It has been eight years since Lee Chang-dong gave us Burning, one of the great films of the last decade. His return, Possible Love, won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at Venice and was greeted on the Lido as perhaps the most unanimously admired film of the festival.
It deserves the praise. This is a long, patient, beautifully acted drama about two married couples whose lives become entangled across a vast gulf of class, and it treats its audience as intelligent adults from first frame to last.
Possible Love is a sombre, elegant and deeply humane film about who gets to tell whose story.
Movie at a Glance
- UK and Ireland cinemas: 23 October 2026 (selected cinemas)
- Netflix: 6 November 2026
- US cinemas: 23 October 2026 (limited release)
- UK certificate: 15
- Runtime: 2 hours 44 minutes
- Director: Lee Chang-dong
- Starring: Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong
- Distributor: Netflix
- Language: Korean, with subtitles
- Genre: Drama
Viewer Match
- Best for: Fans of Burning, Secret Sunshine and Poetry, and anyone who loves slow, rich, grown-up drama.
- Maybe skip if: Long running times test you, or you prefer stories with clear villains and tidy endings.
- Mood and pace: Patient, novelistic and bittersweet, with sly flashes of comedy.
- Cinema or streaming? See it in a cinema if you can; otherwise it lands on Netflix on 6 November.
- Spoiler level: Spoiler-free: only the set-up.
A Tale of Two Couples
Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) and Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) are a working-class couple with a young son and a marriage in trouble. Ho-seok is angry, drinking and depressed after a strike at his factory ended in disaster. At the funeral of one of his former colleagues, they meet Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a stylish documentary maker, and her wealthy husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), who want to tell the workers’ story.
Ye-ji sets out to befriend Mi-ok with what her husband calls a “method acting” approach: dinners, drinks, a holiday at his family’s grand seaside home. She insists she is trying to love these people. Whether she can, or whether anyone across such a divide really can, is the question the film sits with.
Four Superb Performances
The cast is outstanding. Jeon Do-yeon, who won at Cannes for Lee’s Secret Sunshine, is the film’s beating heart, finding in Mi-ok a longing for freedom that has been stifled for years. Sul Kyung-gu is heartbreaking as a proud man who refuses to perform his pain for a camera, and Cho Yeo-jeong walks a fine line between sincerity and self-interest as Ye-ji.
Zo In-sung is quietly unsettling as Sang-woo, whose money may be tied up in the very factory sale that ruined Ho-seok.
Patient, Novelistic and Rich
At 2 hours 44 minutes, Possible Love takes its time. Lee lets scenes breathe and stories drift, and early flashbacks to two characters’ younger lives are so good that you may wish he had kept returning to them. Occasionally the film feels a little self-aware, unsure how hard to lean on its irony.
But the cumulative effect is remarkable. Rather than going for easy satire of the rich, Lee observes everyone with cool, generous neutrality, and the title’s hesitant promise lingers: love, of every kind, remains possible.
Spoiler-Free Verdict
Possible Love is a beautifully acted, deeply intelligent drama about class, exploitation and connection, and a magnificent return for Lee Chang-dong. It is long and deliberately paced, but it rewards every minute with performances and insights that stay with you.
- Performances: 9.5/10
- Direction: 9.5/10
- Screenplay: 9/10
- Score: 8/10
- Cinematography: 8.5/10
- Entertainment Value: 8.5/10
- Overall score: 9/10
Star rating: 4.5/5
Verdict badge: Must Watch
One-line verdict: A quietly colossal Korean masterpiece and one of the very best films of 2026.
Watch the Official Trailer
The official trailer may reveal more than this spoiler-free review.
Can the rich ever truly tell the stories of the people they film? Tell Movieversalfilm what you think after watching Possible Love.