Emma Stone as Michelle. Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved

A remake that feels like a vital renewal, Bugonia updates Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet!—the 2003 South Korean cyberpunk romp; emphasis on the “punk”—for the modern age of online conspiracies. The film begins as a Coen-esque farce about two criminal cousins in over their heads, who kidnap a pharmaceutical bigwig in the belief that she’s a powerful extraterrestrial. However, it quickly morphs into a jet-black tale of woebegone societal stragglers, left behind by widening wage gaps, unchecked corporate monopolies and the contorting influence of an unfiltered digital world. Will Tracy’s screenplay adapts the basic premise and parameters of Jang’s original, but director Yorgos Lanthimos puts his unique tonal spin on the material, turning in one of the most sardonic Hollywood comedy-dramas in recent memory.

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The remake has been in the works for several years; at one point, in 2020, Jang was even attached to direct. But the further Bugonia departs from its predecessor, the more it justifies its existence. Spinning out of a tale of a young couple kidnapping a man in a position of power, the film sees troubled apiarist Teddy (Jesse Plemons) conscripting his vulnerable, autistic cousin Don (Aidan........

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