Conspiracy and Dark Comedy Collide in Yorgos Lanthimos’s ‘Bugonia’

Summary

• A new official trailer is released for Yorgos Lanthimos’s upcoming psychological thriller, Bugonia
• Filmed on VistaVision, it stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in a darkly comic tale of two men who kidnap a CEO they believe is an alien

Focus Features has released the official full-length trailer for Bugonia, an upcoming psychological thriller from visionary director Yorgos Lanthimos. The trailer plunges viewers into a darkly comic, claustrophobic world where conspiracy runs rampant and reality blurs.

It opens on two cousins, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis), methodically chaining Michelle (Emma Stone), a ruthless pharmaceutical CEO, in their dingy basement lair. The trailer also teases their bizarre interrogation rituals, from shaving Michelle’s head, smearing her with “anti-alien” lotion to grilling her about a supposed plot to trigger mass bee extinction and a lunar eclipse–fueled apocalypse. Through each frantic close-up, Lanthimos expertly balances absurdity and menace, offering a pitch-black comic window on our modern age of madness.

In the film’s press release, Lanthimos explains that Bugonia challenges viewers to question their judgments and biases. Shot on rare VistaVision film, which uses a larger negative than standard 35 mm, the movie delivers a striking, larger-than-life look. The screenplay by Will Tracy adapts elements from the 2003 Korean sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet for a contemporary Anglo-American context, reimagining its blend of dark humor and emotional intensity.

Bugonia will premiere with special screenings beginning October 24, 2025, before rolling out widely in theaters on October 31, 2025.

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