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Actor Jeon Do-yeon. <EPA/Yonhap News Agency>

The US entertainment outlet The Hollywood Reporter has singled out Jeon Do-yeon, who plays Mi-ok in Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, as a contender for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In a feature tracing her career, the publication said Jeon could become the first South Korean actor nominated in the category. US review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes also included Jeon among the Best Actress nominees in its own Oscar predictions.

Possible Love is Korea’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards. Best Actress nominees are chosen separately, through a vote of the Academy’s actors branch.

Jeon plays Mi-ok, the wife of Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), a laid-off worker. The film follows what happens when Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), a director who sets out to make a documentary about Ho-seok and Mi-ok’s life, and her husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), become entangled with them. The two couples confront each other’s circumstances and the desires they have kept hidden.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it was difficult to picture anyone but Jeon as Mi-ok. Even in the film’s brighter scenes, it noted, her expressions and voice never settle into a single emotion, so the performance cuts deepest at the very moments Mi-ok seems happiest.

The film itself has also drawn praise. Possible Love held a 100% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes as of Oct. 26, and the site’s forecast also named it a likely nominee for Best Picture and Best International Feature Film. The Los Angeles Times included it among the best films of the year.

Lee told The Hollywood Reporter that Oscar nominations for actors in non-English-language films remain very rare and difficult to achieve. If the Academy recognizes Jeon’s performance, he said, it would mark more than one actor’s achievement and would show the change the Academy is pursuing. Jeon was measured about her chances. “That has never been my goal,” she told the outlet.

Jeon’s previous collaboration with Lee was Secret Sunshine (2007), which won her the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival and made her the first Korean actor to receive the prize. Possible Love reunites the two after 19 years and is Lee’s first feature in eight years, since Burning (2018). In September, the 83rd Venice International Film Festival awarded the film its Grand Jury Prize.

Youn Yuh-jung remains the only Korean actor to have won an Academy Award for acting, taking Best Supporting Actress in 2021 for Minari. No Korean actor has yet been nominated for Best Actress.

Possible Love opened in Korean theaters on Sept. 23 and began streaming worldwide on Netflix on Nov. 6. Nominations for the 99th Academy Awards will be announced on Jan. 21, 2027 (local time), when it will be decided whether Jeon is among the Best Actress nominees.

Sources

• The Hollywood Reporter, “Jeon Do-yeon Defined an Era of Korean Cinema. With ‘Possible Love,’ She’s Become an Oscar Contender,” 2026.10.23

• Yonhap News Agency, “‘Jeon Do-yeon Could Land Oscar Lead Actress Nomination’ — Foreign Media Spotlight Possible Love,” 2026.10.26

• TenAsia, “‘A Spot Even Youn Yuh-jung Never Reached’ — After Becoming Queen of Cannes, Jeon Do-yeon Now Takes Aim at Korea’s First Oscar Nomination,” 2026.10.26

• The Financial News, “Foreign Media: Jeon Do-yeon Emerges as a Leading Oscar Best Actress Contender for ‘Possible Love’,” 2026.10.26