Will Bugonia Get a Best Picture Nomination?

On August 28, the night that Yorgos Lanthimos’s new black comedy Bugonia premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, awards prognosticators everywhere held their breaths. Thanks to the Oscar success that was Poor Things, expectations were high. Certainly Yorgos’s next outing, a fall release with a buzzy script and performances, would be another entry in a soon-to-be exhaustive list of Lanthimos-directed awards contenders… right?

It’s a question that pundits had trouble answering that night in Venice, when the film premiered to mixed-positive reviews, and one that’s split Oscar predictors since. Within a few days, the film had settled to a 78 on Metacritic. Not the smash hit some expected, but not dead on arrival either. Several pundits asserted the film was simply too weird to make it big in the Oscar race, while others insisted it still hovered in the race’s second echelon of strength.

This disparity continued into the following months. Predictions for Best Picture had fallen on Award Expert from 70% to 55% two weeks later. Now, after a sturdy theatrical release and all critic reviews in, that figure has stayed consistent - 52% predict a nomination heading into mid-November.

This stubborn split has a motive, so let’s break down the cases and figure out, once and for all: is Bugonia a true Best Picture player, or truly out of contention?

The case for a Best Picture nomination

Bugonia is every bit as much of an appealing social commentary as Poor Things was. That film was an energetic statement of bodily autonomy, a joyful rebellion against the patriarchal constraints of the modern world. Bugonia is every bit as morally aware, reflective of prescient anxieties about corporate power and environmental collapse. Its social relevance is highlighted in every critical response, and the bulk of Letterboxd’s top reviews. This relevance, with a respected auteur behind it, could garner enough passion to slide into a lineup of ten.

The Best Adapted Screenplay category is where itsstrong cultural critiques may resonate most. Bugonia is in third place according to Awards Expert users, with 80% predicting a nomination. This is partly due to the weakness of the category, with only two out of five films considered guarantees (One Battle After Another and Hamnet).

But a safe spot in an above-the-line category, no matter how easy, can help a film’s chances in other, more competitive categories. The consistent appearance of films like Past Lives and Nickel Boys in a screenplay category throughout the season helped them to surface in Best Picture. Bugonia’s purported safety in Adapted Screenplay would inevitably increase its visibility and odds in the Best Picture competition.

The film’s next-best prospect is undoubtedly Emma Stone in Best Actress. Users are slightly more confident in Stone to be nominated than they are about Picture - 57%, compared to 52%. The same principle of visibility in Screenplay is also true here: if a film has a presence in a lead acting category, they’re much more likely to break into other ones. Just look at I’m Still Here in Picture, or Living in Adapted Screenplay.

Bugonia is also likely to land at precursors to the Oscar nominations. For instance, it’s easy to see Critics Choice nominating big-name actors in a Lanthimos film, and the Golden Globes are pretty much certain to nominate Emma Stone due to their split of musical/comedy and drama. The potential for Stone and her costar Jesse Plemmons to appear at the Globes or Critics Choice are solid, and will help the film overall.

Reviews from user-powered websites suggest the film is very well liked. It holds a 4.0 on Letterboxd which isn't far off from Lanthimos's other works, though as time goes on, Letterboxd scores tend to drop over time. On IMDb it has a 7.7/10 rating with 38k votes, which is a strong endorsement.

The case against a Best Picture nomination

If you’ve seen the film, you know it’s more akin to Lanthimos’s absurdist, satirical work, as opposed to the populist, genre-bending Poor Things and The Favourite. Those films are arguably more dramatically appealing than Bugonia, which indulges with utter seriousness the workings of a conspiracy theorist convinced of aliens on Earth.

Bugonia may find itself in the same situation as Lanthimos’s The Lobster, a film with a similarly bizarre plot about single people obliged to find a romantic partner or otherwise transform into an animal, which got a lone nomination for Original Screenplay.

It's not clear that Bugonia has the passion necessary to land on voter ballots. If we sample critic reviews, The Lobster earned an 82 on Metacritic while Bugonia has a 72. That’s not the critical enthusiasm you want for a last-minute passion pick. The best comparison might be Nightmare Alley, which similarly scored a 70, but that film had a few technical nods on lock. Bugonia's reputation which audiences is so-so, receivingwhich received a B CinemaScore (for comparison, Poor Things got an A-) and ticket sales haven't made up for its $55 million budget.

When will its fate become clear?

To take a more even handed approach to this question, we can examine what the precursor path to success, or lack thereof, might look like.

At the Golden Globes, expect nominations for both Stone and Plemmons in the Musical/Comedy categories, as well as a nod for the film in Picture. If misses any of these nominations, consider it a red flag, as the six slots in each Musical/Comedy category should provide plenty of room for voters to embrace it. If it over-performs - landing Screenplay, or more likely Score - consider it a sign of strength.

At Critics Choice, it should land a Best Film nomination. If it misses Best Film, Actress, or Screenplay, consider it a red flag. If Plemmons gets a nod, which is entirely feasible since Wagner Moura may miss for a potentially underseen The Secret Agent, and because the category has six slots, that’s a small confidence boost.

We should look to the Guild awards if we want to be really confident. We want to see at least one SAG nomination and a PGA nomination for the film, along with the expected WGA nod. A Best Picture nomination in its future would be looking excellent if it got all of those.