No Other Choice is one of the best films of the year, and nominations at the Golden Globes are keeping the film’s Oscar hopes alive. Focused on a family man who finds himself pushed to extreme measures out of a desire to get a new job, No Other Choice is a gut-busting dark comedy for the ages.
It’s one of the year’s best-reviewed films and received a tremendous standing ovation when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival. However, it’s also fallen behind in the awards race, with plenty of momentum building up behind other prospective nominees. The Golden Globes gave it some important nominations, which could keep its Oscar hopes alive a little longer.
No Other Choice Gets Three Very Important Golden Globe Nominations
No Other Choice earned three Golden Globe nominations: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language, and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. This suggests that while the film is facing stiff competition in award season, No Other Choice is very much in the Oscars conversation.
The film was likely going to be a nominee for Non-English Language film on the strength of Park Chan-wook’s reputation and the stellar early reviews for the film. However, breaking into other fields was going to be a challenge, given how tight the competition this year is, especially on the international front.
While it’s a shame that Park Chan-wook wasn’t able to break into the Best Director category, it isn’t surprising. The competition for that category is especially tight this year, especially with It Was Just an Accident director Jafar Panahi drawing most of the year’s international attention. However, Lee Byung-hun’s nomination for Best Actor is a welcome surprise.
Lee Byung-hun, known best to American audiences for his performances in Squid Game and KPop Demon Hunters, does stunning work in No Other Choice. As the desperate Yoo Man-soo, Byung-hun finds layers of humanity, humor, and horror in a role that could easily veer into unlikable. Instead, he keeps him strangely sympathetic, even when doing terrible things.
The film’s nomination for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy also indicates that the voting body behind the Golden Globes enjoyed the film overall, hinting that it may still have some real momentum going into the latter part of the award season. This is especially promising because No Other Choice had been getting overshadowed in other award ceremonies.
What Are No Other Choice’s Oscar Chances?
No Other Choice finds itself in an interesting place in the Oscar race. It’s one of the best-reviewed films of the year, boasting a perfect 100% score with 93 reviews. While it’s missed out on some precursor awards, that success and the Golden Globe nods mean it’s very much still in the running for Oscar nominations.
The most likely nomination for No Other Choice will be in the Best International Feature Film category. In fact, all four international films to earn Golden Globe nominations for Best Motion Picture (No Other Choice, It Was Just an Accident, Sentimental Value, and The Secret Agent) have been building momentum all year long and largely fill out the category.
As with the Golden Globes, the biggest challenge to No Other Choice in other categories is the deluge of other highly respected films and filmmakers also in the running. Even with ten available slots for nominations, the likes of One Battle After Another, Sinners, Hamnet, and Sentimental Value mean much of the category is already considered locked.
A Best Picture nomination is definitely still possible, but it’s a tall order. Similarly, it’s still entirely possible that Park Chan-wook earns a Best Director nod. However, even if he does manage to get into the category, projections and precursor awards indicate that it’s currently a three-person race between Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloé Zhao, and Ryan Coogler to win.
Likewise, the Best Actor category is considered to have four of the five nominations more or less locked thanks to momentum behind Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Michael B. Jordan, and Wagner Mourna. While Byung-hun could still get a nomination, it would mean beating out Ethan Hawke, Joel Edgerton, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy Allen White, and Dwayne Johnson.
While a Best Director nomination is going to be a challenge for Park Chan-wook, the script by Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye might have enough favor with voters to earn it a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. However, it’d then have to beat the likes of Hamnet, Bugonia, and One Battle After Another.
The best advantage No Other Choice has is that it’s still relatively underseen right now. Alongside Marty Supreme, No Other Choice won’t hit American theaters until Christmas. This means it’ll be fresh in voters’ minds when it comes time to formally vote on Oscar nominees, which could give it a certain amount of recency bias.
It also helps thatNo Other Choice is a terrific movie with a cutting satirical edge that nevertheless remains charming, funny, and sympathetic. It’s one of the year’s best-reviewed films, which might give it an edge to earn nominations. However, too much momentum might have built up behind other prospectiveOscar nominees forNo Other Choice to actually win.
