100 Best Korean Movies of All Time (Ranked)
Korean cinema’s limited exposure over the years can be attributed to a language barrier, but did Parasite break it? If so, here are 100 of the best movies with an official link where to watch nearly 200 titles legally.
It’s hard to tell when exactly did people start acknowledging Korean cinema as a major force to be reckoned with. In 2008, author Christina Klein wrote in American Quarterly: After Hollywood, the South Korean film industry is “perhaps the most important in the world today.” Fast forward to 2020 when New Yorker’s film critic Richard Brody called it among the most exciting in the world today. The time gap is telling. Korean modern cinema has held our imagination captive for so long, from the time it all began.
The landmark action thriller Shiri came out in 1999, but it was in 2003 when two Korean movies — Park Chan Wook’s Oldboy and Bong Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder thrilled film festival habitués. Word got around that a new film movement was born. It would be called the Korean New Wave.
Other Korean filmmakers who would keep the momentum of this movement going included Lee Chang-dong, Kim Jee-won, Hong Sang-soo, Kim ki-duk (who recently died of COVID-19 complications), Ha Yoo, Ryoo Seung-wan, Hu Jin-ho, and Choi Dong-hoon.
Today, modern Korean cinema has shaken up the pecking order of global cinema. It has become a transgressive force, with storytelling characterized by variances in tone and almost always with social commentary, even in a horror film like the commercial runaway hit, Train to Busan.
One can probably ascribe Train to Busan to how Korean cinema has taken us — on a wild ride to new ways of enjoying movies. Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite was one wild ride that culminated at the Oscars. It didn’t just win four Oscars, including Best International Feature and Best Picture. It won over people averse to reading English subtitles.
The Hollywood-level mass appeal of Parasite may have indicated that the only thing blocking Korean cinema’s global domination all this time was language barrier, but the movie made that all irrelevant.
Many now look up to Korean cinema for making movies that Western cinema is not interested in tackling, especially Hollywood, which has chosen to stick to its conventions and staple genres. However, it doesn’t mean Korean cinema will not go the way of formulaic movies, if its recent big-budgeted monstrosity (The Peninsula) is a foretaste of things to come.
Defying genres, modern Korean cinema’s grip on its audience rests on its provocative storytelling characterized by variances in tone and social dislocations.
Korean film critic and historian Darcy Paquet has often said the rise of modern Korean cinema was inevitable. He tells more in his ultimate guide about Korean cinema’s transformation in his book and website. (Incidentally, he wrote the English subtitles for Parasite.)
It was just a matter of reviving its Golden Age in the 50s and 60s and moving on from its troubled past — wars, censorship and dictatorship in the 70s and onwards. Korean cinema’s vibrant cinematic period came to an abrupt halt in 1973 when its government censored the film industry. It took another 20 years for Korean cinema to revive its old glory.
For those curious about the old movies, they have been restored and nearly 200 of them are free to watch on the Korean Film Archive.
It’s time to list the best 100 Korean movies from the Golden Age to present-day Korean cinema (i.e., up to 2019). After all, Korea just celebrated its film centennial in 2019. With most moviehouses closed and streaming platform monopolies making mostly episodic content, it’s also hard to tell if movies will ever be the same, or if we are seeing the slow demise of great Korean cinema the way it’s been producing mostly hit-or-miss genre films lately?
Am I qualified to do this list, though? I first stumbled on Korean cinema in the late 90s and didn’t pay any strong interest until 2004 when I saw Oldboy. From thereon out, I thought something was afoot.
Where I lived in New York, I had access to a Korean DVD store, film festivals, the New York public libraries’ collection, and a colleague who supplied me with DVDs. I saw hundreds in nearly two decades, but that’s not enough, because I have only seen a few of legendary director Im Kwon-taek’s more than 90 movies — and some Korean movies are missing. But this list had to be written, so I can find out for sure what movies I’ve overplayed or neglected to mention.
As for my criteria for ranking Korean movies, it was not easy. I would say this was (and is) a work in progress. Again, I considered their storytelling’s transgressive force as one thing, their social commentary as another. Staying power and impact were also important considerations.
Yes, South Korea has also captured global attention with its K-Dramas. Clearly, the success of this genre has streaming platforms scrambling to produce their own kind of “binge-worthy” shows. Until Parasite won the most prestigious awards, many in the West thought Koreans only made “soap operas” or “melodramas” — and may prefer those shows.
