There is a moment in The Contestant that refuses to leave your head: Tomoaki Hamatsu, better known as Nasubi, sits n**** in an apartment, staring at magazines, waiting for luck to send him food. There is no audience in the room, no friend beside him, and no idea that millions are watching. The scene feels frightening because nothing about it is fiction. His isolation stretches from days into months, while cameras keep rolling. What begins as an audition becomes a gruesome real-life experiment in loneliness, desperation, and human endurance.

Now, US viewers may wonder where to watch this unsettling documentary.

For audiences in the United States, The Contestant is currently available to stream on Hulu. Hulu lists the documentary on its official platform, where viewers can watch the film along with its English-dubbed version. The movie runs for about 90 minutes and carries a TV-MA rating on Hulu. Current US streaming listings also place the documentary on Hulu as a subscription title, with no free streaming option listed at the time of the latest check.

The documentary arrived in the United States in 2024 after drawing attention to Nasubi’s extraordinary story. Director Clair Titley reconstructs his ordeal through archival footage and present-day interviews, including conversations with Nasubi and producer Toshio Tsuchiya. Fred Armisen provides narration, while Takehiro Hira voices Nasubi’s diary.

For viewers searching Hulu, the official listing identifies the film as The Contestant. The platform also presents a trailer and an English-dubbed edition, giving US audiences multiple audio choices. Streaming catalogs can change, so checking Hulu’s current listing remains a reliable way to confirm access before starting the film. 

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But finding the documentary is only the beginning, because Nasubi’s story opens a deeply uncomfortable chapter in reality television.

At its center, The Contestant revisits Nasubi’s 1998 ordeal on the Japanese program Susunu! Denpa Shōnen. He was taken to a small apartment, stripped of his clothes, and instructed to survive by entering magazine sweepstakes until his winnings reached one million yen. He stayed there for 15 months, unaware that his private struggle was being broadcast to a huge television audience.

The documentary uses archival footage alongside Nasubi’s memories to examine what happened when entertainment turned a person’s isolation into a public spectacle. Its focus reaches into questions of consent, privacy, celebrity, loneliness, and the psychological toll of being watched without understanding the scale of that attention. The story carries an eerie relevance in an era built around livestreams, reality programming, and audiences following strangers’ lives.

Netflix also has the strange, haunting documentary series Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, which examines the making of the competition through interviews with former contestants, trainers, producers, and health professionals. It offers an unsettling look at what can happen behind the cameras. The result is a deeply personal portrait of television, one that The Contestant truly captures. 

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What do you think about Nasubi’s disturbing experience and the reality TV culture surrounding it? Let us know in the comments.