Korean movies Broker and Decision to Leave have swept two major awards at this year's Cannes Film Festival, reflecting an ever-growing quality in movies coming from South Korea and their increasing international recognition. While Parasite's Best Picture win at the Oscar showed the relevance of Korean cinema to a much wider audience, there are plenty of other relevant classics worth the watch.
From popular names such as Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook to indie directors, Korean cinema has its own captivating style and offers many insightful stories that cross language and cultural barriers, or expand them. According to film lovers casting votes on Ranker, there are certain titles that deserve the accolade of the best Korean movies of all time.
Note: Ranker lists are live and continue to accrue votes, so some rankings may have changed after this publishing.
Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2013)
Inspiring a popular Netflix remake in 2019, Miracle in Cell No. 7 is a heart-warming story about a man with an intellectual disability wrongfully accused of murder and his moving relationship with his 6-year-old daughter.
This is the kind of lighthearted movie that can make anyone laugh and cry with the same intensity. Different from the remake, it's a much more effective emotional roller-coaster because of the amazing work of the ensemble cast, ensuring that every character is unique and funny in their own way. And of course, the father-and-son relationship carries the movie in a heartfelt fashion.
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
Horror movies seldom captivate large audiences, but A Tale of Two Sisters has a strong psychological appeal to it. The film follows a family haunted by a tragic past, as a recently released patient from a mental institution returns home with her sister and suspects her stepmother has a connection with disturbing events taking place in their house.
Highly influential in the 2000s and even inspiring an American remake, A Tale of Two Sisters uses ghosts and haunted houses to portray the decaying image of a family falling apart, with a powerful twist that will shake the viewers at the end.
The Wailing (2016)
One of the most innovative horror movies of the past years, The Wailing offers a little bit of everything: curses, rituals, demons, brutal violence, blood, and a well-built psychological thriller. Violent murders and occurrences of a mysterious disease begin to take place in a small Korean village after the arrival of a stranger, and an unprepared policeman is drawn into the center of it in order to save his daughter from a horrifying fate.
The Wailing offers a set of overlooked monsters and entities that more people should talk about, addressing Asian folklore in a terrifying way and blending it masterfully into a chilling psychologically-heavy atmosphere.
Burning (2018)
Burning is an ambiguous masterpiece that counts on the viewers to come up with their own conclusions about the story. After Jong-su bumps into a girl who used to live in his neighborhood, they have a quick fling, and she asks him to look after her cat while she's on a trip to Africa. She returns accompanied by a mysterious guy she met there, Ben, who harbors a peculiar secret.
Burning alternates between drama and suspense, tricking the audience by showing things from the perspective of an unreliable protagonist. Ben looks like a suspicious person, but he's never actually caught doing anything wrong. The mysterious narrative is subtle in the social commentary but also offers an insightful discussion on the objectification of desire and class consciousness.
The Handmaiden (2016)
The Handmaiden is considered one of the best LGBTQ+ thrillers of all time, and Park Chan-wook is one of the few male directors out there capable of writing female characters in such an effective way. The film follows a woman hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress and to put into practice a plot to defraud her. Everything seems to be going as planned until the two women discover unexpected emotions.
The Handmaiden rushes off from any cheap conclusions and never fails to surprise with its countless narrative twists, leaving the viewers disoriented in a satisfying way.
I Saw the Devil (2010)
I Saw the Devil isn't only one of the best Korean movies ever made but also one of the most violent. It follows a special agent who engages in a game of cat and mouse with the serial killer who killed his wife, in a brutal plan of revenge where he must become a cruel monster himself.
The offscreen violence is as terrifying as what is presented onscreen, and I Saw The Devil presents such a hopeless fate to all characters that it ends up becoming an anti-revenge movie, in a scenario where the search for retaliation dehumanizes the hero.
Mother (2009)
Directed by Bong Joon-ho, the movie follows a mother desperately searching for the killer who framed her son for a girl's horrific murder. With one unforgettable performance by Kim Hye-ja, Mother presents an in-depth meditation on the unconditional love between parent and child.
The movie is much more than a simple crime thriller of guilty-or-not, working also as an extensive psychological study. While not subtle in its weighty themes, Mother manages to surprise without overlaying the nuanced narrative with unnecessary shocks, proving that Bong Joon-ho knows exactly where the thriller must come to a halt in order to give space to drama.
Parasite (2019)
Still one of the most popular films in recent memory, Parasite is a great example of a foreign movie that became a massive hit in America, earning the Best Picture Academy Award in 2020. Impeccable in technical aspects and full of powerful twists, the movie is a precise meditation on class discrimination and the overwhelming capitalist oppression from the west.
Even though Parasite offers important social commentary, it still manages to present a story made for all audiences, with a compelling narrative that flirts with comedy and drama before establishing an intriguing thriller atmosphere.
Memories of Murder (2003)
The third Bong Joon-ho movie in Ranker's top 10 is one of his first movies and became a classic crime thriller. Based on the real story behind South Korea's first serial killer, Memories of Murder is set in a small Korean province in 1986, as two unprepared detectives struggle to find the responsible for the death of multiple young women in the area.
The film follows the hopeless investigation and showcase's the technological limitations that held the case back and ultimately left the detectives on the verge of madness. The drama is extremely well executed and balanced with the thrilling investigation that seems to be going nowhere, which leads the people involved in the case to act recklessly in the exhaustive search for answers.
Oldboy (2003)
Another Park Chan-wook masterpiece, Oldboy is known as one of the most disturbing movies ever made. With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged, and tortured for 15 years, a desperate businessman seeks revenge on his captors counting with the help of a young lady.
The puzzling narrative is extremely immersive and the truth is unraveled in a violent fashion; while the mystery lingers throughout the movie, there's a fair amount of action scenes that keep the story going in an enegertic, anxiety-inducing way. And of course, when it comes to Oldboy, it's impossible not to mention the ending as it delivers one of the most wicked plot twist of the 2000s.