Emma Stone Poor Things – Oscars, Plot, Reviews, Where to Watch

Emma Stone delivers one of the most discussed performances in recent cinema history in Poor Things, a 2023 surrealist black comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Stone plays Bella Baxter, a woman resurrected with an infant’s brain transplanted into her adult body — a bold premise drawn directly from Alasdair Gray’s celebrated 1992 novel of the same name.

Written by Tony McNamara and co-produced across Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the film fuses explicit content, dark comedy, and sharp social commentary within a fantastical Victorian-era world. Its warped visual style and Stone’s physically committed, transformative performance made it one of the defining releases of 2023.

At the 96th Academy Awards, Poor Things took home four Oscars, including Best Actress for Stone. The film’s recognition extended well beyond Hollywood, sweeping across Golden Globes, BAFTA, and major critics’ circles throughout awards season.

What Is Poor Things About?

• Emma Stone won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Bella Baxter — her second Oscar overall.
• The film earned four Oscars in total at the 96th Academy Awards, including Best Production Design and Best Costume Design.
• Poor Things holds a 93% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.5/10.
• The screenplay, adapted by Tony McNamara, received significant awards attention throughout the season.
• The film also collected two Golden Globes at the 81st ceremony and five BAFTAs at the 77th ceremony.
• Both the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named it among their top ten films of 2023.
• The source novel by Alasdair Gray won the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize.

The story centers on Bella Baxter, who is brought back to life after a pregnant woman’s suicide. Eccentric surgeon Dr. Godwin Baxter — played by Willem Dafoe — implants the unborn child’s brain into the adult woman’s body, creating an unusual being who must relearn the world from scratch. According to Wikipedia’s entry on the film, Bella develops rapidly, reportedly learning fifteen new words each day while displaying childlike movements and speech patterns.

She eventually flees with lawyer Duncan Wedderburn, played by Mark Ruffalo, embarking on global adventures that expose her to exploitation — including a stint in prostitution — before she asserts her independence and champions equality. The narrative is widely understood as a feminist critique of patriarchal control, told through a Frankenstein-inspired lens.

Who Is Emma Stone’s Character in Poor Things?

Bella Baxter is among the most distinctive characters Stone has portrayed. Critics highlight her physicality, sparse but striking dialogue — such as the line “Your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you” — and her willingness to commit fully to scenes involving nudity and explicit content. The arc moves from infant-like innocence to fully realized adult autonomy, charting a compressed version of human development across the film’s runtime.

The supporting cast includes Willem Dafoe as the scarred mad scientist Dr. Godwin “God” Baxter, Mark Ruffalo as the possessive lothario Duncan Wedderburn, and Ramy Youssef as Max McCandles, a medical assistant with feelings for Bella. Christopher Abbott and Jerrod Carmichael also appear in the ensemble.

Is Poor Things Based on a Book?

Yes. The film adapts Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name. Gray’s original work was set in 19th-century Glasgow and examined Scottish history through a Frankenstein-style dramatic framework. It won both the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Lanthimos began developing the project before Gray’s death in 2019.

The film relocates the story from Glasgow to a fantastical Victorian London populated by warped architectural sets and bizarre creature designs — including a duck-cat hybrid — evoking a visual style that critics compared to the work of Wes Anderson or Tim Burton.

Did Emma Stone Win an Oscar for Poor Things?

Yes. Emma Stone won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 96th Academy Awards for her portrayal of Bella Baxter. The win was her second Oscar, following her earlier Best Actress prize for La La Land in 2017. Mark Ruffalo received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the same film, though he did not win in that category.

Full Awards Tally for Poor Things

Poor Things was among the most decorated films of the 2023–2024 awards cycle. Its four Academy Award wins covered Best Actress, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design, among others. The film’s costume work — featuring exaggerated Victorian designs suited to its brothel and cruise ship sequences — was widely noted as among the most inventive of the year.

