Bugonia

A 2025 science-fiction black comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, about two men who kidnap a business executive they believe is an alien.

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Conspiracy theory: An explanation of events as the result of secret coordination by powerful actors. The kidnappers interpret their target’s corporate power through a hidden alien plot.
Save the Green Planet!: A 2003 South Korean science-fiction black comedy directed by Jang Joon-hwan. Bugonia is an English-language remake of this film’s alien-conspiracy kidnapping premise.
Emma Stone: An American actor and film producer known for roles in La La Land, The Favourite, and Poor Things. She plays the kidnapped executive at the center of the film’s confrontation.
The Favourite: A 2018 historical black comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos about rivalry in Queen Anne’s court. Its courtly power games contrast with Bugonia’s contemporary corporate and conspiratorial conflict.
Alien abduction: A reported or fictional episode in which extraterrestrials seize a person, often for examination. The film reverses the familiar abduction story: humans seize someone they suspect is extraterrestrial.
Jang Joon-hwan: A South Korean film director and screenwriter known for Save the Green Planet! His original film supplied the story that Bugonia reinterprets.
Jesse Plemons: An American actor known for roles in Friday Night Lights, Fargo, and The Power of the Dog. He plays one of the men who abduct the executive.
Poor Things: A 2023 fantasy film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos about a woman’s unusual intellectual and sexual development. Its overtly fantastical premise offers a contrast to Bugonia’s initially uncertain alien explanation.
Science fiction: A mode of fiction that uses imagined science, technology, or extraterrestrial life to explore possible worlds. Its alien premise places a contemporary kidnapping inside a science-fiction framework.
Yorgos Lanthimos: A Greek film director and screenwriter whose films often portray estranged people and rigid social systems. He directed Bugonia, bringing his distinctive approach to its remake.