Some films arrive at exactly the right moment, and No Other Choice benefits enormously from the period in which it was released. People are struggling to find meaningful employment. They’re struggling to keep up with rising costs. They’re struggling to maintain the basic financial stability that previous generations often took for granted. I recently read a BuzzFeed article collecting comments from shoppers, and one person joked that they knew someone was rich if they could afford to buy cherries at the grocery store. It’s a small observation, but it captures something real about the current moment. Everywhere you look, people are talking about rising prices, shrinking opportunities, and promises that things would get better only to watch costs continue climbing.
With that in mind, it’s fascinating that Park Chan-wook adapted a novel that wasn’t written recently and somehow turned it into a film that feels tailor-made for 2025. It reminds me a little of how One Battle After Another felt last year. That film resonated because it seemed to capture the anxieties and frustrations of its moment. No Other Choice does something similar. It isn’t just a strong movie. It feels connected to the economic uncertainty and social unease that defined the year in which it arrived.
Given that, I honestly expected it to show up somewhere on Oscar nomination morning. Instead, it became the odd film out among Neon’s crowded slate of international contenders. With five serious contenders competing for attention, somebody was always going to get squeezed out. I assumed it would be Sirât. Instead, No Other Choice was the one left standing outside the conversation.
That outcome is especially surprising when you consider Park Chan-wook’s place in film culture. For an entire generation of movie lovers, Oldboy served as a gateway into international cinema. It’s one of those films that becomes a building block in a person’s cinematic education. Yet despite the enormous admiration surrounding his work, Park Chan-wook still hasn’t received even a single Oscar nomination. At this point, that absence feels stranger than any nomination would.
My experience with No Other Choice was also unusual because it became my fourth Neon title of the year. I’ve already reviewed Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident, and The Secret Agent. All three landed on the Rotten side for a simple reason: Neon chose not to provide English audio description for them. Those films collectively earned significant Oscar attention, with multiple nominations extending beyond the International Feature category. The accessibility issue didn’t just affect one movie. It affected blind and low vision audiences trying to engage with some of the most acclaimed films of the year.
That’s what makes No Other Choice such a surprise. Of Neon’s five major international contenders, this was the one film that actually received English audio description. Even stranger, it was the only one that failed to secure a nomination. When the film played theatrically near me, there was no indication that audio description existed. When it first appeared on premium video on demand, I didn’t see it listed there either. Then it arrived on Hulu and suddenly the track was available.
Credit goes to Audio Eyes for producing something genuinely ambitious. Not because the writing itself is revolutionary, but because of how the track was structured. The film features a primary narrator, but subtitle dialogue is distributed among what appears to be fourteen additional performers. Instead of bouncing back and forth between a single male and female voice, the production assigns different voices to different characters, creating a greater sense of personality and separation. Given Audio Eyes’ tendency to draw from a familiar pool of talent, it was still amusing to recognize several recurring voices, but it remains the largest collection of credited narrators I’ve ever encountered on an audio description track. Considering Neon couldn’t be bothered to provide accessibility for its other major contenders, seeing them go all out for this one remains completely baffling.
As for the film itself, I liked it quite a bit. What I didn’t do was love it to the degree that some people seemed to. That’s often the danger of hype. When enough people spend months telling you a film is one of the greatest achievements of the year, anything short of complete transcendence can feel slightly disappointing. Watching No Other Choice, I found myself thinking, “That was really good.” Somehow that reaction felt inadequate because of the expectations surrounding it, even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being really good.
I’m not convinced this is Park Chan-wook’s best work, but it’s unquestionably worthy of his talent and representative of his abilities. The cast is excellent, and the premise is delightfully absurd. After losing his job, a desperate man finds himself competing for a position at a paper company. Faced with limited openings and overwhelming competition, he decides the easiest way to secure employment is to systematically eliminate the other applicants until he’s the only candidate left alive. It’s a ridiculous setup, but one that says far more about contemporary anxieties than its darkly comic premise initially suggests.
Even the choice of a paper company feels intentional. In a world increasingly dominated by digital communication, the protagonist is forced to present himself as someone whose entire identity revolves around paper. He speaks about it with near religious devotion, as though paper is not simply a product but a way of life. Watching him enthusiastically answer questions about stationery, letters, and analog communication becomes one of the film’s recurring jokes, especially when viewed through the lens of a society that has largely moved beyond those things.
Park Chan-wook also fills the film with stylistic flourishes that remind viewers why he remains such a respected visual storyteller. Even through audio description, I could sense the confidence behind many of the editorial decisions. I’ve spoken with sighted viewers who pointed out numerous transitions, wipes, fades, and visual techniques that reinforce the film’s darkly playful tone. It’s the kind of craftsmanship that makes the material feel lighter on its feet than a story about unemployment, desperation, and murder probably should.
It is a very strange dark comedy, one I’ll definitely watch a second time. i feel like there are so many things to take away from the film. If I had gotten the audio description for this prior to my voting, it would have ended up in any nominee spot, though my pick for Best International Feature from last year still wouldn’t be this, even with the limited choices. I certainly give Neon a lot of shit when it comes to picking and choosing when we get accessibility, and when we do not. neon is a big enough distributor to commit to accessibility broadly. But, when I am given audio description, I can actually evaluate the film, so out of the International block from 2025, this is the one that gets the fresh score.
No Other Choice isn’t so much a sign of the times as it is a product of it, magnifying the financial insecurity we feel, and putting a memorable dark twist with it. Plus, Neon sprung for an audio description track, which plays like gangbusters. I really do have no other choice but to recommend this.
Fresh: 7.8/10
