Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-profile executive of a major pharmaceutical conglomerate, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. A film by Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.

Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) share a run-down house on the outskirts of town. By day, Teddy works a dead-end job in the warehouse at Auxolith, a pharmaceutical giant. In his spare time, he keeps bees, convinced that Colony Collapse Disorder isn’t some natural phenomenon. He believes world governments and big agriculture companies engineered it to control the food supply. But for Teddy, even that’s not the whole story. He’s certain there’s something bigger going on, some hidden pattern connecting it all.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a phenomenon where the majority of worker bees in a honeybee colony suddenly disappear, leaving behind the queen, ample food stores (honey and pollen), capped brood, and only a few nurse bees. No dead adult bees appear inside or near the hive, unlike typical die-offs from pesticides or disease, and other bees or pests delay robbing the abandoned resources. First widely reported in the US around 2006, CCD primarily affects western honeybees (Apis mellifera); causes remain unclear but likely involve multiple stressors like pesticides (e.g., neonicotinoids), parasites (e.g., Varroa mites), pathogens, poor nutrition, and colony transport.

When Teddy’s mother Sandy falls into a coma after participating in a clinical trial for an Auxolith drug, Teddy becomes convinced he’s figured it all out. Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the CEO of Auxolith, isn’t human. She’s an Andromedan, part of a malevolent alien species sent to take over humanity. Teddy has spent countless hours researching the Andromedans, piecing together their plan. The bees were just the beginning, and that part worked perfectly. Now they’re coming for humans.

🅟

@pradt

BUGONIA 🐝
Let your conscience guide you.
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A film by Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone.

Directed by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay by Will Tracy, BUGONIA is a sci-fi black comedy following two young men who are convinced that the CEO of a massive pharmaceutical company is an alien sent to destroy Earth. They kidnap her in an attempt to negotiate terms with the alien race to save humanity, despite her insistence that she’s human. BUGONIA is a remake of the 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet! (지구를 지켜라!) directed by Jang Joon-Hwan (장준환).

While the premise is intriguing, the narrative suffers from a fundamental limitation: there are only two possible outcomes. Either she’s not an alien and the abductors are proven delusional, or she turns out to be a real alien and the kidnappers were right all along. There’s no twist that would genuinely surprise the audience. If she’s human, the film becomes just another conspiracy theory thriller, deflating the sci-fi premise entirely. So it’s safe to assume from the beginning, even without having seen the original Korean film, that BUGONIA will take the path where she is, in fact, an alien.

Jesse Plemons delivers an incredible performance as conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz, a man with unshakable conviction and laser-sharp focus who believes he has captured an Andromedan alien in disguise and is on a secret mission to save humanity from destruction. Emma Stone is equally compelling as Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company whom Teddy is certain is an alien.

The dialogue and chemistry between Teddy Gatz and Michelle Fuller are remarkable. Michelle is persuasive and manipulative, making viewers question whether she’s telling the truth. Maybe she’s just human, not the alien Teddy believes her to be. Yet there’s only so much Emma Stone can do with the role. Given the world established from the beginning and the flashbacks depicting supernatural occurrences, it’s nearly impossible for her not to be an alien.

The film spends too much time going back and forth on the ambiguity of whether Michelle is actually human as she tries to escape her captivity several times. This becomes repetitive and tiresome as we wait for her to reveal her true self. Her revelation in the final act doesn’t disappoint, but it’s also somewhat underwhelming since it’s far too predictable.

BUGONIA premiered at Biennale di Venezia on 28 August 2025 in the main competition. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 24 October.