Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia receives a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes after the Venice premiere

Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos' latest collaboration with Emma Stone, has garnered critics' approval following its Venice premiere, as the film has earned a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score.

The film is a sci-fi dark comedy, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos from a script by Will Tracy, who previously worked on shows like Succession and The Regime. It's a remake of Jang Joon-hwan's 2003 film, Save the Green Planet!, which revolved around a naive young man who kidnaps the head of a chemical production company, convinced he's an alien destroying the "green planet."

Lanthimos presents this South Korean narrative in an American context, where Emma Stone plays a high-powered CEO, while Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis play the conspiracy theorists, who abduct her. The trailers offered a peek into their disillusioned characters and promised another experience in the filmmaker's usual darkly absurdist and cynical style.

Before its theatrical release by Focus Features on October 24, the film premiered at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival in its main competition. Shortly after, the critics' verdict came out resoundingly positive.

The film currently holds a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score, based on 25 reviews. This means that the film has received a 96% positive reception at the time of writing.

What are critics saying about Bugonia?

Bugonia is part dark comedy, part conspiracy thriller about two men who are convinced that a high-level corporate executive is an alien. Its official logline, as per Focus Features, reads:

"Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth."

The project marks Yorgos Lanthimos' return to the feature directorial role after Kinds of Kindness, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It's the fourth collaboration between him and Emma Stone, who have previously worked on the similarly dark comedies Kinds of Kindness (2024), Poor Things (2023), and The Favourite (2018).

The early RT score suggests that the fourth time's also the charm for these frequent collaborators. In his review for Vulture, Bilge Ebiri wrote,

"[Bugonia] feels like Lanthimos through and through, albeit with the strangest of twists: It’s the first picture of his populated by characters who feel like they exist in the real world, people you could run into if you walked out the door."

Steve Pond from TheWrap praised Lanthimos' singular style and considered the film another fruitful project of his, starring Stone. He wrote,

"This feels in a way like Lanthimos on automatic and in overdrive, churning out fun transgressions one after another because he and his leading lady have so much fun doing them. Then again, too much Lanthimos is still kind of a blast."

Owen Gleiberman from Variety praised Stone's performance but preferred Jesse Plemons'. His quote read,

"As terrific as Stone is, though, it’s Jesse Plemons who gives the film’s most extraordinary performance."

Hannah Strong from Little White Lies added,

"The droll, disturbing, and unexpectedly moving Bugonia more than justifies its offshoot existence."

David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter praised the rich visuals, saying,

"Bugonia is by no means Lanthimos’ best work, but it looks spectacular thanks to the sheer richness, the stinging clarity, and the eye-searing colors of Ryan’s VistaVision images."

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Bugonia is scheduled to be released in US theaters on October 24, 2025.

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