Out of Options
What you need to know upfront
Out of Options is a 2026 documentary about Lee Elbaz, a 36-year-old Israeli woman arrested by the FBI for her role in a global binary-options fraud scheme. She was convicted in U.S. federal court and sentenced to 22 years in prison — all while maintaining her innocence. Director Hilla Medalia follows Elbaz from arrest through conviction, but the film's real subject isn't whether she's guilty. It's why the system landed so hard on her while allegedly bigger players in the same fraud ecosystem faced no charges at all.
Runtime: 96 minutes. Genre: Documentary. Release year: 2026.
The thing that strikes me most is how the film resists the comfortable villain narrative. Elbaz isn't framed as a martyr, and she isn't framed as a monster either — which turns out to be far more unsettling than either option would've been.
The case: what happened and why it matters
In the mid-2010s, binary-options scams were quietly bleeding ordinary investors dry across dozens of countries. The schemes worked like this: convince retail traders they could make fast money on currency pairs and commodity prices. The odds were rigged. Most people lost everything.
Elbaz's arrest cracked the operation open. But here's the puzzle at the film's center — and Medalia doesn't look away from it: she faced 22 years. The people allegedly above her in the organizational ladder? They're either still operating or living quietly overseas with no extradition risk.
That asymmetry is the engine driving the entire documentary. Not "did she do it?" but "why did the law fall here and not there?" Hard to say whether that's a failure of prosecution or a feature of how white-collar crime actually gets enforced — but the film doesn't let you ignore the question.
How Medalia built this film
Hilla Medalia has made a career out of documentaries that sit with their subjects rather than prosecute them. Out of Options follows that instinct, and it shows. No dramatic recreations. No manipulative score. Just testimony, documents, and the weight of a 22-year sentence hanging in the room.
The 96-minute runtime is lean — there's real editorial discipline here. Nothing feels padded. (It's the kind of choice that matters when you're watching a documentary about fraud: you're not being sold anything extra.)
Medalia Productions and Intuitive Pictures produced the film. As of early 2026, it hasn't landed major festival buzz yet — no established Rotten Tomatoes score, no Metacritic rating. The critical apparatus is still catching up. According to its Letterboxd listing, the film exists mostly at the data level right now — which is fair for something still moving through streaming pipelines.
What's available: The documentary is currently on major OTT platforms, which means you've likely got it through an existing subscription. Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker aggregates streaming rights across all the major services, so you don't have to check five apps manually to find it.
Why the gap between her account and theirs matters
There's a sequence somewhere in the middle of the film where Elbaz describes her understanding of the operation — and the prosecution's version of the same events is so fundamentally different you almost can't believe they're talking about the same thing. That gap. That's where the documentary lives.
Medalia doesn't bridge it for you. She doesn't side with Elbaz, and she doesn't validate the conviction either. Instead, she holds both versions in the frame long enough for you to feel how wide the distance is — and start asking why the court chose one over the other.
I kept thinking about a line Elbaz repeats: she says she didn't fully understand what she was part of. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's a convenient story. The film won't decide for you, which is either its greatest strength or its most frustrating choice depending on what you want from documentaries.
The craft is quiet. That restraint feels almost radical when you're watching a true-crime documentary — most of the genre has gone loud, flashy, designed to hook you in the first 90 seconds. Out of Options trusts you to stick around without the theatrics.
Where to watch and how to plan your time
Out of Options is available on major OTT services. The where-to-watch widget at the top of this page shows current platform availability — streaming rights shift constantly, so that real-time data beats any static list I could write here.
The 96-minute runtime means you can watch it in one sitting, which matters if you're deciding whether to rent versus checking your existing subscriptions. If you're on the fence about streaming services, Movie OTT's tracker lets you filter by platform, so you can see immediately whether it's included free with your subscription or requires a rental fee.
Is this for you?
Watch Out of Options if you're drawn to the edges of true-crime documentaries — the ones that sit with moral ambiguity instead of resolving it cleanly. This isn't a whodunit. It's a film about how justice gets distributed, and who it misses.
If you've seen Medalia's previous work, you'll recognize the approach: patient, empathetic, resistant to easy conclusions. But this particular subject — a 22-year prison sentence handed down while her alleged superiors remain uncharged — will probably surprise you with how much resistance the story itself puts up against tidy endings.
Fans of The Inventor (Elizabeth Holmes, HBO) or Fyre (Netflix) will appreciate the fraud angle, but Out of Options asks different questions. It's less interested in the scam itself than in how the criminal justice system chooses to punish some people in an ecosystem and leave others untouched.
Start here. You don't need background reading. The film brings you in cold and trusts you to keep up.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who directed Out of Options?
Hilla Medalia, working through her production company Medalia Productions alongside Intuitive Pictures. Medalia's known for documentary work that centers subjects with empathy uncommon in the true-crime space.
Q: Is this based on a true story?
Yes. The documentary follows the real case of Lee Elbaz, an Israeli national arrested by the FBI in connection with a global binary-options fraud scheme. Elbaz was convicted in U.S. federal court and is currently serving her 22-year sentence.
Q: Where can I watch it?
On major OTT platforms. Check the where-to-watch widget above for current availability — platform rights change frequently, so that's your most accurate source. If you're trying to figure out whether it's included with a subscription you already hold, Movie OTT's tracker will tell you instantly.
Q: How long is it?
96 minutes. One sitting. No padding.
Q: Why was Lee Elbaz sentenced to 22 years?
She was convicted on federal fraud charges related to her alleged role in operating an online binary-options scam targeting international investors. The severity — and the fact that others allegedly higher in the organization weren't charged — is central to what the documentary examines.
Next step
Stream it this week. You've got 96 minutes, and the film earns every one of them. Go in without expectations, and let Medalia's restraint do the work.