Bugonia (2025)

Emma Stone spends most of Bugonia with a shaved head, chained in a basement and smeared in allergy cream so she can’t phone her mothership, and she still seems like the most powerful person in the room. That’s the joke and the trap. Yorgos Lanthimos is so cold toward everyone on screen that by the last act you aren’t rooting for anybody, just watching to see who blinks first. A long story Michelle tells about where humans came from drags right when the movie should sprint. Jesse Plemons is the reason to go. His Teddy is a beekeeper who has read every dark corner of the internet, gentle one minute and terrifying the next. A dinner upstairs is the tensest meal of the year. It made $43.5 million worldwide on a reported $45 to $55 million. A 7.6 because the leads are electric and the contempt gets a little too comfy. $919 says you spot a bee on your window this week and politely ask it whose side it’s on.

What works: Jesse Plemons gives Teddy a scary, gentle intensity, Emma Stone matches him line for line, and the basement scenes are taut and darkly funny.

What doesn’t: Lanthimos keeps every character at arm’s length, and a long origin story in the last act slows the movie right when it should speed up.

Who it’s for: People who like their comedies pitch dark and want to argue all the way home about whether the guy with the conspiracy theories had a point.