But there’s a distinction and 100 of the best Korean movies listed here (50 are ranked; other half are unranked as they require more than one viewing) are supposed to introduce great Korean cinema to more people and even more significant perhaps (for those checking out the list but not finding the titles anywhere) to ask streaming platforms to make them widely available.
1. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon Ho)
An allegorical, genre-defying masterpiece about social classes. Beyond rich versus poor, there’s the poor and poorer fighting for survival. Its rare feat: It captured the imagination of both the mainstream audience and the art-house crowd, leaving everyone in awe of its innovative storytelling.
2. Secret Sunshine (2007, Lee Chang-dong)
A sudden tragedy turns a woman to Christianity, but when this is not permitted, it shakes her new-found religious convictions to the core. Jeon Do-yeon gives a tour-de-performance (she bagged the Cannes Best Actress Award) comparable to Anna Magnani’s in Rose Tattoo.
3. Oldboy (2003, Park Chan-wook)
Imprisoned by a mysterious, sadistic captor for 15 years and then suddenly released, a man finds himself plunged into a Kafkaesque conspiracy. A powerful modern classic, it lodges into your memory long after you’ve seen it.
4. Castaway on the Moon (2009, Lee Hae jun)
Why is this ranked high on this list — no. 4 at that? For the times we live in, nothing could be more prescient, relevant or even elevating than this modern cautionary tale. Without giving anything away, how else would you fall in love and let go of your fears?!
5. Memories of Murder (2003, Bong Joon Ho)
A police procedural based on an actual crime case, it takes place in 1986 South Korea — and predates David Fincher’s Zodiac. A small town cop and a special detective from Seoul try to solve a string of serial murders and rapes in the province of Gyeonggi. Recent news about the case catapulted it back to the conversation. It holds up to multiple viewings.
6. Peppermint Candy (1999, Lee Chang-dong)
The film opens with a man’s tragic suicide and then proceeds to tell 20 years of his life in reverse chronology — from his savage inhumanity all the way to an innocent time in his life. Serving as both leitmotif and bookend, a train slowly chugs in reverse throughout the movie as it unravels the devastating effects of being on the wrong side of history.
7. The Housemaid (1960, Kim Ki-young)
A gripping morality tale about a housemaid who runs the household after being impregnated by her male employer. Now a cult classic, it is the most revered work of Kim Ki-young whose films are often cited by Korea’s great filmmakers as a major influence in their work.
8. Mother (2009, Bong Joon Ho)
A beautiful subversive film about a widow who lives quietly with her mentally challenged son in a small town. When a girl is brutally murdered and the son is the prime suspect, the mother stops at nothing to clear his son’s name.
9. Poetry (2010, Lee Chang-dong)
Stricken with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and saddled with a teen-aged grandson accused of raping a girl, an elderly woman tries to make sense of the world’s capacity for both beauty and suffering in a male-dominated world that treats rape casually. Wonderfully subtle and multi-layered.
10. Oasis (2002, Lee Chang-dong)
This brave, unflinching love story between a social misfit and a woman with cerebral palsy challenges a conservative society’s prejudice against handicapped people. With families who could care less, the two only have each other to cling on. Moon So-ri and Sol Kyung-go give soul-searing performances as the doomed lovers.
11. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002, Park Chan-wook)
A masterful stylish thriller that some say is even better than Park’s bravura flick, Oldboy. An act of desperation leads to a series of events that spiral into a bloody cycle of violence and revenge.
12. A Dirty Carnival (2006, Ha Yoo)
Many Korean gangster movies tend to look the same: too self-conscious and testosterone-fueled, with thin storylines or borrowed ones so the action can take center stage. Ha Yoo relies on the strength of his storytelling and character development to give us the ultimate Korean gangster movie.
13. Spring Summer Fall Winter…and Spring (2003, Kim ki-duk)
A beautiful meditative film. Over the course of five seasons, an aging Buddhist monk bestows his wisdom onto a receptive boy but when a girl arrives at the monastery, the boy is tempted away from his spiritual existence.
14. The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-wook)
It’s a lavish erotic romance for the ages. In Japanese-occupied Korea, a con man hires a pickpocket to become the maid of a mysterious heiress whom he plans to marry and to commit to an asylum in order to steal her inheritance. Adapted from the Victorian-era novel, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
15. Aimless Bullet (1960, Yoo Hyun-mok)
Korean neorealist cinema at its finest. Even regarded as the best South Korean film ever made, it’s about a public accountant stretched thin trying to make enough money to provide for his wife, his senile mother, his prostitute sister, his out-of-work brother, and two kids.
