2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Bugonia

• IMDB link: Bugonia
• Tagline: "Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth."
• My Best Picture Project

    I kinda hated this movie.  My husband and daughter loved it, so maybe I'm being unfair, but just as the heart loves what the heart loves, it also hates what it hates. But there were things I loved about it, too.  Going into it, I was disposed to like it because I loved another Yorgos Lanthimos collaboration with Emma Stone (the delightfully obscene Poor Things), so it surprised me when I didn't like it.  But there are some rather shocking events in the last half, and because I refuse to spoil the movie, this review must be neutered by definition.

     The acting was spectacularly good, particularly by the three main characters.  (Note: the character of Don was played by newcomer Aidan Delbis, who is neurodivergent in real life).  The cinematography was great. Except for the pacing, which had some problems, storytelling was very good.  The production design did a great job carrying visual motifs throughout the movie (there are honeycomb motifs all over the place). The movie is going to haunt me for a long time.

    From a movie-making perspective, the only real problem is the aforementioned pacing.  The first half of the movie was slow and kind of boring; the second half was like a train speeding toward a crescendo of weirdness.  The second half is worth the wait, though.  It is also described as darkly comedic, but I almost never found it funny.   

    Given what I said above, it seems odd to hate it, but hate it I did.   I have a quirk - I don't like stories where no one is likable, where I can't identify with the characters.  Okay, Don, the sweet, easily manipulatable character, was decent, but I don't identify with him. Michelle, the CEO, was ... rich, scornful, paying lip service to employee rights (ok, her wishy-washy suggestion that her people leave at 5:30 was kind of funny), and Teddy was a deranged, violent manipulator.

    I quit reading Cormac McCarthy's gorgeous Blood Meridian halfway through for the same reason -- it is filled with people with no redeeming characteristics at all.  I don't require stories be populated with saints -- I just need for them to have characters I can identify with, if only a little.   In my opinion, 

The best stories have complex heroes and villains who are, at the core, regular people.  Where the main difference between them is the path they chose to take. With Bugonia, I never felt like I was watching regular people.

    Note: because the movie doesn't explain it, the title refers to the ancient Greek concept of bees spontaneously emerging from animal carcasses.

 

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting Conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 4, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 4)

• Frankenstein (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• One Battle After Another (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.