Possible Love (2026) reviews

The Fuzzy Mushroom take on Possible Love

By Fuzzy Mushroom · Updated 10 November 2026 · The Pros 98 · The Punters 85 · Spore Score 95 · How we write our takes

Why The Pros rate it higher than The Punters

Possible Love has some of the strongest critical numbers of the year. The Pros give it 98, which is about as high as our scale goes, while The Punters are a little cooler on 85. The Spore Score settles at 95. Both camps like it, so this is not a split in the usual sense. The gap is the difference between people who seek out a new Lee Chang-dong film and people who find it on Netflix on a Friday night and wonder why nothing seems to be happening.

What it does well

Lee is the South Korean director of Oasis, Secret Sunshine and Burning, and this is his first feature since Burning in 2018. He co-wrote it with Oh Jung-mi, and it is built around two couples who should never have met. Choi Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) is a welder who lost his job when a strike at his car plant was broken by a brutal police raid on the factory roofs. His wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) works in a mask factory. Lee Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong, the wealthy mother in Parasite) is a documentary maker with a rich husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), and she wants Ho-seok's pain on camera.

What follows is a weekend at Sang-woo's estate on Korea's west coast, and Lee lets it unfold with terrifying patience. Cameras are everywhere: Ye-ji's lens, the estate's CCTV, the eyes of a ten-year-old boy who watches the grown-ups from the groundskeeper's shed. A long sequence on a private beach, playful one moment and uneasy the next, is as good as anything in Lee's career. Jeon, who won Best Actress at Cannes for Secret Sunshine, gives a performance built on what Mi-ok chooses not to say.

Where it might lose you

This is a slow, novelistic film. Big events happen off screen or in flashback, and the ending refuses to tie anything up. If you want to know exactly who did what to whom, and what it all means, you will be left frustrated. The class politics are sharp but never shouted, which is why some viewers read it as a marriage drama and others as a film about labour and capital.

Who it is for

Fans of Burning, Parasite or Asghar Farhadi's domestic thrillers. Anyone who enjoys a film that keeps working on them for days afterwards. Not one to have on in the background while you scroll.

Context

The project began life as part of a plan to remake Krzysztof Kieślowski's Dekalog as separate features, and Lee has said the finished film tells its own story but is still tied to one of the commandments. It premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival on 6 September 2026, where it won the FIPRESCI critics' prize, and it is South Korea's entry for Best International Feature at the 2027 Oscars. Netflix released it worldwide on 6 November 2026. Jung Jae-il, who scored Parasite, wrote the music.

The Fuzzy Mushroom verdict

Must-see, with a Spore Score of 95. The Pros are right that this is a major film by a master. The Punters are right that it asks for your full attention. Give it that, and it pays you back.