Nikki Baughan of Screen Daily found the film by turns hilarious, grotesque and sharply satirical. She thought Stone ferocious and poised, and credited Plemons with giving Teddy real depth as a damaged man rather than a cartoon villain. She admired the sustained tension, the gonzo energy of the climax and Jerskin Fendrix’s score, which mixes swelling strings with harsher, grittier sounds.

John Nugent of Empire called it riveting, unhinged and sardonic, and another success for the Lanthimos and Stone partnership. He found Stone’s executive frighteningly predatory and praised the script for refusing to caricature Teddy, suggesting instead a grief that has hardened into grievance. He placed the film between two of the director’s recent works: less punishing than Kinds of Kindness, less of a crowd-pleaser than Poor Things. He also warned that its ending is likely to divide audiences.

At TheWrap, Steve Pond thought an excess of Lanthimos was still a lot of fun. He enjoyed Stone’s obvious relish for the material and felt Plemons made Teddy complex and oddly endearing, and he liked Fendrix’s swings from quirky minimalism to full orchestral bombast.

Where critics were divided

Pond’s enjoyment came with a caveat: he felt this was Lanthimos on autopilot and in overdrive, entertaining but less satisfying than The Lobster, The Favourite or Poor Things. In The Irish Times, Donald Clarke took a similar middle view. He enjoyed a taut chamber piece with strong performances, especially Stone’s barely contained fury, and inventive photography by Robbie Ryan, but saw it as mid-ranking Lanthimos. In his view the ecological themes are stated rather than explored, and the points about online paranoia are ones audiences have heard before.

Natalia Keogan of The A.V. Club was more negative. She found Plemons both terrifying and pathetic, but argued that the film squanders its chance to rework Save the Green Planet! for the present day. For her it lacks distinctive social commentary and meaningful character development, the decision to make the executive a woman yields little, and Stone’s character is too thin to invest in.

Stephanie Zacharek of Time was the harshest. She admired Stone as a bold, inventive performer who is sharply funny here, but objected to the film’s brutality and asked whether audiences really want to watch Stone’s character treated that way. More broadly she argued that Lanthimos’s films are rarely as deep as he seems to believe.

Who is it for?

The film suits admirers of Lanthimos and Stone, and viewers who enjoy black comedy, paranoid thrillers and satire with a nasty edge. Critics note scenes of cruelty and violence, and the film is rated R in the US and 15 in the UK. Those who found Kinds of Kindness too chilly may still find this more accessible, according to Nugent. More titles are collected under comedy and sci-fi.

The critical verdict

The critics here agree that Bugonia is superbly acted, with Stone and Plemons locked in a gripping battle of wills. Baughan and Nugent found it tense, funny and pointed, while Pond and Clarke enjoyed it with reservations about its familiarity. Keogan and Zacharek were unconvinced, finding it shallow and, for Zacharek, needlessly brutal. The result is a film that most reviewers found entertaining but that divided them on its depth.