After Bugonia, Yorgos Lanthimos will take a break
“At some point, the creative energy runs out,” admits the Greek filmmaker.
After three films in three years, the director of Poor Creatures (2023) and Kinds of Kindness (2024) decided to take a breather after Bugonia (2025). As his new feature film with Emma Stone prepares to be released, Yorgos Lanthimos has announced that he plans to take a break from his career.
Asked by Collider on his impressive productivity, the Greek filmmaker admitted having reached his limits:
“I can’t continue like this, that’s for sure. I think I need a break. I’ve said it before between my last three films, but this time I’m serious. You can believe me, I’m going to take a little break.”
Lanthimos explained that his frenetic pace often pushed him to go from one shoot to the next.
“I always choose the film to make as soon as a script is ready. And when you’ve worked on it for so long, it’s frustrating to leave it aside. So I force myself to find the time to shoot it immediately after finishing the previous one.”
This intensive cycle had already led him to turn Kinds of Kindness during post-production Poor Creaturesbefore continuing on Bugonia. This new film, adapted from the South Korean comedy Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan (2003), features two cousins (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) who kidnap a business executive (Emma Stone), convinced that she is part of an extraterrestrial plot to destroy the Earth.
With BugoniaLanthimos therefore reunites with his muse Emma Stone for a fourth collaboration and signs a strange new fable, between satire and science fiction. But this time, he promises to take his foot off the gas: “
“At some point, the creative energy runs out. I think that’s where we’re at.”
We do not yet know how long the break in question will last, but there should not be a Lanthimos 2026 vintage. We will recall that its last break lasted 5 years (with the Covid crisis in the middle) between the release of The Favorite (in 2018) and that of Poor Creatures (2023).
Bugonia will be released in France on November 26, 2025.