According to Weekly Wilson’s pre-Oscars analysis, Stone’s performance was considered a frontrunner well before the ceremony. The same source noted the film’s broad awards momentum as reflecting both critical consensus and industry enthusiasm for its unconventional storytelling.

Tony McNamara’s adapted screenplay also drew significant awards attention throughout the season, though specific category wins for the screenplay are not confirmed in available sources beyond nominations and buzz.

Where Can I Watch Poor Things?

Poor Things is a Searchlight Pictures release. Specific current streaming platforms are not confirmed in available sources, but viewers can check services that typically carry Searchlight Pictures titles. Availability may vary by region and can change over time.

The film’s IMDB listing provides updated information on where the title is currently available for digital rental, purchase, or streaming. Given its status as a 2023 Oscar winner, it has passed through theatrical windows and is accessible through major on-demand platforms in most markets.

For audiences outside the United States, availability through local digital storefronts or national streaming platforms may differ from North American options. Regional release windows for physical media also vary.

What Do Reviews Say About Poor Things?

Poor Things earned exceptionally strong critical notices. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 93% approval rating based on its critics’ consensus, with an average score of 8.5 out of 10. The site’s consensus describes it as a “bizarre, brilliant tour de force,” citing its imagination and Stone’s performance as standout qualities.

Positive Critical Reception

Enthusiastic reviews consistently single out Stone’s Oscar-caliber commitment, the film’s feminist subversion of classic genre tropes, its darkly effective humor, and the extraordinary world-building achieved through production design and creature effects. Creative Loafing Tampa’s review emphasizes the film’s over-the-top visuals, its surgery gore, and the extended cruise ship sequence as highlights of its sensory ambition.

Stone’s portrayal of Bella’s progression — from a creature relearning basic motor skills and language to a fully self-determined adult — is described across multiple reviews as a physically and emotionally demanding performance executed with rare confidence.

Dissenting Opinions

Not all critics were persuaded. A review published by The Fulcrum argues that the film leans too heavily on vulgarity, explicit sexuality, and profanity at the expense of meaningful substance — acknowledging its artistic flair while questioning whether the provocations serve the story. Audience commentary similarly notes the film’s confrontational weirdness and adult content as factors that limit its broad accessibility.

The Ending Explained

The film’s conclusion follows Bella as she systematically rejects every form of male control she has encountered — from Dr. Baxter’s protective but limiting guardianship, to Duncan Wedderburn’s possessive obsession, to broader political exploitation. Each confrontation underscores a refusal of subjugation, and Bella ultimately achieves genuine autonomy and advocates for equality on her own terms.

The arc is widely read as a feminist awakening metaphor, with Bella’s compressed development from infant cognition to adult independence standing in for a broader critique of the systems that confine women. The film’s satirical energy remains intact through its conclusion rather than resolving into conventional redemption.

Fans of ensemble-driven storytelling may also find interest in Cast of Happy’s Place – Actors, Characters and Reunions, which covers another ensemble production with notable character dynamics.

Behind-the-Scenes Insights on Poor Things

Lanthimos had begun developing the project before Alasdair Gray’s death in December 2019, meaning the adaptation was already in motion during the author’s lifetime. The production brought together creative teams from Ireland, the UK, and the US to realize a visual language unlike anything in the director’s previous work.

Production Design and Visual World

The film’s sets are deliberately warped and surreal, moving the story’s setting from Gray’s original Glasgow to a fantastical Victorian London. Designers created environments that critics likened to the aesthetic universes of Wes Anderson and Tim Burton, complete with bizarre animal hybrids — including a duck-cat creature — and theatrical backdrops that reinforce the story’s fairy-tale unreality.

The costume department, whose work earned one of the film’s four Oscars, built an exaggerated Victorian wardrobe calibrated to each location and scenario — from Bella’s early domestic confinement through to brothel sequences and the extended cruise ship section that forms a pivotal mid-film passage.

