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Noting that South Korean pop culture has become at least as loved outside the Republic shouldn't surprise anyone in 2025—look at the massive critical and streaming success of K-Pop Demon Hunters—an American production, technically, but one that makes the most of its South Korean cast and origins.
It all, perhaps, started with the international rise of K-pop, a broad umbrella term for just about any popular music coming from Korea, though South Korean films had a reverent following stateside long before Parasite’s history-making Academy Award victory way back in 2019. As with art from any country or culture, not all South Korean entertainment is gold, but the TV and movies the country is exporting are more than able to compete on a global scale.
Case in point: Squid Game, the buzzy survival drama captured the world’s attention in a big way over its three seasons, it’s first episode having been the most popular in the streamer’s history, beating the previous record-holder, the similarly buzzy Bridgerton, by nearly 30 million viewers. Even before Squid Game hit, Netflix was betting big on K-dramas—and while being spoiled for choice is a good thing, but it can be tough to know where to begin. Here are some of the best and most popular shows on Netflix that represent the breadth of South Korean TV: crime, horror, rom-com, science fiction, period drama...whatever you’re into, you can probably find a distinct Korean-language take.
Karma (2025)
A deeply satisfying, Coen-esque crime thriller, Karma stars Lee Hee-joon as Jae-yeong as a guy who's desperately underwater in his debts to a loan shark—but, hey! It turns out that he's the beneficiary of his dad's rather large life insurance policy. What else to do but hire a co-worker to kill his father? That part goes fine, but then a couple on a date runs over the body, and, believing that he's killed the man, driver Sang-hun nearly murders an eyewitness before paying the guy to help him dispose of the body. A hiker finds the body, the insurance payout is delayed, and Sang-hun comes to believe that he's been played. It's one of those great, twisty-turny crime dramas from which no character walks away without blood on their hands. Stream Karma.
Crash Landing on You (2019)
That title isn’t just a metaphor: The series involves a literal crash landing into the North side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin) is an heiress and independent business owner whose complicated relationships with her family have caused her to step away from them. On a paragliding trip, a tornado sends her north, and she’s rescued from disaster by a captain in the North Korean Special Police Force. The romance between two strong characters, as well as the sensitive and humane portrayal of life in the north, made this a mega-hit on South Korean TV, and a fan fave worldwide. Stream Crash Landing on You.
All of Us Are Dead (2022 – , renewed for a second season)
For a little Z-drama with your K-drama: In All of Us Are Dead, high school becomes hell, almost literally, when a viral outbreak sees a Hyosan school become ground zero for a strange plague. Though it's not clear at first, the teenagers soon realize that they've been quarantined from the rest of the city. Help isn't coming. Nihilism isn't uncommon in zombie narratives, nor are themes involving the breakdown of social structures. All of Us Are Dead, instead, explores the world of a cloistered high school under constant threat as a parallel to our own world: Class and background continue to be potent forces, even (or especially) amid the trauma of the attacks, and arbitrary social hierarchies solidify under the constant trauma rather than adapt. The closed school location is brilliantly utilized, and there's some appropriately soapy drama, as well. Look for Squid Game's Emmy-winner Lee Yoo-mi as spoiled rich kid Lee Na-yeon. A long-gestating second season recently started production. Stream All of Us Are Dead.
The 8 Show (2024)
This might have seemed faintly over-the-top just a few years ago, but now looks and feels like a reasonably good distillation of our current capitalist hellscape. Here, eight strangers are selected to compete in a game in which they're locked together in a building and sequestered on different floors each night. They earn money for each minute they last in the game, but all their provisions must be purchased with money they've won, at an extreme markup. At first, the contestants pool their resources so that everyone gets more money—until they learn that people on higher floors are getting more. Then things get nasty. Stream The 8 Show.
