After the runaway success of Poor Things (2023), Emma Stone returns in the highly anticipated sequel “Poor Things: Resurrection”, set for release in fall 2025. Director Yorgos Lanthimos once again leads the project, promising a bolder, visually provocative, and philosophically rich continuation. Stone reprises her role as Bella Baxter — a character now evolving into a symbol of not just liberation, but transhumanist questions about what it means to be alive.

Set in a scientifically utopian version of London, Bella finds herself confronting a corporate elite experimenting with human cloning in pursuit of eternal youth. The core dilemma: is a person defined by memory, emotion, or flesh? Stone's Bella is older, wiser, and mythic — embodying questions that transcend the screen. Co-stars include Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, and Colin Farrell in striking new roles.

Artistically, the film is a masterwork of steampunk surrealism and neo-Victorian worldbuilding. Lavish costumes, painterly lighting, and bold production design turn every frame into a painting. Stone, having won an Oscar for the original, elevates Bella into a cinematic icon — not just a character, but a figure of philosophical resonance.

Premiering on October 11, 2025, with screenings at the Venice and New York Film Festivals, Resurrection is already being called one of the year’s boldest arthouse triumphs — and a testament to Emma Stone’s fearless commitment to challenging, transcendent roles.

Poor Things: Resurrection is not merely a sequel — it’s a radical reawakening of the cinematic universe Lanthimos first sculpted with mad elegance and philosophical daring. Where Poor Things introduced Bella Baxter as a liberated being reclaiming agency, Resurrection thrusts her into a post-human society where consciousness itself is a currency and biology is no longer destiny.

The film begins with Bella at the height of intellectual celebrity — a scientific pioneer, public speaker, and controversial philosopher. But with influence comes danger. When she’s invited into a seemingly utopian research society, she uncovers a disturbing reality: the institution’s experiments with “mortal recycling” aim to erase death not by preserving life, but by copying it. What starts as fascination quickly descends into a psychological and ethical labyrinth.

Bella becomes both subject and observer — navigating corridors of cloned bodies, fractured memories, and synthetic souls. The film challenges the viewer to consider not just what makes someone human, but when and why that humanity matters. As Bella grapples with versions of herself — literal and metaphorical — the lines between original and echo blur.

Emma Stone’s performance is layered with irony, tragedy, and grace. Gone is the impulsive wonder of the younger Bella; in its place is a woman unafraid of her contradictions. She is fierce, calculating, sometimes unkind — but always guided by a desire to understand existence at its core. It’s a performance that balances theatricality with surgical precision, and it anchors the film’s surrealism in emotional truth.

Lanthimos, meanwhile, uses the camera like a scalpel and a paintbrush. There are no traditional narrative beats here — scenes bleed into each other like half-remembered dreams. The aesthetic blends Victorian technology with dystopian futurism, creating a hybrid world where cobblestone streets lead to genetic labs and gaslights illuminate philosophical salons. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s work evokes both old-world opulence and cybernetic unease, while Jerskin Fendrix’s score pulsates with operatic dissonance.

Jessie Buckley delivers a wild and unforgettable turn as a rogue scientist who both rivals and reveres Bella. Paul Mescal plays an enigmatic archivist who stores the memories of deceased thinkers — a man caught between obsession and devotion. Colin Farrell, reuniting with Lanthimos once again, offers a haunting portrayal of a once-revolutionary now complicit in the very system he once sought to dismantle.

But at the heart of it all remains Bella — not just reborn, but redefined. Her arc in Resurrection transforms her into a mythic figure, not by virtue of power, but by insight. She becomes a mirror through which society’s deepest hopes and fears are reflected: immortality, autonomy, meaning, and the right to change.

As with Lanthimos’s best work, Resurrection does not offer comfort. It seduces, provokes, and ultimately destabilizes. It is at once grotesque and gorgeous, absurd and profound. It demands intellectual engagement — not with answers, but with questions that linger long after the final scene fades to black.

More than a film, Poor Things: Resurrection feels like an evolution in arthouse cinema — unafraid to break form, reshape genre, and challenge the emotional bandwidth of its audience. Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter stands now not just as a character of the moment, but as a landmark in the storytelling of the future.