16. Lovers in Woomuk-Baemi (1990, Jang Sun-woo)
Often miscategorized as melodrama, the movie goes way past that and into social realism. In vivid detail, it captures the ennui of the working class and how illicit love affairs are not just moral transgressions but cataclysmic events for families eking out a living. It’s the kind of movie that the late great Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka made back in the 70s.
17. Take Care of My Cat (2001, Jeong Jae-eun)
A refreshing coming-of-age examination of five close female high school friends living in the port city of Icheon and how their transition to adulthood — with the harsh realities of work and family obligations — divides them. No theatrics and nary a clear plotline but sublimely observed.
18. Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong)
What can be more chilling than disappearing without a trace — or did these characters really exist? Or was everything just in the protagonist’s imagination, after all? Similar to Michael Haneke’s Caché in its oblique approach, the psychological thriller depicts a young man’s simmering resentment over those with privilege and confidence.
19. The Chaser (2008, Na Hong-jin)
One may mistake this as a typical serial-killer slasher flick, but as a detective-turned-pimp digs deeper for clues, the movie burrows deep into Hollywood thriller conventions, riffing and upending them to a frenetic extreme.
20. Sea Fog (2014, Shim Sung Bo)
A tense high-seas adventure co-written by Bong Joon Ho, it’s about a group of hard-luck men who smuggles undocumented immigrants from China to Korea on a fishing boat. The tonal shift is odd, but it’s supposed to magnify the inhumane side of the male id when pushed to the limits.
21. Chunhyang (2000, Im Kwon-taek)
This delightful retelling of star-crossed lovers by the prolific Im Kwon-taek makes refreshing use of Pansori, a stylized form of expressive singing. Im weaves the plaintive singing with his well-written medieval lush epic as a musical like no one has seen before.
22. Mandala (1981, Im Kwon-taek)
A contemplative story about two monks — a young man who quit school and left his girlfriend, and a defrocked monk who indulges in drinking and sex. On the road, they question the meaning of life and nature of enlightenment.
23. 301/302 (1995, Park Cheol-su)
A disturbing exploration of food and trauma. Living across from each other, a chef and an anorexic develop a bizarre relationship that leads to a disappearance and an investigation. Eat ahead of time before watching.
24. Marriage is a Crazy Thing (2002, Ha Yoo)
A confirmed bachelor lets his occasional lover get married to someone else, but continues to see her. A well-observed piece about adultery and the power struggle between the sexes in a rapidly changing Korean society.
25. A Bittersweet Life (2005, Kim Jee-woo)
A crime boss sends a lackey to kill his mistress and lover. Lee Byun-hun as the lackey imbues his lonely character with the cipher-like aura of Alain Delon’s assassin in Le Samourai, except that he’s too conflicted to pull the trigger.
26. Woman on the Beach (2006, Hong Sang-soo)
The director has been making the pitfalls of attraction for more than two decades, most of them attuned to Woody Allen’s oeuvre. But this movie, his most accessible yet, imbibes Erich Rohmer’s breezy approach — and is better for it.
27. A Day Off (1968, Lee Man-hee)
Not released in its time due to censorship, this exquisite Korean film emerged only in 2005. The director did not permit the addition of one line that would have changed the story. Almost lost in history books, it tackles despair, suicide and abortion with an Antonioni-like modernistic esthetic.
28. Io Island (1977, Kim ki-young)
A businessman and journalist try to uncover the mystery behind a man’s disappearance in a remote island with only female inhabitants — many of them believers of shamanism and other mysticisms that takes the audience to one of the most subversive scenes in film history.
29. The Host (2006, Bong Joon Ho)
It’s not easy to pin this down as simply a monster movie because it’s directed with wit and panache. A family comes together to rescue the youngest girl from the clutches of a mysterious giant creature wreaking havoc in Seoul. Tragedy, hilarity and socio-political commentary ensue.
30. Mist (1967, Kim Soo-young)
Visiting his small town from Seoul, a married man is forced to learn that he is not the successful man he likes to think he is, from the local girl he dates and from seeing how the foggy town clouded his judgment about his true self.
31. Sopyonje (1993, Im Kwon-taek)
A family of traveling traditional pansori (folk) singers try to make a living in the modern world amid the rapidly changing taste and inclination of Koreans toward more modern music styles.
