The global appeal ofK-dramasis greater than ever right now. At a time when interest in international entertainment media grows day by day, Korean cinema has become the top source of entertainment for audiences seeking newness. K-dramas, in particular, brought forth an unprecedented variety in its productions and met that demand with creative new concepts that were executed to perfection.Parasitebroke new ground for international cinema with its intricately portrayed class metaphor, whileSquid GamebecameNetflix’s most-watched serieswith an unusual premise that nevertheless delivered an excellent cinematic experience.
So, if you’ve yet to dip your toes into the marvelous world of K-dramas, you can safely believe that there is something out there that perfectly answers your needs. K-dramas are renowned for their heightened melodrama and a compelling mix of genre elements. But the creative brilliance of Korean filmmakers also means that they can take any genre out there and perfect it with a distinctive flair. Here are our recommendations for the 10 best K-dramas for beginners, showcasing the variety and brilliance that K-dramas have to offer.
10The Glory (2022-2023)
One of the most popular Korean series to release recently,The Gloryhas everything you want from a top-level K-drama, and more. This 2022 drama follows the journey of a determined individual to exact revenge against her former schoolmates who bullied her to the point of physical harm and trauma. After spending years planning out her revenge, the series begins when the lead character,played by Song Hye-kyo, finally steps back into the lives of her former classmates.
What Makes It Great
The Glorycomes to life on the basis of its elaborate, tightly-wound storyline, which is full of intrigue and interconnections. Despite appearing as a slow-burn, the series packs a lot in every episode, leaving behind a lot of symbolism to read in between the lines. Cinematography and background music generally receive great attention in K-dramas, and, inThe Glory, are put together with striking brilliance to amplify emotion and emphasize meanings. The cinematic language and the storytelling are fundamentally different inThe Glory, making it an unforgettable first watch for any K-drama beginner.
Stream on Netflix
9Itaewon Class (2020)
Itaewon Class
The 2020 seriesItaewon Classis also a very popular revenge drama, this time starring the versatile actor Park Seo-joon in the leading role. But while revenge is a narrative crux of this series, it is much more wholesome thanThe Glory, and is an amazing series worthy of many rewatches.
It begins in the lead character’s high school days where he garners an enmity with a classmate, the son of a powerful business tycoon, due to his strong beliefs. His unflexible moral stance on the classroom enmity quickly leads to his ruin, with his father dead and him in prison. Upon his release from prison, Seo-joon’s character resolves to start a business in the same industry as his former classmate’s father, with the aim of growing big enough to topple the family.
While the overarching theme of revenge and enmity is spelled out as a connecting thread in every episode ofItaewon Class, the series spends most of its time tracing the growth of the lead character’s restaurant business. In this course, Seo-joon’s character brings together a team full of eclectic characters, who are drawn to his resolve and unyielding goodness. This team dynamics colors the tone for most of the series, making it a rewarding and wholesome watch.
8Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo (2016)
The 2016 seriesWeightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joois a particularly endearing take on the K-drama romance that doubles as a coming-of-age story as well as a sports drama. It centers around the life of the titular Kim Bok-joo, an aspiring weightlifter who is enrolled at a college for athletics. Having formed her entire identity around her athletic aspirations, Kim Bok-joo lives her life as a jovial tomboy.
However, she secretly harbors a desire to experience love and to explore her feminine side. The opportunity to do that arrives in the form of a childhood friend, a star swimmer at the same college with whom she used to have a teasing love-hate relationship.
Romance sits very close to the heart of the K-drama charm, andWeightlifting Fairyisan addictive introductionto the Korean take on the genre. At the center of this compelling effect is the conflict between Kim Bok-joo’s personality and her romantic feelings for the leading man, Jung Joon-hyung. This internal clash gives the series many of its best moments, bringing comedy and heart-skipping romance together in the same beat. The wealth of entertaining side characters, the slow-burn romance, and the wholesome comedy makes this a truly bingeable watch and a perfect introduction to K-drama romance.
Stream on Roku
7Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022)
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
The legal dramaExtraordinary Attorney Wooquickly became a major K-drama phenomenon upon its release in 2022. The series stars Park Eun-bin as Woo Young-woo, an autistic genius who excels in the study of the law. It opens with the character’s earliest steps as an attorney and charts her personal and professional growth as she masters the ins and outs of the profession.
