Bugonia is a pitch-black science-fiction thriller from director Yorgos Lanthimos, marking his fourth collaboration with Emma Stone after The Favourite, Poor Things, and Kinds of Kindness. An English-language remake of Jang Joon-hwan's cult 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, the movie was adapted by screenwriter Will Tracy, whose credits include Succession and The Menu, and it channels Lanthimos's gift for unsettling, deadpan menace into a story that is equal parts hostage thriller, conspiracy satire, and cosmic horror.

Emma Stone plays Michelle Fuller, the poised and powerful chief executive of a pharmaceutical company. Jesse Plemons is Teddy, a troubled, conspiracy-obsessed beekeeper who, along with his impressionable younger cousin, becomes convinced that Michelle is an extraterrestrial sent to destroy humanity. The pair abducts her and holds her captive in a basement, demanding she make contact with her home planet, and the film tightens into a claustrophobic battle of wills in which the audience is never quite sure who, if anyone, is telling the truth.

Premiering at the Venice Film Festival to a rapturous standing ovation and released by Focus Features, Bugonia drew strong reviews for its tonal daring, its escalating dread, and the ferocious central performances of Stone and Plemons. Provocative, funny, and deeply strange, it is one of the most singular studio films of the year and is now streaming on Peacock.