If you thought Kinds of Kindness was strange, buckle up. Yorgos Lanthimos has returned with Bugonia, a sci-fi thriller that feels like a fever dream of paranoia and obsession—his English-language remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 Korean cult gem Save the Green Planet!. Focus Features has now unveiled the final trailer and two exquisite posters ahead of its theatrical release on October 24, 2025, with a wider rollout on October 31.
The film premiered at Venice and Telluride earlier this fall, where it split audiences straight down the middle—half mesmerized, half unnerved. That’s classic Lanthimos. No one else makes cinema that feels like a dare.
A Trailer That Feels Like a Panic Attack
The new trailer opens with a sharp line—“Lies! Truth! What’s the difference?”—setting the tone for what looks like an existential showdown between delusion and revelation. Two conspiracy-obsessed men (led by Jesse Plemons) kidnap Michelle, a pharmaceutical CEO played with icy conviction by Emma Stone, convinced she’s an alien plotting humanity’s extinction. The edit cuts between absurdist humor and claustrophobic dread, punctuated by flashes of violence and unsettlingly still moments.
There’s something distinctly Dogtooth in the rhythm—moments of deadpan absurdity that make you laugh and recoil at once. But this isn’t another sterile Lanthimos world; it’s hot, pulsing, and alive. The score buzzes like electricity under the skin.
Stone, Lanthimos’ frequent collaborator and creative foil, looks transformed again—less ethereal this time, more feral. Plemons plays off her quiet menace with the haunted conviction of a man who’s read too many message boards.
Two Posters, One Beautiful Nightmare
Both official posters are miniature works of surreal art.
The first shows Stone and Plemons floating in space, their faces orbiting a cracked Earth like celestial bodies out of alignment. It’s an image of cosmic disconnection—a universe split between delusion and truth. The design nods to 1970s science fiction posters, textured and strange, with Lanthimos’ minimalist typography grounding the chaos.
The second poster folds back into the human psyche: Stone’s face wrapped in insect wings, fractured and translucent. There’s a figure of a man on a bicycle pedaling across her skull, absurd and ominous at once—a metaphor for the futility of control. It’s beautiful, grotesque, and unmistakably Lanthimos. You don’t just look at it; it looks back at you.
Lanthimos, Evolution, and the Art of the Absurd
After Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness, Bugonia continues Lanthimos’ dive into power, identity, and delusion—but with more bite and less irony. Screenwriter Will Tracy (The Menu) shapes the narrative into a moral hall of mirrors, blending eco-paranoia with corporate satire.
It’s also Lanthimos’ most American film yet—shot with a precision that mirrors modern conspiracy culture’s aesthetic: perfect lighting, sterile surfaces, and the quiet rot beneath them.
The film’s co-producers—Ari Aster, Emma Stone, and Lanthimos himself—hint at a collaboration that’s more chaotic and humorous than Kinds of Kindness, yet just as thematically rich. And yes, the aliens may or may not exist. But that’s hardly the point.
What to Remember Before Seeing Bugonia
A Cosmic Comedy of Control
Lanthimos twists sci-fi paranoia into a grotesque farce about human desperation to make sense of chaos.
Emma Stone, Transcendent Again
After Poor Things, she returns with a performance that balances cruelty, fear, and curiosity in unnerving harmony.
A Poster Set Worth Studying
The visual campaign isn’t marketing—it’s mythmaking. Both designs tap directly into the film’s surreal heart.
Venice & Telluride Reactions
Critical reception ranged from admiration to bafflement, a sure sign the film hit its intended nerve.
October is Lanthimos Season
Theatrical rollout begins October 24 (limited) and expands October 31 (wide)—mark your calendar, and maybe your sanity.
Would I call Bugonia a masterpiece? Not quite. But it’s alive—alive in ways most movies aren’t anymore. Lanthimos still believes in cinema as shock therapy, and in Bugonia, the diagnosis is terminal paranoia.
