Yorgos Lanthimos' film Bugonia stars Emma Stone as a high-powered CEO who is kidnapped by conspiracy theorists and accused of being an alien. It's a remake of the 2003 Korean thriller Save the Green Planet!, and it'll keep you guessing, says Fresh Air movie critic Justin Chang: "Like many Lanthimos movies, Bugonia teems with startling tonal shifts and sudden eruptions of violence. Yet it also feels like a more accessible object than he's made before." It's nominated for four Academy Awards.
We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Bugonia? Here's what you told us:
Bug (2006)
Directed by William Friedkin; starring Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, Harry Connick Jr.
William Friedkin's Bug is bonkers, terrifying, and unexpectedly hilarious, much like Bugonia. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon play Agnes and Peter, two lonely souls who isolate themselves in a motel room and fall into a drug-addled vortex of paranoia. The web of conspiracy theories Peter spins around fragile Agnes creates a codependency so nightmarish that whether their motel room is infested with bugs or not is beside the point. – Brent Holcomb, Fort Worth, Texas
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg; starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr.
A woman awakes from a car crash in an underground bunker where a doomsday prepper claims the apocalypse has made the outside world uninhabitable. For those who liked the ambiguous science fiction elements of Bugonia, here is another abduction movie sure to have you guessing what is real and what is conspiracy. The small cast is incredible and John Goodman turns in a career defining performance that will make your skin crawl. – Tristan Olson, Olympia, Wa.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos; starring Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, Nicole Kidman, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic
The film follows an unsuspecting teenager who gradually becomes entangled in a doctor's personal and professional life in increasingly sinister ways. It's from the same director behind Bugonia, and it shares similar themes of twisted events and surrealism. – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos; starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe
A lot of people would say to check out Yorgos Lanthimos' masterpiece Poor Things, but thematically the film to check out is Kinds of Kindness. The thematic overlap is much more significant with ideas of self-delusion, doppelgangers, and commitment to bizarre, destructive causes suffusing both. It's also hilarious, maybe Lanthimos' funniest movie. – Robert Morris, Brookline, Mass.
It Was Just an Accident (2025)
Directed by Jafar Panahi; starring Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi
This movie is about a group of Iranian friends who kidnap the man who may have tortured them. Both are politically charged kidnapping thrillers that are funnier than they have any right to be. – Serena Bramble, Menlo Park, Calif.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Directed by Robert Wise; starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe
This close encounter of the mid-century modern kind doesn't have a lot in common with Yorgos Lanthimos' conspiracy flick, but it's about aliens who've arrived for who knows what reason, and any reason to bring it up is a good reason. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
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