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (2020)
Discussions around mental health in general remain fraught anywhere in the world, and South Korea is no exception. Though opportunities for treatment are better than in many other parts of the world, social stigma remains a problem. Which is all part of the reason Jo Yong and Park Shin-woo’s miniseries was such a sensation when it was released last year: Writer Jo based the show on her own personal experiences, plus a good bit of research. The series chronicles the slow-burn romance between Moon Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun), a health care worker living with his autistic brother, and a famous children’s book author (Seo Yea-ji) with antisocial personality disorder. It’s lovely, and was popular enough in South Korea to inspire a series of children’s books based on the work of the show’s fictional writer. Stream It’s Okay to Not Be Okay.
Itaewon Class (2020)
Another great example of the willingness of South Korean producers to tackle increasingly challenging social issues alongside the action and drama, Itaewon Class stars Park Seo-joon as Park Sae-ro-yi, a high school kid whose life is shattered by Geun-won, the son of the powerful owner of a food conglomerate. First, he’s suspended for fighting back against the bully, and then his father is killed in a reckless driving incident involving Geun-won. Instead of consequences for the rich kid, it’s Sae-ro-yi who winds up going to prison for nearly beating his father’s killer to death. On release, he opens up a local bar for outsiders while plotting to bring down the all-powerful conglomerate that ruined his life. The staff at his bar includes a transgender woman, a Guinean-Korean, and another ex-con, all of whom struggle with acceptance but find a home among the other underdogs at the bar. Stream Itaewon Class.
Business Proposal (2022)
A lot of the shows on this list are on the heavy side; it's time to lighten things up with this popular romantic comedy/drama series. The set-up is classic romantic tomfoolery: Shin Ha-ri (Kim Se-jeong) goes on a blind date pretending to be her best friend, who didn't want to go because her dad set the whole thing up. Ha-ri is just doing her bestie a solid, but things get complicated when the date turns out to be Kang Tae-moo (Ahn Hyo-seop), CEO of the company where Ha-ri works. Sick of his grandfather's pressure to find the right woman and secure the future of the family business, Ha-ri decides he's going to marry his date—who is, again, pretending to be someone she's not. Complicated in the best tradition of the genre, and also pretty darned cute. Stream Business Proposal.
The Frog (2024)
Following his wife's death, Yeong-ha (Kim Yoon-seok) just wants a quiet life in the secluded town where he lives, renting out the house next door as a vacation rental—though he's not even all that enthusiastic about that. It's all going fine until a young woman shows up with her son, the same woman abruptly leaving behind blood stains and, even more disturbingly, the kid. Though it's a bit of a spoiler, this very-slow-burn and cinematic thriller takes place in multiple time periods—a clever storytelling technique given the show's unchanging locale. Stream The Frog.
The Silent Sea (2021)
Bae Doona, whom you'll know from everything from Cloud Atlas to Sense8 to Rebel Moon) stars in this twisty-turny sci-fi drama that starts on a dry, near-waterless Earth of the near-future, following a team of astronauts and scientists sent on a mission to an abandoned lunar base. They're tasked with retrieving a mysterious sample, and it soon becomes clear that the bureaucrats on Earth know a lot more about that sample than they’re telling. Suffice it to say that nothing goes particularly well—there are deaths, betrayals, and a deadly something that might be humanity's future, but might just as easily be its end. Stream The Silent Sea.
Vincenzo (2021)
Having been adopted into an Italian organized crime family as a baby, Park Joo-hyung took on the name Vincenzo Cassano, eventually becoming a mafia consigliere. After his adoptive father Don Fabio dies, Fabio’s biological son comes gunning for his brother, whom he now sees only as competition. He flees to Seoul on the hunt for a secret stash of money, but in the process discovers a love interest and a new adversary in a giant business conglomerate that quite deserves to be taken down. Another incredibly popular series, this one definitely puts a unique spin on the tropes of the mob drama. Stream Vincenzo.
Alice in Borderland (2020– , third season coming soon)
Video-game-obsessed Arisu gets his wish, after a fashion: He finds himself, along with a couple of friends, transported to an alternate, eerily abandoned version of Tokyo—the title’s Borderland—vividly brought to life via some clever green-screen work. The three are directed to an arena and given the instructions for the game—one they’ll be playing whether they want to or not. The first competition, for example, involves a locked-room-style puzzle; if they fail, the room g
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