The 18 Best Korean Movies to Stream Now (2023)

Minari

Lee Isaac Chung's beautiful Minari, which starsThe Walking Dead's Steven Yeun and veteran Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung,has been generating major buzz since it premiered at Sundance a year ago. It has alsojust scored three SAG nominations, making it alikely contender in the Oscar race.Based on Chung's own childhood, Minari is a quintessentially American tale about a Korean-American familythat moves to rural Arkansasto start a farm and chase the American dream. Along the way, and with the arrival of the grandmother from Korea, the film becomes a powerful lesson on resilience, family, and what it means to belong.

Assassination

Korea's painful history, especially the 35 years the country spent under Japanese rule,is a constant source of cinematic inspiration. TakeAssassination, the2015 hit about a group of resistance fighters in 1930s Korea who plot to kill a pro-Japanese businessman and a high-ranking Japanese general, a plan that becomes all the more complicatedby a traitor in their group.

Snowpiercer

With its A-list cast including Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and Octavia Spencer, Snowpiercermarked director Bong Joon-ho'sEnglish-language debut. Based on the French graphic novelLe Transperneige, this 2013 blockbuster is set in a post-apocalypticworld that has reverted back to the ice age where the only surviving members of humanity live aboard a train that perpetually circumnavigates the globe. As designed by the locomotive'smegalomaniacal creator Wilford (Harris), the passengers are segregated into different classes, with the rich living in splendor at the front and the poor banished to live in squalor in the back. Evans's character Curtis launches a revolt to fight their way up the train, but this being a Bong production, things aren't quite what they seem.

The Handmaiden

Considered a master of black humor, provocativestorytelling, overindulgent violence (as inOldboy), and eroticism (as in this film), Park was hailed as "the man who put Korean cinema on the map"in a 2018New York Timesprofile. Like Bong, his oeuvre also includes English-language works—he directed the 2018 John le CarréminiseriesThe Little Drummer Girlstarring Alexander Skarsgård and Florence Pugh. As forThe Handmaiden, the critical darling and feminist masterpiecewas inspired bySarah Waters's 2002 novelFingersmith, though it tradesthe book's Victorian-era setting for 1930s Korea under Japanese rule. A con man plans to seduce a Japanese heiress to stealherfortune andhires a young pickpocket to help him by posing as her maid, but things soon begin to unravel as the plot gets ever more risqué, erotic, and twisted.

Okja

Anyone who has seenParasite knows by now that Bong Joon-ho is a cinematic pro at social commentary (also, see:The Host). The metaphor is especially poignant in Okja,the 2017 Netflix movie about a young girl and her genetically modified super pig. When the corporation that created the pig comes to take it away, she joins forces with an animal liberation group to save her beloved pet from being slaughtered.

Burning

In this 2018 psychological thriller directed by Lee Chang-dong, a young working class man named Jong-su runs into an old childhood friend, Hae-mi. She soon leaves for a trip and when she returns, she has brought back a new acquaintance, Ben (played by StevenYeun), who is mysterious, rich, and, possibly deeply disturbed.The film explores the weird triangle that develops between these individuals, along withproviding a sharp critique of thedeep economic divisions that plague Korean society (consider it a precursor toParasite).

Parasite

Besides being a superb film, what madeParasite such an unstoppable force last year was that it came at just the right time. The gap between the rich and the poor is at an all-time high, and even though thiscomedy-thriller-satire takes place in Seoul, its themes and characters are relevant everywhere. Add in visually arresting set design and cinematography, and an expert mix of suspense and comedy,and it's easy to see why this scathing portrait of greed andsocial inequality is one of the best films ever made.

Mother

Yet another cult hit by Bong Joon-ho,Motheralso exemplifieshis characteristic genre-bending, subversive style.The titular mother, played by Kim Hye-ja, is a hardworking single parent who lives with and takes care of her mentally disabledadult son Do-joon (played by Won Bin). When a local girl is found murdered, Do-joon is arrested, tricked into signing a confession, and jailed, leaving his mother to investigate the crime herself and do whatever it takes, even resorting to violence,to free her son and find the real killer.

