To say that Korean entertainment is a global phenomenon is an understatement. K-pop groups are some of the biggest musical acts in the world, Korean films like Parasite and Minari have been dominating awards talk for years, and Korean TV dramas are among the highest-watched series on Netflix and other streaming services.
It came as no surprise, then, when Netflix announced plans in early 2023 to invest $2.5 billion into South Korea over the next four years to produce even more K-dramas, movies and reality shows.
If you’ve yet to dip your toe into the country’s pool of top-notch television, now is your chance. From cultural juggernauts like Squid Game — since debuting in September 2021, the show has become Netflix’s most-watched non-English-language show of all time — to gripping thrillers like The Glory, these seven Korean dramas on Netflix are well worth a binge-watch.
Squid Game
In the record-smashing, critically acclaimed survival drama (the first non-English series ever to be nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmys), a contest is held offering 456 financially troubled citizens the chance to win a life-changing cash prize of 45.6 billion won (about $34 million) if they can win six children’s games over six days. If they lose? They don’t just lose out on the money — they die. Those are some mighty stakes for a garden-variety game of Red Light, Green Light. The desperation and despair are evident in moving performances by Lee Jung-jae, who nabbed an Emmy award for his role, and O Yeong-su, who made history as the first Korean actor to win a Golden Globe.
Watch on Netflix
The Glory
Joining Squid Game as one of the most-watched non-English titles in Netflix's history, this compelling Korean drama centers on Moon Dong-eun (played as a teen by Jung Ji-so and as an adult by Song Hye-kyo), a former bullied high-school student who decides to exact revenge against her abusers two decades later by taking a teaching job at a school attended by one of her bullies’ children. Told across 16 episodes divided into two parts — the second of which premiered in March 2023 — The Glory combines elements of murder mystery with real-life horrors, among them class warfare and the lingering damage of school bullying.
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The Silent Sea
An eight-episode retelling of director Choi Hang-yong’s 2014 short film The Sea of Tranquility, this sci-fi epic follows a space crew in the late 2060s who are hand-picked for a high-stakes, 24-hour mission: to retrieve a mysterious sample from a lunar research station that will save life on Earth. On the now desert-like planet, water is unsurprisingly a prized commodity, and the higher your social status, the more H20 you get. Led by actors Gong Yoo (Train to Busan), Bae Doona (The Host) and Lee Joon (Bulgasal: Immortal Souls) — who play the mission’s captain, lead scientist and head engineer, respectively — the slow-burn thriller effectively interweaves political conspiracy with personal tragedy, with more and more questions being uncovered as the crew gets closer to the moon.
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Celebrity
The dark side of influencer culture is well known — especially in South Korea, where 92 percent of the population reportedly use social media — a wickedness explored in this 2023 social commentary-slash-cautionary tale. Sweet Home star Park Gyu-young leads the cast as Seo Ah-ri, a once-rich, now-penniless make-up saleswoman who lives a modest life with her widowed mother. A run-in with an old high-school friend, wealthy content creator Oh Min-hye (Jun Hyo-seong), opens the protagonist up to a world of designer handbags, glamorous celebrity parties and exclusive groups like fame-chasing, fiercely competitive content house The Gabin Society. Soon, Ah-ri is an overnight Instagram sensation and must contend with all of the pitfalls of her newfound notoriety: vanity and jealousy, yes, but also murder.
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All of Us Are Dead
Part coming-of-age story, part zombie apocalypse thriller, this 2022 drama cleverly combines the supernatural horrors of the undead with the very real horrors of high school (unrequited crushes, relentless bullies and the like). The students, portrayed by the likes of Park Ji-hu (House of Hummingbird), Yoon Chan-young (Doctor John) and Cho Yi-hyun (Hospital Playlist), must band together to survive after a science experiment goes terribly wrong, causing the fictional Hyosan High to become the center of a zombie outbreak. Based on the webtoon by Joo Dong-geun, All of Us Are Dead puts as much emphasis on its characters as the action, which makes it easy to root for the youngsters as they go up against seemingly impossible odds. Warning: the 12-episode debut season ends with a major cliffhanger, but don’t worry — season 2 has already been greenlit by Netflix.
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The Good Bad Mother
An endearing, emotionally raw ode to motherhood, this JTBC melodrama revolves around single mom and pig farmer Jin Young-soon (veteran actress Ra Mi-ran) and her son Choi Kang-ho (The Glory’s Lee Do-hyun), a cold-hearted prosecutor who had to withstand with his mother’s strictness as he grew up. As adults, the duo are distant, practically estranged, but when a tragic accident leaves Kang-ho not only amnesiac but seemingly reverted back to his childhood self, he and his mother are given a chance to restore their relationship. Though you will definitely need to stock up on Kleenex, the series folds in some hilarity with that heartfelt premise, such as Big-style scenes of 35-year-old Kang-ho befriending actual children.
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Bloodhounds
This action-packed crime drama takes you back to 2020 Seoul at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where ruthless loan sharks are hungrily circling around financially vulnerable folks. Those corrupt moneylenders find surprising adversaries in a pair of young boxers, Kim Geon-woo (Woo Do-hwan) and Hong Woo-jin (K-pop star Lee Sang-yi), who, facing their own considerable debts, get roped into taking down a scam ring led by Kim Myeong-gil (Park Sung-woong). A cat-and-mouse tale told across eight episodes, Bloodhounds distinguishes itself from other high-speed heist dramas thanks to its snappy comedic tone, which is given a boost by the real-life bromance between its two lead actors.
Watch on Netflix
