'Possible Love' Courtesy of Netflix Seven award seasons after the Korean film Parasite broke the glass ceiling for non-English-language films at the Oscars by winning best picture, Netflix is angling to get another hugely acclaimed film from Korea the same sort of recognition: Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love.
The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively report that the company is planning a multi-category Oscar push for the film, which is the first in eight years from Korean master Lee, and already has been awarded the Venice Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize, placed second for the Toronto International Film Festival’s international audience award and is among 2026’s best-reviewed releases, with scores of 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 93 on MetaCritic.
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In addition to an Oscar nom for best international feature (Korea chose the film as its official entry way back in August), Oscar noms for best picture, best director and best original screenplay (Lee and Oh Jung-mi) are high-priority targets and seem achievable based on the success of non-English-language films in those categories over the decade since the Academy began significantly increasing the number of its members who are based outside of the United States (and are therefore less deterred by subtitles).
But Netflix feels that its strongest bet may be the performance of Jeon Do-yeon as Mi-ok, the outspoken half of a working-class couple that is opportunistically befriended by a very wealthy couple, and the company has decided to lobby hard for the 53-year-old to land a best actress Oscar nom. (She previously worked with Lee on 2007’s Secret Sunshine, for which she became the first Korean to win the Cannes Film Festival’s best actress prize, and is now one of Korea’s biggest stars.)
Unlike Netflix’s other 2026 ensemble-centric non-English-lanauge film, La Bola Negra, the full cast of which is being promoted in the supporting acting categories, the company has decided to promote the four principal stars of Possible Love in different categories. In addition to Jeon in the best actress race, it will ask voters to consider Sul Kyung-Gu, who plays Mi-ok’s traumatized husband Ho-seok, for best actor; Cho Yeo-jeong, a Parasite alum who plays Ye-ji, a wealthy woman pursuing an interview with Ho-seok for a documentary, for best supporting actress; and Zo In-sung, who plays Ye-ji’s playboy husband Sang-woo, for best supporting actor.
The streamer is hoping that the Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards), which embraced Parasite with an historic best ensemble nomination (and later an historic best ensemble win), will also recognize Possible Love with a nom in that category. Another key barometer of the film’s prospects may be the increasingly critics-aligned voting body of the Golden Globes, to which Possible Love is being submitted for consideration in the drama categories (as opposed to the musical or comedy categories). Given that two of the highest-profile best actress Oscar contenders — The Debut’s Julianne Moore and, somewhat surprisingly, Obsession’s Inde Navarrette — will be competing in the Globes’ musical/comedy actress race, the Globes’ drama actress race looks fairly open, which could bode well for the prospects of Jeon.
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