The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion

There is aStranger Things-likepremise to this action movie in which a young girl escapes from a mysterious government laboratory and later discovers she was the subject of genetic testing that left her with superhuman abilities. When she displays her special talents on a singing competition, the doctors who created her begin hunting her down.

Veteran

The moral depravity of the country'schaebol(large family-run conglomerates) is a frequently exploredsubject in Korean cinema and television. In this action comedy, a detective sets out to bring down the arrogant scion of a powerful corporation, who thinks nothing of using his wealth and connections to behave in the most reprehensible ways possible. Several moments of hilarity help bring levity to the sad fact thatthe film's portrayal of superrich kids behaving terribly isn't much of an exaggeration.

The Thieves

An ensemble cast of Korea's top stars, including Jun Ji-hyun, Kim Hye-soo, Kim Soo-hyun,and Lee Jung-jae, star in thisOcean's Eleven-like heist comedy about a motley crew of ten thieves who band togetherto steal a valuable diamond from a Chinese crime boss.The only problem is that none of them can really be trusted and everyone has a different motive of her own.

Train to Busan

A divorced father and his daughterboard a train bound for Busan, but justbefore its doors close, a woman-turned-zombie, slips in.Train to Busanisn't just your average zombie apocalypse movie, it's one with undertones of class warfare, all set within a train (not unlikeSnowpiercer). This father-daughter duo, along with their fellow passengers, are fighting for their lives, all whileconfronting their own monstrous instincts when it comes to self-preservation.

Seoul Searching

In this nostalgic and charming comedy, an eclectic group of foreign-born Korean high school students attend a cultural immersion camp (a rite of passage, of sorts)in Seoul during the summer of 1986. The culture shock is different for everyone, but the group finds ways to bond over the immigrant experience.

Scandal Makers

In this 2008 classic, early aughts comedy king Cha Tae-hyun plays athirty-something radio DJ and former teen idol who finds out that he is a grandfather when a young woman claiming to be his daughter shows up at his apartment with her son in tow. When paparazzi snap the trio, rumors spread that the father and daughter are a romantic couple. While dealing with the scandal, the three learn valuable lessons on what it means to be a family.

Miss Granny

In this hilarious—and touching—film, a 74-year-old widow has just learned her son is going to send her to a nursing home. She enters a photo studio to take what she believes will be herfuneral portrait but is instead transported into the body of her 20-year-old self. She takes every advantage of her newfound lease on life, joining a band, getting an Audrey Hepburn haircut, and eventually ending up in a love triangle. The premise was such a huge success that a remake of this comedy has been made in just about every other Asian country.

Extreme Job

This 2019 action comedy is the second most viewed film in South Korean history. A group of narcotics detectives are tasked with carrying out an undercover operation to bust an international drug gang. They purchase a fried chicken restaurant to use as a cover for theirstakeouts, but when one of the detectives uses his mom's marinade recipe, the place becomes an instant hit and they suddenly find themselveshaving to juggle catching the bad guys with running a successful restaurant.

Poetry

Another gem from LeeChang-dong,Poetry, which won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes in 2010, is a heart-wrenching movie about a woman who begins taking a poetry class after receiving an Alzheimer's diagnosis. In the midst of dealing with her own debilitating disease, she learns that her teenage grandson, who she takes care of, has been implicated in the death of a young girl.

I Saw the Devil

Be warned:there is violence and gore in spades in this movie, starringLee Byung-hun as a secret agent hellbent on getting revenge on the serial killer (Choi Min-sik) who viciouslymurdered his pregnant fiancée. When he does find him, he doesn't kill the psychopath but insteadsets him free, setting off a demented, grisly game of cat and mouse.