Emma Stone on the Role’s Physical Demands

During the film’s promotional campaign, Stone spoke about the physical demands of embodying Bella’s early developmental stages — recreating the movements and speech patterns of an infant in an adult body while navigating explicit scenes. No direct interview transcripts are available in current sources, but Stone’s promotional commentary acknowledged the role’s unusual requirements as both challenging and creatively liberating.

For those following other demanding television performances, the article on Smoke (TV Series) – Jodie Comer Cast, Plot, Release Date covers another production anchored by an actress known for physically transformative work.

The Book Versus the Film

Gray’s novel is set in 19th-century Glasgow and is structured as a piece of Scottish literary fiction with historical underpinnings. The film transposes those foundations into a fantasy world with no fixed geography, trading Glasgow’s specificity for a broader allegorical canvas. The core Frankenstein-derived premise — the resurrected woman — and its feminist critique carry directly from page to screen, while the visual and tonal register is entirely Lanthimos’s invention.

From Novel to Screen: A Timeline of Poor Things

1. 1992 — Alasdair Gray publishes Poor Things; the novel wins the Whitbread Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize.
2. 2019 — Gray dies in December; Lanthimos had already begun developing the film adaptation before this point.
3. 2021 — Casting for the production is confirmed, with Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Ruffalo attached.
4. September 2023 — The film premieres at the Venice Film Festival, marking its international debut.
5. December 2023 — Wide theatrical release brings the film to audiences across key markets.
6. January 2024 — Poor Things wins two Golden Globes at the 81st ceremony.
7. February 2024 — Five BAFTA wins at the 77th British Academy Film Awards.
8. March 2024 — Four Academy Awards at the 96th Oscars, including Best Actress for Emma Stone.

What Is Confirmed — and What Remains Unclear

The Themes and Significance Behind Poor Things

Poor Things operates primarily as a feminist critique of patriarchal systems, using the Frankenstein framework to examine how women are shaped, controlled, and ultimately liberated from the expectations imposed on them. Bella’s journey — from object of scientific curiosity to autonomous individual — maps the feminist awakening onto a deliberately fantastical and satirical canvas.

The film’s engagement with exploitation, including prostitution, is not treated as spectacle for its own sake but as part of Bella’s education in the realities of gender and power. Her encounters with each male character — the paternal scientist, the possessive lawyer, the politically motivated abuser — function as stages in a progression toward full self-determination.

For Lanthimos, the project represents a departure from the claustrophobic chamber dramas of his earlier work, embracing a sprawling, visually exuberant aesthetic while retaining his characteristic interest in the distortions of social norms. Gray’s source material, rooted in Scottish literary tradition and the anxieties of 19th-century science, provided a foundation flexible enough to accommodate that ambition.

What Critics and Collaborators Have Said

“A bizarre, brilliant tour de force.”

— Critics’ consensus, Rotten Tomatoes

“Just go ahead and give Emma Stone the Oscar for Poor Things.”

— Creative Loafing Tampa

“Poor Things is in poor taste.”

— The Fulcrum, dissenting review

Stone’s promotional remarks acknowledged the role’s physical difficulty and the unusual process of depicting cognitive development through adult movement. No extended interview transcripts are available in current sources, but her promotional appearances consistently framed the role as among the most demanding of her career.

Why Poor Things Remains One of 2023’s Most Significant Films

Poor Things stands as a landmark of 2023 cinema — a film that paired an audacious feminist premise with award-winning craft in production design, costume, and performance. Emma Stone’s portrayal of Bella Baxter, recognized at every major awards ceremony from Venice through the Academy Awards, brought rare critical and popular visibility to a film that takes genuine risks. Its combination of surreal spectacle, social critique, and Stone’s transformative central work gives it a staying power that extends well beyond its awards-season moment. For full production and cast details, the film’s comprehensive entry on Wikipedia remains the most thorough publicly available reference.

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