32. Time (2006, Kim ki-duk)
You can count on Kim Ki-duk to mess up with your mind in this haunting tale of love and plastic surgery. With an unrecognizable new face, a woman competes against her own memory and identity. Hitchockian in its eerieness.
33. Madame Freedom (1956, Han Hyung-mo)
The movie that scandalized postwar Korea tells the story of a conservative middle-class couple who begins to see different people as their lives become more westernized. Characters come and go with an utter disregard for or nonchalance for fidelity.
34. I Saw The Devil (2010, Kim Jee-won)
To avenge his fiancée’s death, a top secret agent goes on the hunt for a psychopathic serial killer. However, his catch-and-release method to torture the killer takes him to a perilous journey of becoming a monster himself.
35. Joint Security Area (2000, Park Chan-wook)
Careful not to tread on sensitive toes, Park Chan-wook’s first box office hit is a straightforward mystery thriller about a cross-border incident between North and South Korea. A neutral investigative body has its work cut out as the two sides give unreliable accounts.
36. The Insect Woman (1972, Kim ki-young)
A schoolgirl turned prostitute cures a married man’s impotence. The entrepreneurial wife then accepts the husband’s infidelity and gives the girl an allowance. When it dawns on the wife that the union might result in a child, she takes drastic action. Whew! It’s a Bong Joon Ho favorite.
37. The Bacchus Lady (2016, Lee Je-yong)
An elderly prostitute (played by veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung who appeared in the 1972 film, Insect Woman [see above] and other films) turns to a darker business when she can no longer have sex but finds humanity in caring for a young Korean Filipino boy whose mother has been sent to prison.
38. A Girl at My Door (2015, July Jung)
A female police officer is sent to work in a small village and takes in a teenager to protect her from her stepfather. A great nuanced performance by the ever-reliable Doona Bae as well as the child actress from The Man from Nowhere, Kim Sae-ron.
39. Lady Vengeance (2005, Park Chan-wook)
In this conclusion to Park’s “Vengeance Trilogy” (following Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy), a woman begins her elaborate plan of retribution after being imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit. Darkly comical and gruesome.
40. Paju (2009, Park Chan-ok)
Repressed feelings of guilt and love come to a head as a teenage schoolgirl suddenly falls for a man suspected of killing her older sister. A darkly intimate film set against the backdrop of the small town of Paju on the brink of collapse.
41. Thirst (2009, Park Chan-wook)
Stylish horror flick about a priest who volunteers for an experimental procedure that may lead to a cure for a deadly virus. He gets infected and dies, but a blood transfusion brings him back to life as a vampire, which sets the priest on a destructive moral path.
42. Bedevilled (2010, Jang Cheol-soo)
A selfish and entitled office worker shows apathy in her life and interactions with people in Seoul. Witnessing a crime committed against a woman, she looks the other way. When she pays a visit to a friend on a remote island, her apathy would prove to have fatal consequences.
43. A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, Kim Jee-won)
An eerie horror-drama with brilliant visual style and outstanding central performances. The mad scramble to put all the context of the past hour into the last few minutes can be offputting for those who need more psychological buildup.
44. Sunny (2011, Kang Hyeong-cheol)
Perhaps the best feel-good coming-of-age film about female friendships, even if it’s too cloyingly sweet and sentimental for its own good. Still, it’s one of those rare movies that transports you back in time, even if it wasn’t yours but those of the 7 fleshed out characters. Time shifts between the fortysomething women’s present and their 80s high school past are seamless. A scene of their old selves getting back at present-day high school bullies was unnecessary. Free to watch on tubi.com
45. The Unjust (2010, Ryoo Seung-wan)
In search of a serial killer suspect, a corrupt-ridden police department is pressured to conjure up a killer to protect itself from government officials and police superiors looking for a scapegoat. Hwang Jun-min’s complex character keeps you engrossed, even if the movie doesn’t give us anyone to root for.
46. A Taxi Driver (2017, Jang Hoon)
A widowed father and taxi driver who drives a German reporter from Seoul to Gwangju to cover the 1980 uprising, soon finds himself regretting his decision after being caught in the violence around him. A needlessly inserted car chase takes the movie off-road.
