There is a cinema, away from the mainstream, in which situations are more important than stories, images more significant than words and nuances more profound than dialogue. Two films this autumn prove how well this works as satire. In "Bugonia", Yorgos Lanthimos places the fate of humanity in the hands of a conspiracy theorist. Ari Aster centres the often absurd drama of the Covid pandemic on the small town of Eddington in New Mexico. The new eight-part miniseries "The Beast in Me" with Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys on Netflix is far more darkly mysterious.
© UPI
It all begins with bees and flowers and ends right there again. In between, however, director Yorgos Lanthimos lets wild conspiracy theories collide with justified anger and sets fire to slapstick, philosophy and pure horror. Much of "Bugonia" is not meant to be taken so seriously that it cannot be taken seriously. It's about nothing less than the collective nervous breakdown of humanity, personified by Jesse Plemons, who is trying to save the world. All he has to do is get his boss (Emma Stone) out of the way, who he thinks is an alien.
© Focus Features
The experimental dance theatre in his hometown of Athens inspired Yorgos Lanthimos, born in 1973, to make his first short films. Since then, he has even choreographed dialogues, as evidenced by the satirical romance "The Lobster" (2015) with Colin Farrell, as well as the female drama "The Favourite" (2018), for which Olivia Colman won an Oscar in 2019. From then on, however, Emma Stone became Lanthimos' muse. With her, he made the neo-gothic comedy "Poor Things" (2023, Oscar for Stone), the drama "Kinds of Kindness" (2025) and now "Bugonia", which was co-produced by director Ari Aster.
Film genre: Science Fiction Satire
Length: 119 minutes
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
With: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Alicia Silverstone
Age rating: 16+
Distributor: UPI
Release date: 30.10.2025
leonine
in 2020, people in Eddington, New Mexico, have become accustomed to a few things: Covid, mask-wearing and Mayor Ted Garcia. The latter is about to be re-elected when the local sheriff unexpectedly gives him a run for his money: as an upright defender of freedom and truth, Joe Cross is prepared to use any means necessary to win.
When an unpredictable force of nature in human form is needed on the big screen, Joaquin Phoenix is naturally the first choice. In "Eddington", he stomps through the dusty south-west with visible relish, as if any resemblance to living politicians was pure coincidence.
leonine
Ari Aster wanted to make his feature film debut around 2017 with the neo-western "Eddington". It is now the fourth film by the New Yorker, who was born in 1986, after the two black humour horror films "Hereditary" (2018) and "Midsommar" (2019) and the second with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role after the psychological drama "Beau Is Afraid" (2023). Aster, who studied directing in Santa Fe and Los Angeles, takes an original new look at classic genres, contemporary America and his favourite theme of family and elective affinities in all of his films.
Film genre: Social satire
Length: 145 minutes
Director: Ari Aster
With: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes
Age rating: 16+
Distributor: Leonine
Start: 20.11.2025
netflix
What you won't do to avoid meeting yourself. Successful author Aggie, for example, avoids the pain of the death of her young son by spying on her new neighbour Nile. He is not only a property mogul with a grand gesture, but also a family man whose wife once disappeared under unexplained circumstances.
Claire Danes, famous for her psychotic CIA agent Carrie in "Homeland", meets Matthew Rhys, who has already demonstrated his effortless balancing act between harmless and extremely dangerous in "The Americans". The best conditions for a psychological thriller in eight episodes with a hint of Hitchcock's "Window to the Courtyard".
Genre: Mystery drama
Length: approx. 480 min
Developer: Gabe Rotter
With: Claire Danes, Matthew Rhys, Brittany Snow, Leonard Gerome
Age rating: 16+ Channel: Netflix
Since: 13.11.2025
© Deutschlandradio
Every time you open an 80-year-old newspaper or watch a news programme from the 1980s, you experience the past in its present form - unfiltered, unsorted and not yet placed in a larger context. This makes the diary entries of the writer and literary scholar Victor Klemperer, which range from the German Empire to the Nazi era and the construction of the GDR, all the more interesting. In the 15 episodes of the podcast "History continues", historian Leonie Schöler compares Klemperer's astonishingly accurate premonitions with reality.
Type: Podcast
Developer: Deutschlandfunk
Accessible via: any browser
Address:bit.ly/4n4skPu
