Bugonia (2025) – Review

2025   •   Focus Features  

Rated:  R   

Length:  2 hr  

Dark Comedy ~ Psychological Thriller ~ Sci-Fi  

Director:  Yorgos Lanthimos 

Writers: Will Tracy and Jang Joon-hwan.

Actors:  Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone. 

---

It all starts with something magnificent.

---

Official Trailer

---

Bugonia (Definition)

An ancient Greek word meaning “progeny of an ox”. It refers to a ritual described in ancient texts, most notably Virgil’s Georgics, based on the myth that honeybees could spontaneously generate from the decaying carcass of a sacrificed bull. The ancient ritual represents the idea that new life or opportunity can arise from the ashes of something corrupt or dead.

---

Bugonia (2025) – Review

Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) lives alone in his mother’s house with his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis). When he was a child Teddy’s Dad left him and his mother Sandy (Alicia Silverstone), and she ended up hooked on opioid drugs. After a failed clinical trial of an experimental opioid withdrawal treatment by The Auxolith Company, Sandy ended up in a coma. Years later Teddy went to work at the Auxolith Company in the warehouse of the shipping department. Teddy has a few obsessions to keep him occupied after hours when he is not working for the Corporation that put his Mom into a coma. He is a beekeeper maintaining several hives behind the family house. He is convinced that the bees are dying out and that corporations like Auxolith are behind the bees demise. He believes that corporations like Auxolith are squeezing the agriculture dry in an attempt to regulate, control and maximize profitability while making the human population slaves to their needs. He is also obsessed with…..

Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), the 45 year old CEO of Auxolith. She represents not only the reason behind his mother being in a coma, but also the reasons for life and the world dying in the name of corporate greed. But there is more to it than that. Teddy firmly believes that there is more to the story than just Corporate profitability at work, he suspects there is a bigger conspiracy. He believes that there is an alien race from The Andromeda Galaxy who have come to earth and are bent on destroying the planet and the human race. And Teddy believes that Michelle is a representative of The Royal Court of Andromedans, in charge of the group of Andromedan “Worker bees” who are placed around the earth sowing the seeds for humanity’s destruction. Teddy believes that the upcoming lunar eclipse will allow the Andromedan Mothership to enter earth’s atmosphere undetected. And Teddy has  conceived of a plan that, with his cousin Don’s help, will enable Teddy to broker a deal with the Andromedan Royal Court and broker a deal to save Humanity.

After weeks of training, exercising and preparing, including chemical castration (In case the alien woman tries to seduce them), Teddy and Don are ready. Four days before the lunar eclipse they kidnap Michelle Fuller from her property as she is getting out of her vehicle after work. They heavily sedate her and take her back to their house. They shave her head so that she can’t communicate with the mothership through her hair, and cover her body with antihistamine cream to lower her alien powers. Teddy and Don chain her up on a cot in the basement and proceed to tell her of their demands. Teddy wants Michelle to admit that she is an alien, and wants her to broker a meeting on the mothership with Teddy and The Emperor. Teddy wants to convince him that they need to leave the human race, and the planet alone. As Michelle and Teddy start to argue over her being an alien, Teddy starts to lose his cool and threatens to torture Michelle if that is what it comes down to. It is obvious to Michelle that Teddy is completely Mentally ill, insane. His whole belief is a fantasy born out of mental illness. There is no Alien race on Earth, there is no Mothership she can transport to…..

Or is there? Could it be that Teddy is right? Or is he completely insane? That’s the question as things get more heated and the hours tick by, getting closer to the lunar eclipse. Teddy gets angrier and angrier at Michelle’s insistence that she is not an Alien. Things get way more intense as he starts to methodically torture and examine her to prove his case. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are excellent in this movie portraying the yin and the yang of this alien query. They are both incredibly believable in their roles as the tension mounts and you don’t know who to believe, although it is glaringly obvious that Teddy has lost his mind due to all the bad things that have happened in his life. It is actually very horrifying as Teddy starts to unravel and threatens to torture Michelle. I was really fearing for her safety.

It is a Psychologically Thrilling Sci-Fi Dark Comedy that makes you laugh at the absurdity of Teddy’s theory, while making you cringe at the horror of Michelle’s fate at Teddy’s hands, chained up in the basement. It is definitely an emotional roller coaster watching the events unfold. Is it worth a watch? I say absolutely!

BUGONIA!

Bugonia (2025) – Review by Bobby @ Streaming Movie Night.

---

Movie Stills

Bugonia (2025) – Review © 2026 Streaming Movie Night