I knew when I left the theater that I really liked Bugonia, but it’s not always easy to predict which movies are going to linger in my mind for days (or longer) after seeing them. Well, it's been days, and I'm still thinking about this movie. What's more, I'm beginning to think that I might need to change my personal star rating for the new 2025 movie from Yorgos Lanthimos.
Spoiler alert: This article contains major spoilers from Bugonia! If you haven't seen the movie, I strongly suggest turning back now (and I definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you like your movies a little bit weird. If you're still on the fence, read Eric Eisenberg's spoiler-free Bugonia review.)
My Original Star Rating Was Pretty High
In terms of my own personal star rating for Bugonia, I initially gave the movie 4 out of 5 stars, which for me is a solid rating. In 2025, I think the only movie I've given a full 5 stars is Sinners. The year's not over, so that could change, but Bugonia is already standing out to me as one of those movies that clings to my mind and doesn't want to let go – fortunately, in a good way. In fact, I'm at the point where I'm thinking of upping that number to 4.5, or possibly even 5.
A Lot Of It Has To Do With The Ending
The only major promotion I'd seen about Bugonia before seeing the movie was one trailer, and I remembered one of my takeaways being, "Wait, is she actually an alien?" Rewatching the trailer after seeing the movie, I don't know that I'd say that it gives that away, but when I first saw it, it did leave me wondering if maybe there was some truth to these kidnappers' wild accusations. In fact, that was part of the reason I wanted to see the movie. Well, that and hearing it described as a "bonkers dark comedy."
While watching the actual movie, it became clearer and clearer to me that Jesse Plemons' character Teddy – who has experienced serious trauma in his life – is mentally unstable, and combined with how convinced he is by his theories, is acting violently and irrationally, all under the belief that it's for the good of humanity.
In addition to the implications of previous kidnappings and experiments on potential aliens before they took Michelle, he actually injects antifreeze into his comatose mother's IV drip, believing it's a cure. And yet, even as we saw her monitors begin to flatline, I wasn't ruling out the possibility that Emma Stone's Michelle Fuller might still be an alien who had given him a magical cure for his mom.
When he straps himself with explosives and steps into a closet in the hopes of getting beamed up to the mothership (only to get blown up), I still wasn't ruling out the possibility that Michelle was an alien. Because... well, two things can be true. Just because Teddy is a violent kidnapper with shovel-murdering, explosive-wearing tendencies doesn't mean Michelle isn't also an alien, right?
This Movie Was A Puzzle From The Start
I don't know if that's supposed to be the general mindset of the audience by the end of the movie, but this one felt like a puzzle to solve from the beginning, and I was curious to see what the whole picture looked like. The not-knowing about Michelle's true nature was one of the things I liked from beginning to end. In my mind, despite knowing early on that Teddy wasn't the hero of this story, to me, the truth about Michelle had to come from her for me to believe it whatever the truth actually was – and her answers prior to the moment she returns to that closet weren't convincing me one way or the other.
I'm also still processing the aliens' decision to flip that species-ending switch and take humanity off the board (but leaving other living creatures to go about their earthly business). The outcome was Teddy and his cousin Don's worst fears realized, which some might argue justifies their suspicions, at the very least... but Teddy was wrong about major parts of the conspiracy, and even if he hadn't been, his belief in the presence of aliens doesn't justify the things he did.
I think I'm going to leave my rating at a 4.5 for now, but it's possible it'll end up one of the few 2025 movies I consider 5 out of 5 stars. Not only do I want to think about it more, but I also want to watch it again at some point in the (hopefully) near future when it’s among the newer movies available streaming to see what other things pop out to me now that I know how it all turns out.