Did Emma Stone really earn a 6-minute standing ovation in Venice for her gory alien thriller ‘Bugonia’?

Emma Stone's doom-laden alien thriller stunned the Venice Film Festival on Thursday night, August 28, 2025, after drawing a six-minute standing ovation. The movie by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos made its world premiere at Sala Grande cinema in Venice, with the filmmaker and Stone, alongside co-stars Jessie Plemons and Aidan Delbis, bowing to the crowds after the standing ovation.

Emma Stone stars in the film as a pharmaceutical executive who was subjected to kidnapping and torture on suspicion of being an alien. Alongside her is another Yorgos Lanthimos collaborator and Stone's co-star in Kinds of Kindness, Jesse Plemons, Stone's character's captive.

The dark comedy movie lasts around two hours, and Stone described it as "reflective of this point in time in our world" during the film's promo a day before its Venice premiere. She also said that the story is being told in a "really fascinating and moving and funny and f*cked up and alive."

Emma Stone stars in Bugonia (Image via Stefania D'Alessandro/WireImage)

Besides the six-minute standing ovation in its world premiere in Venice, which was also attended by cast member Alicia Silverstone, another testament that Bugonia has tickled the critics' fancy is its 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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What is Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia all about?

Bugonia is an English-language remake of the 2003 movie Save the Planet! by South Korean filmmaker Jang Joon-hwan, written for the big screen by Will Tracy (The Menui). Emma Stone stars in the sci-fi black comedy as female CEO Michelle Fuller, who was accused of being an alien plotting to destroy planet Earth.

In a quest to protect the planet, two conspiracy-obsessed men (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) kidnapped and tortured her. Plemons is a dark web surfer and apiarist, Teddy, while Hollywood newcomer Delbis is his younger cousin whom he roped in to join his paranoid scheme.

Emma Stone in Bugonia (Image via YouTube/ Focus Features)

Focus Features released Bugonia's first full-length trailer on August 28, 2025, giving a first glimpse of how Stone's character will be portrayed in the film. She's locked in an underground bunker, and her kidnappers have shaved off her hair. The two-minute trailer teases a dark, tense story between a captive and her captors.

Besides Stone, Plamons, and Delbis, Bugonia also stars Alicia Silverstone (Clueless, Irish Blood) and Stavros Halkias (Tires, Let's Start a Cult). Lanthimos and Stone are producing the movie, alongside Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Miky Lee, Jerry Kyoungboum, Lars Knudsen, and Ari Aster.

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Will Bugonia get a theatrical release?

After its worldwide premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 28, Bugonia will arrive in theaters for a set of special limited release and a wide release in October. There's going to be a limited theatrical run for the movie on October 24, 2025, before it arrives in cinemas worldwide on October 31, 2025.

The 2025 Venice Film Festival runs August 27 to September 6, with lineups including Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt, and Benny Safdie's Smashing Machine.

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Bugonia is the latest of Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone's collaboration, which has previously yielded The Favourite, Poor Things, and Kinds of Kindness. The first two movies earned 21 Oscar nominations between them and five wins, including a Best Actress for Stone in Poor Things.