Bugonia (film)

Bugonia is a 2025 black comedy thriller film directed by Greek filmmaker and theatre director Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Will Tracy. An English-language remake of the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan, the film follows two young men who kidnap a powerful CEO, suspecting that she is secretly an alien who wants to destroy Earth. A co-production of the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Korea, and the United States, the film stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.

Development on the film began in 2020, with Jang attached to direct, Will Tracy adapting the screenplay, and Ari Aster boarding as producer. Jang later stepped down as director, citing health concerns, but remained attached as an executive producer. By February 2024, Lanthimos was hired to direct in Jang's place, while Stone joined the project both as an actress and producer. Plemons joined the cast that May, and the film was soon acquired by Focus Features for distribution at the Cannes Film Festival. Principal photography began in July in High Wycombe, England, and Atlanta, Georgia, and during which time, the rest of the cast was announced. Additional filming took place in May 2025 in Milos, Greece. With an estimated budget of $45–$55 million, Bugonia is Lanthimos's most expensive film.

Bugonia premiered in the main competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 28, 2025, and was theatrically released in the United States by Focus Features on October 24. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with the performances of Stone and Plemons receiving praise. Both received nominations for their performances at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards and the 32nd Actor Awards, while at the 98th Academy Awards the film received four nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Stone.

Plot

Michelle Fuller, the CEO of the pharmaceutical conglomerate Auxolith, is abducted by conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz and his autistic cousin Don. Teddy's mother, Sandy, previously participated in a clinical trial for an Auxolith drug that rendered her comatose. Teddy has come to believe Michelle is a member of a malignant alien species known as the "Andromedans" who are killing Earth's honeybees, destroying communities, and forcing humans into numb subservience.

Teddy and Don imprison Michelle in their basement, shave her head, and cover her body in antihistamine cream to prevent her from sending out a distress signal to other Andromedans. Teddy explains that she has four days to negotiate a meeting with the Andromedan emperor before an upcoming lunar eclipse, which will allow the Andromedan mothership to enter Earth's atmosphere undetected.

After having tortured Michelle with electricity, Teddy deems her high physiological tolerance to the electrocution as evidence that she is actually a high-ranking member of the Andromedan royal family. Teddy and Don release Michelle from the basement under careful supervision and invite her upstairs for dinner. The tense meal culminates in a physical fight, ultimately interrupted by the arrival of Casey, a local deputy sheriff and Teddy's childhood babysitter, who is searching for Michelle. While Don takes Michelle back to the basement and chains her to the floor after knocking her unconscious with the stock of a shotgun, Teddy distracts Casey by showing him the apiary in the backyard.

When Michelle regains consciousness, she offers to help Don if he reports Teddy to the police. Don replies that he only wants to go to outer space with Michelle, and after she promises to take him, he shoots himself in the head. Casey hears the gunshot, but Teddy bludgeons him to death with a shovel and returns to the basement where he discovers Don's body. Michelle convinces a frantic Teddy that a bottle of antifreeze in her car is secretly an Andromedan antidote that will cure his mother. After striking and dislocating Michelle’s kneecap, Teddy rushes to the hospital and injects the antifreeze into Sandy's IV bag, killing her. Meanwhile, Michelle retrieves the keys from Don's body and unchains herself. Exploring the basement, she finds jars of severed human body parts, along with a binder containing photographs of several other captive people Teddy suspected of being Andromedans.

Infuriated by Michelle's deception, Teddy returns home and confronts her. Michelle intimidates him to the point of tears as she recounts an alternative version of his alien conspiracy: out of guilt over accidentally causing the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, the Andromedans created humanity in their own image. While there was peace at first in Atlantis, early humans experimented with their genome, resulting in greater aggression and a global nuclear war that destroyed all but a few, who survived in an ark, and gave rise to the current more violent human race who have been destroying themselves and their planet. The Andromedans have spent thousands of years benevolently trying to guide humans away from their innately flawed, violent nature, which Auxolith's experiments were a part of. She claims that her mothership has the information needed to save humanity and agrees to arrange a meeting between Teddy and the Andromedans at Auxolith headquarters.

They arrive at her office, where Teddy reveals himself to be wearing a homemade explosive suicide vest. Michelle instructs Teddy to enter her closet, which she claims is a teleporter to her ship. As Teddy enters the closet, the vest detonates by mistake, killing him and knocking Michelle unconscious. She awakens in an ambulance but jumps out and returns to her office, where she enters the closet and teleports to the Andromedan mothership.

Michelle, now revealed as the genuine Andromedan leader, consults with her fellow Andromedans and concludes that the human experiment has failed. She pops a clear, bubble-like dome, instantly killing all humans living on Earth, though all other animal and plant life remains. Michelle gazes out at the planet, now devoid of human life, as birds fly and bees slowly return to Teddy's apiary.

Cast

• Emma Stone as Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company who is thought to be an alien. Michelle serves as the film's analogue to the character of Kang Man-shik, who in the original film is a man. The choice to swap the gender of the character was made by Aster, Tracy, and Jang prior to Lanthimos's involvement with the film, and, according to Jang, was one of the last creative decisions he was involved in prior to stepping down as director. Stone shaved her head for this role.
• Jesse Plemons as Teddy Gatz, a conspiracy theory–obsessed beekeeper who kidnaps Michelle. Teddy is an adaptation of the character of Lee Byeong-gu in the original film, and is similar in many ways, including his belief that Michelle is an alien and personal motivation to get revenge for his mother's poisoning.
• Aidan Delbis as Don, Teddy's autistic cousin who assists him in kidnapping Michelle.
• Stavros Halkias as Casey Boyd, a deputy sheriff who searches for Michelle and was Teddy's babysitter in the past.
• Alicia Silverstone as Sandy Gatz, Teddy's mother.

Production

Development and casting

Development of an English-language remake of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan began in 2020 with Will Tracy adapting the screenplay, and Jang attached to direct the remake. Ari Aster was signed on to produce and was instrumental in the hiring of Tracy and the decision to gender-swap the central character from a man to a woman. Tracy stated that he only viewed Save the Green Planet! once before beginning work on the screenplay for Bugonia, and did not attempt to faithfully reproduce the original film's story in his script as he preferred for the two films to stand alone from one another.

Jang would later step down as director, citing health problems as the reason for doing so; however, he remained attached to the project as an executive producer. In February 2024, it was revealed that Yorgos Lanthimos would be directing the remake, with Element Pictures joining the production team. Jang stated that he was pleased by Lanthimos's hiring and called him a "very fitting" choice as the film's director. Emma Stone was also in talks to star in the film, making it her fourth collaboration with Lanthimos. Jesse Plemons officially joined the cast by the time it was retitled Bugonia and taken to the Cannes Film Market in May. In October, Alicia Silverstone joined the cast. In May 2025, it was revealed that Aidan Delbis and Stavros Halkias were cast as well.

The title of the film is the name of a folk ritual described in some ancient Mediterranean texts, including Virgil's Georgics. It involves sacrificing a cow, believing that bees would spontaneously generate from its carcass.