47. The Age of Shadows (2016, Kim Jee-won)
An expertly crafted yet overextended film about Korean resistance firefighters smuggling explosives to destroy facilities controlled by Japanese forces. Suspenseful ambushes and treacherous double crosses aside, it’s the skillfully shot train sequence that stands out.
48. Right Now, Wrong Then (2016, Hong Sang-soo)
A film director visits a local Buddhist monastery and meets a beautiful painter who’s never heard of him. They spend the rest of the afternoon talking about life and art. Once secrets are spilled, any possible connection is cut short. But the movie resets right back at the beginning and shows us how, even in a do-over, there is no guarantee of a connection with someone.
49. The Wailing (2016, Na Hong-jin)
Rural villagers link a series of brutal murders to the arrival of a mysterious man. A riveting albeit meandering horror-thriller that has elements of black magic, exorcism, ghosts as well as echoes of Korea’s distant past with Japanese imperialism.
50. Chilsu and Mansu (1988, Park Kwang-su)
Often cited for having paved Korea’s path from censorship to freedom of expression, it’s about two men frustrated by lack of job opportunities amid a growing economy. While painting a huge billboard atop a building, they vent out their frustrations. People’s misinterpretation of their actions bring up unspoken societal tensions simmering at the time.
Below are the rest of the 50 best Korean movies, in alphabetical order…unranked for now.
1987: When the Day Comes (2017, Jang Joon-Hwan)
Based on a true story, Korean citizens fight for truth and justice after the interrogation and death of a student. Overwrought but a slick thriller regardless.
3-Iron (2004, Kim Ki-duk)
A lonely drifter breaks into empty homes to lounge around and then puts things in order before he leaves. But in one break-in, a battered wife quietly watches him — and leaves her husband to join him. With no dialogue, it’s almost a silent film.
About my Wife (2012, Min Kyu-Dong)
A man tired of his wife’s nagging and negativity is too meek to ask for a divorce, so he hires a legendary lothario to seduce her. But the lothario wonders if he may have bitten more than he could chew. Uproariously funny.
(A or The) Coachman (1961, Kang Dae-jin)
Notable for being the first Korean film to win overseas awards, it’s a crowd-pleasing story of a poor family trying to rise above poverty after the devastating Korean war. The hard-working father makes a living with a horse-drawn cart to raise two daughters and two sons.
A Good Lawyer’s Wife (2003, Im Sang-soo)
A Korean modern family seems to have lost their moral compass. A housewife and 60-year-old grandmother discover meaning in their lives from their respective indiscretions, while the husband finds nothing wrong about being a playboy as long as he supports his family.
A Little Monk (2002, Ju Kyung-jung)
A nine-year old monk who has lived most of his lonely life in a quiet mountain monastery faces one dashed hope after another —the reunion with her mother that he doesn’t remember, playing with other children nearby and being adopted by a wealthy widow who visits the temple.
Blossom Again (2005, Jung Ji-woo)
A 30-year-old female teacher at a private school in Seoul falls in love with a teenage student because of an unfinished chapter in her life. Memories can betray us into going back in time.
Christmas in August (1998, Hur Jin-ho)
Korean dramas can take terminally ill plotlines too far, but this film avoids it, preferring a lyrically subdued unconfessed viewpoint. It simply shows someone’s life as part of a passage of time, manifesting a more heart-breaking denouement.
Failan (2001, Song Hae-sung)
A marriage of convenience between a third-rate gangster and an illegal immigrant leaves the former devastated when the police arrive to tell him about the wife he never met.
Daytime Drinking (2008, Noh Young-seok)
On a drunken night out with friends, a broken-hearted young man is swayed into going to the countryside with them. But not one of them shows up — no shops are open, no tourists are around, the beach is freezing, and there’s no cellphone signal. Reluctant to return to Seoul, he finds himself in the company of some very unusual locals. It’s Sideways with a Korean twist.
Family Ties (2006, Kim Tae-yong)
A keenly observed three-part ensemble piece about social manners and extended dysfunctional family. The story — and the great cast — makes the third part worth it.
Friend (2001, Kwak Kyung-taek)
A coming-of-age movie about childhood friends who take divergent paths in life, leaving behind those without options to become gangsters in their small town.
Hang Gong Ju (2013, Lee Su-jin)
Based on a true story, a girl transfers to a new school to escape her past, but it doesn’t take long before revelations unravel.
Happy End (1999, Jung Ji-woo)
When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.
