The Contestant (2023) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Justin Decloux ★★★½ 4

  Remember that hilarious story you heard about the Japanese show where a guy was trapped in one unfurnished apartment building completely naked and was forced to live off prizes he won in magazines? Well, everyone involved should burn for their crimes because that dude did not know what he was getting involved in, was lied to repeatedly, and physically and psychologically tortured to the point of considering suicide many times during the ordeal.

  And the world found it hilarious.

• Review by Matt Singer ★★★

  This is as much a documentary as it is video evidence that should have been presented at someone’s trial. Yikes.

• Review by David Chen ★★★½ 5

  They did an OLDBOY in real life and it was filmed and broadcast and people laughed at it.

  Truly we are doomed as a species.

• Review by HRyan ★★★★

  This documentary is for people who think The Truman Show could never happen in real life. The sheer look on Nasubi’s face when they reveal he’s been on TV may be one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen in a while.

• Review by Jonathan Milott ★★★ 4

  Such a fucked up experiment. Too bad the documentary doesn’t address the deeper ramifications and the immediate aftermath. Why didn’t he sue or make any money? What did he do? It just jumps 15 years later where he’s still famous and seemingly still traumatized but we are not provided with anything more meaningful or insightful.

• Review by evan 5

  mr. beast your time is coming

• Review by Buddy O ★★★★ 4

  Questioning myself every time I laughed, this is a horror story and you're watching someone slowly go insane and lose touch with reality over a 15 month period.

• Review by davidehrlich ★★★

  It takes chutzpah to open your documentary with archival footage of a news anchor saying “If you put what we’re about to show you in a movie, I doubt anyone would believe it,” but Clair Titley’s “The Contestant” has the goods to back it up. If the story told here were the subject of a scripted biopic, it would smack of exaggeration or gross dramatic license; if it were told in a narrative film, it would seem about as realistic as Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy,” which might be the work of fiction that it most closely resembles.

  In Titley’s hands, however, the harrowing tale of the cruelest reality show ever conceived is all too believable. In part, that’s because the director…

• Review by Christian Ha ★★★★ 2

  This story really affected me. Despite the documentary being a little disturbing and even sadistic, it surprisingly carries a sense of hope. It's upsetting, but not difficult to understand why people found this reality TV show (pre-dating the reality TV craze) entertaining; the editing likely played a significant role too. Nonetheless, it's staggering to comprehend the extent of suffering this man endured for the amusement of others. It's bewildering to me how far the people involved were willing to go, sacrificing this man's well-being solely for the sake of TV ratings. My heart went out to Nasubi for the ordeal he endured. I could sense his despair in the small moments, hoping for his liberation from the situation. Yet, I…

• Review by Kevflix And Chill ★★★½ 12

  What the f🤩k is wrong with reality TV producers? Why have they not done this to the Kardashians yet?

  Credit to @Aaron McGuire for the Bacon Number
  Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 2
  1. Fred Armisen Steve Carrellin Anchorman
  2. Steve Carrelland Kevin Bacon in Crazy, Stupid, Love.

• Review by Meg Shields ★★★

  my dude got Oldboy’d

• Review by Lilly (mothcub) ★★★ 9

  The subject of this documentary is insane and deeply fascinating, but at the end of it all I was left wondering what it really had to offer aside from the spectacle of the actual Denpa Shonen 'A Life In Prizes' segment itself. The moment of Nasubi’s release is played out unceremoniously for the audience - a startling conclusion to the entire deranged experiment - and The Contestant feels like it truly ends at this moment, leaving the last portion of runtime flapping aimlessly in the wind.

  I expected some interrogation of Nasubi’s re-adjustment to post-prizes life, or at least further insight into the experience, but after the briefest comment about his brokenness at this moment, we fast forward years into…