10 Reasons Bugonia Was Snubbed At The Oscars

Bugonia was littered with messages about a world filled with despicable humans committing despicable acts to society and nature. An exposé on fearsome conspiracy theorists that turned out to be legitimate, Bugonia was another interesting entry from director Yorgos Lanthimos.

The director has generally seen a lot of attention during awards season, with The Favourite being nominated for ten Oscars and his Poor Things winning 4. He frequently collaborates with Emma Stone, with this movie marking the fourth collaboration between the two. Unfortunately, despite being nominated for 4 Oscars, the movie was completely snubbed.

Bugonia was nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actress (Emma Stone), Best Adapted Screenplay (Will Tracy), and Best Original Score (Jerskin Fendrix).

DetailInfo

Title	Bugonia
Year	2025
Genre	Black Comedy / Sci-Fi Thriller
Director	Yorgos Lanthimos
Screenplay	Will Tracy
Producers	Ari Aster, Emma Stone, Ed Guiney, Lars Knudsen, Miky Lee, Jerry Ko, Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast	Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone
Runtime	118 minutes (1h 58m)
IMDb (as of May 2, 2026)	7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes (as of May 2, 2026)	87% (Critics) / 84% (Audience)

1 Bugonia Was Too “Alien” For Oscars and Prestige Awards

Bugonia’s central premise of conspiracy theorists kidnapping a CEO they believed to be an alien was already far out for what many consider to be an Oscar movie. Yorgos Lanthimos doubled down on the alien-ness of the movie by making Emma Stone’s CEO character an actual alien, despite the movie critiquing the extent to which conspiracy theorists would go.

2 Bugonia Was Not as Weird As Poor Things

Yorgos Lanthimos has a filmography that many would consider to be “weird.” With abstract high-concept premises and elaborately constructed sets that do not resemble our world, the director’s imagination was certainly not mainstream. Poor Things set a new international standard for expecting extremely weird spectacle films, but Bugonia only had moments of Lanthimos-style weirdness.

3 The Oscars Had Enough of Stone-Lanthimos Films

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone have been releasing movies back-to-back for three years consistently. Even when the hype around Poor Things wasn’t over, the duo had announced Kinds of Kindness. When that movie did not perform as well, they once again dropped Bugonia within a short time, leading to fatigue among fans who were still digesting Poor Things.

4 Crowded Competition with Prestige Films

The 98th Academy Awards were filled with extreme competition from films like One Battle After Another and Sinners. Both these movies were exceptional in every category, making it difficult for the “smaller” Lanthimos film to compete in the same category. With large-scale productions, big industry names, and good box office numbers, it’s easy to see that Bugonia was left in the dust. A look at the film’s IMDb page shows the movie being nominated for a whopping 140 awards while only winning 12.

5 The Film’s Divisive Ending Worked Against Awards

Many people walked away from Bugonia feeling deceived by the ending of the movie that took a wide left turn. Not knowing if the CEO was an alien or not drove the plot into a critique of capitalism and conspiracy theories, but this was undermined by Lanthimos holding a giant middle finger to his own story and the awards circuit.

6 Real Criticism Against the System Is a Big No-No

The previous point directly leads into this one: extremely real criticism against the system is generally frowned upon by the system that holds it up. Bugonia criticized a lot of different things, including the wealth gap, capitalism, and its impact on the climate. Holding a giant magnifying lens in an uncomfortable way worked against its favor, while movies like Sinners and One Battle After Another had the same anti-establishment themes in a more crowd-pleasing manner.

7 Bugonia Only Had Unconventional Characters

There are no real protagonists or antagonists in this film. All characters’ moral compasses are completely in the grey while their actions push more into villainous territory. Essentially, you never have a feeling of rooting for anybody. The Oscars love it when you have a hero or someone to martyr, but this movie’s unconventional narrative made it hard to pick any side.

8 Bugonia Did Not Generate Awards “Buzz”

Unlike Sinners, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, or any of the other major Oscar-nominated movies, it was surprising to see Bugonia even be nominated. The movie quietly entered theatres and left without anybody batting an eye as to its awards-worthy potential. The movie was smaller in scope compared to Poor Things, with minimal production and a small cast, which led to other movies being spoken about a lot more.

9 Jesse Plemons Snubbed For Going Hardcore

Jesse Plemons’ performance is exceptional in this movie, and as usual, he goes all-out for his roles. His versatility comes from his being able to embody a role entirely. Unfortunately, he wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. In the famous words of Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder film:

Never go full r*tard.

What was meant as a joke often turned out to be a real critique of the awards system. If you’re an unconventional character, you need to be convincingly so but still likeable or charming in some way to win over fans. Jesse Plemons took the role too seriously for his character to be awards-ready.

10 Bugonia Flopped at the Box Office

Despite the film performing moderately well with critics, the movie did not perform well at the box office. BoxOfficeMojo reveals the movie earned $43.5 million against an estimated budget of $45-55 million (via Deadline). All the other movies that won major awards at the Oscars were box office successes. While not usually being a reason for awards snubs, it certainly didn’t help.

Here are all the points summarized in a table.

#Reason for Snub

1	Premise too “alien” for Oscar sensibilities
2	Less weird than Poor Things – didn’t stand out
3	Awards fatigue from back-to-back Stone-Lanthimos films
4	Overshadowed by bigger prestige films (Sinners, One Battle After Another)
5	Divisive ending led to mixed reception
6	Too blunt in criticizing capitalism and the system
7	No likable characters to root for
8	Never generated awards buzz or industry conversation
9	Jesse Plemons’ performance too extreme to be awards-friendly
10	Unsuccessful at the box office ($43.5M vs. ~$45–55M budget)

Bugonia remains a great watch for those interested in offbeat psychological thrillers with surreal undertones. The movie retains signature Lanthimos vibes while telling an interesting story about conspiracy theories and aliens. Here are commonly asked questions about the movie.

What did you think of Bugonia? Let us know in the comments.

Bugonia is currently streaming on Netflix in the U.S.