How to Use Guys with Secret Tips (2013, Lee Won-suk)
Hilarious and quirky romantic comedy works because of the ingenious direction and charming leads, especially Oh Jung-se whose facial expressions alone work as one of many effective sight gags. A scene involving driving naked in a car takes the cake.
Il Mare (2000, Lee Hyun-seung)
A seaside house’s mysterious mailbox allows a man and a woman in different time periods to send letters and gifts to each other. As a plot device, it works to show us the loneliness of missed connections. It has more gravitas than the Hollywood remake, The Lake House.
I’m a Cyborg but That’s Ok (2006, Park Chan-wook)
A girl who thinks she is a combat cyborg checks into a mental hospital, where she encounters other psychotics. Eventually, she falls for a man who thinks he can steal people’s souls.
Little Forest (2018, Yim Soon-rye)
A young woman grows tired of life in the city and returns to her hometown in the Korean countryside. She shares the company of two childhood friends, one of whom also abandoned her dream of success in Seoul.
Masquerade (2012, Choo Chang-min)
A look-alike commoner is secretly hired to take the place of a poisoned king to save his country from falling into chaos. A simple yet well-told story that has been done before by Hollywood (e.g. Dave), but with more wistful, serious longing and earnestness, as played by Lee Byung-hun.
My Mother and a Guest (1961, Shin Sang-ok)
A grandmother, her mother and a maid live in a house called the “Widow House,” as all three adult women are widows. One day, a teacher named Mr. Han moves into the house as a lodger. A movie that tackles the issue of remarriage in a Korean society in transition.
My Dear Enemy (2008, Lee Yoon-ki)
A desperate woman sets out to find an ex-boyfriend who owes her money. When it turns out he’s empty-handed, he lets her tag along as he goes asking for money from his ex-girlfriends.
Night Journey (1977, Kim Soo-yong)
A movie very much ahead of its time in Korea, it’s told from the point of view of the female lead and her increasing restlessness and rebellion against the neglect of her husband and a world ruled largely by leering men.
Ode to My Father (2014, Yoon Je-kyoon)
It’s the story of South Korea through the life of an ordinary man, as he experiences the Hungnam evacuation of 1950 during the Korean War, the government’s decision to dispatch nurses and miners to West Germany in the 1960s, and the Vietnam War. Interspersed with the historical TV coverage and footage of the reunion of families in North and South Korea.
On the Beach at Night Alone (2017, Hong Sang Soo)
An actress wanders around a seaside town, reflecting on her relationship with a married filmmaker. If you follow the news, life has come to imitate art.
Once Upon a Time in High School: The Spirit of Jeet Kune Do (2004, Yu Ha)
High school circa 1978, a young man clings to the prospect of being with a young girl to make sense of his environment — teachers verbally and physically abusing students with school gangs always lying in wait. The school bullying is treated matter-of-factly in the movie, as part of growing up, but it’s said to be a serious problem back then.
One Fine Spring Day (2001, Hur jin-ho)
Set against the sights and sounds of the natural world, it’s an elegiac portrait of a love affair — from its blossoming in spring, to its decline as the years pass.
Repatriation (2004, Kim Dong Won)
This documentary chronicles the lives of “unconverted” North Korean spies who were captured and imprisoned in South Korea for more than 30 years.
Road to Sampo (1975, Lee Man-hee)
This is a funny throwback to 40s Hollywood comedies with just the right dab of Korean angst. An odd trio bicker their way to a town called Sampo. Suk Mun is a pesky delight, calling her companions “raccoon and wolf”. Unfinished and uneven (director Lee died during editing), it still holds up as a great road movie — and Korean cinema doesn’t have much of that anymore.
Silmido (2003, Kang Woo-Suk)
Set in 1968, South Korea decides to recruit criminals to train for a secret mission to kill North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung. If not for its historical inaccuracies, this film could have been a classic in the mold of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Engrossing nevertheless.
Snowpiercer (2014, Bong Joon Ho)
In a post-apocalyptic ice age, the last survivors aboard a globe-spanning supertrain are segregated by class, a common theme in Bong’s works but not as fully realized as in Parasite.
Someone Special (2004, Jang Jin)
Jang Jin riffs on the romantic comedy genre, poking fun at sentimentality with his own brand of Korean humor. It’s a wildly inventive movie about unrequited love and baseball.
The Attorney (2016, Woo-seok Yang)
This is a star turn for Song Kang-ho, a tax lawyer who grows a conscience and defends one of the students arrested on fabricated charges — that they were North Korean sympathizers. Inspired by the real-life “Burim case” in 1981 when South Korea was under authoritarian rule.
