Eight years after Burning, the director returns with Possible Love, a Venice winner and South Korea's pick for the Academy Awards. It reaches Netflix on Nov. 6.
It took Lee Chang-dong eight years to make Possible Love, and he says that’s exactly how long it needed. The director behind Burning is back with a relationship drama that has already won in Venice and now carries South Korea’s hopes for Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards.
For anyone who has been waiting since 2018, the timing is overdue and very welcome. Lee has never been a quick worker, and he’s the first to say so. “I’m not the type of filmmaker who can make movies easily,” he says. “Before I begin a film, I must be certain of what it means — to me, to the audience, and to cinema itself. That is why Possible Love took so long to make.”
Read that again and it works as a mission statement. Meaning comes first, for him, for the viewer and for cinema as a whole. The schedule is whatever that takes.
Two couples, one documentary
The story starts small. Mi-ok lives quietly with her laid-off husband, Ho-seok, and their young son, Cheol. Then a funeral pulls the family into the orbit of Ye-ji, a documentary filmmaker, and her husband, Sang-woo. The second couple is affluent, and their lifestyle sits in sharp contrast to Mi-ok’s own.
Ye-ji is making a film about laid-off workers. When Mi-ok agrees to be filmed, she grows close to Ye-ji. She also finds herself uneasily drawn to Sang-woo, who is unreadable. As the two lives tangle, fractures start to show in everyday routines, and both couples have to face repressed emotions and hidden desires.
It’s a setup with a camera pointed inward. A documentary crew arrives to observe someone else’s hardship, and the people behind the lens end up exposed too.
The cast
Lee has assembled four heavyweights. Jeon Do-yeon plays Mi-ok. Sul Kyung-gu is her husband, Ho-seok. Cho Yeo-jeong plays the documentarian Ye-ji, and Zo In-sung plays her spouse, Sang-woo.
Jeon’s performance is already getting awards attention. It earned her a Gotham Film Awards nomination for Outstanding Lead Performance. The film is also up for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay at the Gothams, three nominations in all, before the Oscar conversation has even properly started.
What the Oscar pick signals
South Korea’s selection of Possible Love says something about who the country sends into the race. Lee’s résumé includes Secret Sunshine, Peppermint Candy and Green Fish, as well as Burning. Choosing him means backing a filmmaker with a long, serious body of work rather than chasing a trend. The film has also earned the endorsement of an international jury: it took the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, where it had its world premiere.
The subject matter fits the choice. A story about job loss, class distance and the awkwardness of being observed doesn’t need translating. It runs two hours and 47 minutes and is rated R, so it takes its time, as Lee’s films usually do.
Where and when to watch
The film hit select theaters on Oct. 23 and arrives on Netflix on Nov. 6. It’s also heading to the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival later this fall. That gives it a theatrical run, festival exposure and a streaming launch in a matter of weeks, which is a useful runway for an awards campaign.
Netflix sums up the film in a single line: a laid-off worker and his wife cross paths with a documentary filmmaker and her spouse, and they confront their hidden desires. Four leads, two marriages and one camera are all it takes to set that in motion.
Whether the Academy follows Venice’s lead is a question for later. For now there’s a new Lee Chang-dong film, and it’s close to the sofa.
Via Netflix Tudum
