Yorgos Lanthimos, known for his 2023 film Poor Things, released Bugonia on October 24th of 2025. It was based on Save the Green Planet! a South Korean film from 2003. Bugonia follows two conspiracy-crazed men as they kidnap celebrity CEO Michelle Fuller because they believe she is part of an alien species from Andromeda sent to Earth to eliminate humanity.
It starts with Teddy (Jesse Plemons) outside Michelle Fuller’s (Emma Stone) house to kidnap her. Teddy and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) frantically shove her in the car, one driving while the other shaves her head. Fuller wakes up in Teddy’s basement lathered in antihistamine cream, but remains shockingly calm as she starts to slowly talk Teddy through every reason she should be let go. Even as the one who has been kidnapped, she feels weirdly in control of the situation.
Her kidnappers, Teddy and Don, are two men who have clearly been abandoned by society. They live together in a rural town with no real friends or family left besides each other. In their lonely desperation, they have been sucked into an echo chamber of crazed conspiracy theories together. Teddy feels threatened when his beekeeping hobby seems to dwindle as well because his hive is dying. Teddy turns to Fuller’s company to blame.
This draws upon many real-world issues in the modern age of loneliness. The internet is full of predators who prey upon people who have nothing else to believe in. Teddy not only is a victim of this, but is using the same tactic to convince his autistic cousin to participate, too. The way Plemons plays Teddy is so multifaceted, you can’t help but feel bad for him, even as he commits heinous acts.
He believes that the chemicals they produce are polluting the environment and that’s why everyone in town is leaving, and now he is going to lose his bees, too. Through surrealist black-and-white flashbacks, we learn that Teddy’s mom was also polluted due to Fuller’s company. Her health became problematic after participating in some kind of medical experiment conducted by Fuller.
Teddy shows us the effects capitalism is having further down the line. Fuller stands at the top of a successful company, continuing to enforce the rules that have been in place even as they are disintegrating. Teddy can see that what once worked is falling apart. His industrial town no longer has industry, leaving everyone there in the dust. Teddy sees that as Fuller’s capitalist ways move around leeching off of the working class, they leave destruction in their wake.
All of this mounting on top of itself made Teddy consider that maybe Fuller was not only here to pollute the environment but was part of an alien species who came here to execute the human race. Teddy believes he can save humanity if he gets Fuller to take him to the emperor of the Andromedin race so he can negotiate the fate of the world.
As Teddy explains his absurd plan to Fuller, she remains cool in her responses. She asks him questions to get him to consider new aspects of his theories so the cracks in his plot begin to show. She stays patient to avoid upsetting him further but keeps him talking as long as she can. After a while, her methodical responses become unnerving. Try as she may to talk Teddy down from going through with his plan, Teddy desperately needs to be right. He is beyond considering letting her go because the sudden empathy for Fuller. After all Teddy has lost, he desperately needs to have someone he can blame.
If Teddy can just get Fuller to admit that she is an alien who is here to kill them all, he will have a sense of vindication. All of the time he has put into his research will be worth it because he will become a hero. But Fuller won’t do it. She authoritatively lectures him about the dangers of the internet in this mental state and what kind of consequences he would face if caught. She uses her polished corporate language to spin everything Teddy mentions. But Teddy believes the fate of the world lies on his shoulders, so no amount of dialoguing will change his mind.
As the film progresses, the audience loses any semblance of which side is “right”. Both characters have become progressively threatening and their standoff intensifies. Teddy is willing to torture the truth out of Fuller, but simultaneously feels like a misled victim of the system. Fuller is literally the victim in this situation, but possibly is an alien here to kill us all. The confidence each of them has leads the audience to falter in their beliefs every few minutes.
After the tension builds as Teddy and Fuller act as immoveable objects in their stubbornness, the plot erupts as they collide. Both serve as such a powerful force there are bound to be casualties.
Stylistically, Bugonia is beautifully done. Shockingly close-up shots of Fuller are used to show her collectedness and command, while profile shots are used to emphasize Teddy’s power over Fuller, often showing him standing over her sitting. The visuals are extreme, using Fuller’s pristine glass house to contrast Teddy’s run-down cluttered living space and the serenity of Teddy’s beehive outside to contrast the grimy lair he has in his basement.
Bugonia depicts the different world someone as rich as Fuller lives in from the one someone as poor as Teddy lives in. The places Fuller falters in the most are when she attempts to level with Teddy as she learns the hardships he has been through. She spends her time giving press conferences to talk down the amount of damage her company is doing, while Teddy sits at his sick mother’s bedside, resenting Fuller’s company. The class system does not only refer to the amount of monetary wealth people have, but also the privilege that comes with it.