The Big Swindle (2004, Choi Dong-hoon)
Snappy, cleverly constructed caper film with great ensemble performance. It’s great popcorn entertainment. If you like heist films, don’t miss this one.
The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (1996, Hong Sang Soo)
Hong Sang Soo’s debut film is about the desires and lives of four characters in diverse circumstances: a poor novelist, a cheating wife, a mysophobic husband and a ticket girl.
The Foul King (2000, Kim Jee-woon)
No one takes wrestling seriously, right? Tell that to Korea’s favorite actor Song Kang-ho. In his first breakout role, Song is able to convince us that a sad incompetent bank clerk can be transformed as a professional wrestler. Here, he does most of the back-breaking stunts (body slams, somersaults and all). And beyond what everyone has assumed wrong about wrestling, the movie shows us that it can be a brutal sport.
The Good The Bad The Weird (2008, Kim Jee-woon)
An ode to spaghetti Westerns, it’s the story of two outlaws and a bounty hunter in 1940s Manchuria and their quest to get a valuable treasure map while being pursued by the Japanese army and Chinese bandits. Deliriously fun and ingenious.
The Man from Nowhere (2010, Lee Jeong-beom)
A loner who runs a pawnshop gets messed up in a gang war when he attempts to rescue a kidnapped child-neighbor. The superb acting and set action pieces have made this a cult classic and is widely considered by many as the best action film in the vein of The Professional.
The Man with Three Coffins (1987, Lee Jang-ho)
A widower travels to the eastern coast of South Korea to scatter the ashes of his dead wife close to her real hometown. On the way, he meets three different women who look like his wife and memories of his late wife come flooding back. An experimental film about the suffering and loss of being uprooted by the Korean war.
The President’s Last Bang (2005, Im Sang-soo)
A satirical black comedy about the events leading to and the aftermath of the assassination of Park Chung-hee, then the South Korean president. It’s plodding in the beginning but gets interesting by midpoint.
The Flower in Hell (1958, Sang-ok Shin)
A country boy goes to Seoul in order to bring his older brother back to the country — a petty crook involved with a prostitute servicing American GIs. But the latter complicates it for him.
The Spy Gone North (2018, Yoon Jong-bin)
An old-fashioned Cold War yarn, a South Korean army poses as a businessman to infiltrate a North Korean facility in 1993. It’s Korea’s own Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The Truth Beneath (2016, Lee Kyoung-mi)
The movie follows a mysterious 15-day scandal of a politician and his wife as their daughter goes missing just before the national elections. A popular actress in melodramas, Son Ye-Jin plays against type in this political thriller.
The Way Home (2002, Lee Jeong-hyang)
A heart-warming story about a grandmother and her city-born grandson who comes to live with her in a rural village.
The Yellow Sea (2010, Na Hong-jin)
The film revolves around a cab driver who agrees to carry out a hit on a professor in exchange for getting his debts paid. He soon becomes a fugitive after the hit goes wrong, and is chased by both the police and the gangster who assigned him the task.
Train to Busan (2016, Yeon Sang-ho)
This tense, edge-of-your-seat thriller ratchets up the scares and thrills to a whole new level when fast-moving zombies attack trapped passengers on a train and some of them think social status still applies to who lives or dies.
Treeless Mountain (2008, Kim So Yong)
Sensitively observed film about how two abandoned sisters manage to take care of themselves. Great natural performances from the child actors.
Turning Gate (2002, Hong Sang-soo)
A man gets involved with two women, first a young college student whom he leaves without a moment’s thought and then a woman whom he deems is his fated partner.
Unbowed (2011, Chung ji-young)
A courtroom drama inspired by the true story of Kim Myung-ho, a math professor who was arrested for shooting a crossbow at the presiding judge of his appeal for wrongful dismissal.
Very Ordinary Couple (2013, Roh Deok)
Office romances can be toxic but a recently separated couple must deal with the prospect of seeing each other on a daily basis. Authentic mise en scène adds realism to the couple’s on-again-off-again secret relationship.
Yourself and Yours (2016, Hong Sang Soo)
After a fight, a couple decides to take a break in their relationship. The next day, the woman vanishes without a trace. A “lookalike” comes into the picture and is eager to date every man in the town where they live.
The author writes for various US-based publications.
