The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

93% Tomatometer 42 Reviews 86% Popcornmeter Fewer than 50 Ratings

The incredible true story of a man who lived for 15 months trapped inside a small room, naked, starving and alone... and completely unaware that his life was being broadcast on national TV to over 17 million viewers a week.

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The Contestant

The Contestant

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Critics Consensus

A transfixing depiction of abject cruelty, The Contestant raises a series of thought-provoking questions about human behavior, even if it leaves most of them largely unexplored.

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Critics Reviews

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The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (1) Tasha Robinson Polygon In spite of the guilty voyeuristic lure of a naked guy who doesn’t know he’s being filmed, the wacky framing, and the big, bright uplift of the ending, this movie is as frightening as any of the doomsaying docs of the last few decades. Rated: 83/100 Jun 14, 2024 Full Review The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (2) Sophie Gilbert The Atlantic What’s most remarkable about The Contestant now is how its subject managed to regain his faith in human nature, despite everything he endured. May 20, 2024 Full Review The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (3) Jarrod Jones AV Club The Contestant is a standard-grade documentary buoyed mightily by its subject—no harm in that. Rated: B- May 9, 2024 Full Review The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (4) Matt Glasby Radio Times Although the film's talking heads and clips sometimes have the feel of a TV special, Hamatsu and his story are so remarkable you'll scarcely believe what you're seeing. Rated: 3/5 Oct 25, 2024 Full Review The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (5) Andrew Parker The Gate Clair Titley’s documentary The Contestant will leave viewers stunned, even if they think they know the whole story behind it. Rated: 8/10 Jul 24, 2024 Full Review The Contestant | Rotten Tomatoes (6) Oliver Weir The Film Stage The Contestant provides a clear summary of this strange story, but with a good deal more psychological detail than was provided in the original show. Rated: B- Jul 17, 2024 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member A disquieting and immersive reflection on one of the most extreme social experiments ever to take place, where one man’s hardship and isolation is contrived ad nauseam to push the limits of TV sans regard for the inhumanity it took, ultimately accenting the star-turned-victim’s superhuman endurance in defiance of his fellow man’s equal capacity for cruelty & compassion. Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 10/24/24 Full Review Lars N More a horror film than anything else. Every time the audience laughs it send shivers down my spine. Sure it's a fascinating story but it lacks severely in any kind of hard question aimed at the people who tormented this guy for no apparent reason. Rated 2.5/5 Stars • Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 09/22/24 Full Review Audience Member Absolutely insane what this guy did, and he still wasn't a multi-millionaire. In America, if someone did this he would have sued the living heck out of the show. Or he would have won a million dollars each time he stayed in the room and completed each task. But I get it, this was way before The Real World, and this was the first reality TV game show in history. And it was in Japan, where they do this kind of crazy stuff all the time. Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 08/31/24 Full Review Brad O A fascinating look into how low and how high a human can go. Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/16/24 Full Review Audience Member A fantastic documentary showing the limits of physiological torment a person can go through. An Absolute MUST SEE film, Nasubi is an inspiration! Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/11/24 Full Review Gareth D A really fascinating look at both how exploitative the reality TV genre is (with this being one of the first of it's type) and how resilient humans are. Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/02/24 Full Review Read all reviews

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Cast & Crew

Clair Titley Director Fred Armisen Narrator Takehiro Hira Narrator Tomoaki Hamatsu Self Toshio Tsuchiya Self Clair Titley Writer
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Synopsis The incredible true story of a man who lived for 15 months trapped inside a small room, naked, starving and alone... and completely unaware that his life was being broadcast on national TV to over 17 million viewers a week.

Director
Clair Titley

Producer
Andee Ryder, Ian Bonhôte, Megumi Inman

Screenwriter
Clair Titley

Distributor
Hulu

Production Co
Misfits Entertainment

Genre
Documentary

Original Language
English

Release Date (Streaming)
May 2, 2024

Runtime
1h 30m
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