Extraordinary Attorney Wooquickly endears viewers with its wholesome premise about an autistic savant who learns to deal with the intricacies of the adult world, one dilemma at a time. Park Eun-bin’s performance as the lovable Woo keeps you hooked on the series from scene to scene. What’s more, this series perfectly depicts some of the most classical elements of the K-drama, like entertaining filler episodes, noble births, and secret twists, while interestingly foregoing the melodramatic tone that typically accompanies such tropes.
Related:The 20 Most Rewatchable Korean Dramas
6Crash Landing on You (2019)
Crash Landing On You
Crash Landing on Youis the biggest recent K-drama phenomenon by far, breaking many viewership records in its home country and becoming the second-highest-rated Korean series of all time. Thecozy K-drama seriescenters around an impossible romance between a North Korean soldier and a South Korean heiress, with a host of political and family conflicts coming in between them, and even putting their lives at risk.
The series begins when a fateful accident during a paragliding adventure leads the heiress (Son Ye-jin) to crash-land in North Korea, and is discovered by a North Korean armyman, played by Hyun Bin. His decision to help the castaway leads the two down a path where they inevitably fall in love.
With amazing chemistry between the romantic leads and an entertaining mix of comedy, action, and drama,Crash Landing on Youhas become the subject of adoration for viewers around the world. Seasoned fans couldn’t help but swoon over the perfect balance of qualities between Hyun Bin’s reserved armyman and Ye-jin’s confident businesswoman, and how the minute flairs in their performances colored the romantic scenes. At the same time, casual viewers found a variety of other stakes to enjoy, from the dramatic action scenes to Ye-jin’s fight to maintain ownership of her father’s company.
5Bloodhounds (2023)
With genre mixing being such a common part of K-dramas, it can be easy for a K-drama beginner to get used to half-baked fight sequences that are sometimes found in drama-focused shows. However, Korean action can get quite gritty when the situation calls for it, and the 2023 hit showBloodhoundsis a perfect example of that. The series features Woo Do-hwan and Lee Sang-yi as two aspiring boxers who team up to bring down a notorious criminal loan shark who is wreaking havoc in the community.
Bloodhoundsmakes for a singular case among K-drama action series because its fight sequences find a better comparison with iconic Asian action movies likeThe Raidthan to the typical action series Hollywood has to offer. With gritty hand-to-hand combat and thrilling stagings of two-on-many fight scenarios, this series is clearly one for the times. Its comedic writing is also on-point and a major selling point in its own right.
4Sweet Home (2020)
A cool feature to witness in Korean cinema is the difference with which its filmmakers approach their visual compositions, often taking inspiration from the unique art styles of its comic book culture.Based on a webtoon, the zombie action seriesSweet Homeis a memorable example of this, beginning as a simple zombie survival series set in an apartment complex, and quickly morphing into an elaborate sci-fi action drama where superpowers are a very real thing.
Song Kang appears as the protagonist, a suicidal teenager dealing with the recent loss of his family when the zombie apocalypse hits. When he is infected by one of the undead, he discovers that the infection interacts quite differently with him, giving him superpowers while allowing him to retain his human senses.
Sweet Home’s image of a zombie apocalypse is cheeky in the best way, balancing excellent visual effects with a freedom to portray its monsters in the most fantastic, comic book-style way. Its zombies are not slow-moving corpses fromThe Walking Dead, but appear more like supervillains from aDoomvideo game. At the same time, the series also comes with an ensemble cast and weaves together many storylines, contrasting the self-indulgent take on action with a surprising depth of emotion.
Related:10 Zombie Movies That Are Absolutely Relentless
3Extracurricular (2020)
One of the things that Korean cinema is best known for is its captivating take onthe thriller genre. However, the genre finds itself on the sidelines when it comes to K-dramas, with viewers favoring other genres that work better for melodrama. The best K-drama thrillers, however, come with the same kind of mastery as their feature film counterparts.
Extracurricularfeatures Kim Dong-hee as a top-performing school student who secretly moonlights as a security provider for sex workers. When a classmate discovers his secret and begins to blackmail him, his life is turned upside down.
Extracurricularcomes with the kind of unusual but effective premise that is so common to K-dramas, and makes the best of it by continuously escalating the stakes. The series does a great job of conveying the sense of threat in having the secret compromised, and weaves an intense web of tension as each next turn of events throws yet another wrench in the works for the lead character. Its combination of crime, secrets, and terrifying stakes makes for a complete and fulfilling thriller experience that is pure K-drama entertainment.
2Reply 1988 (2015)
Another beautiful thing about K-dramas is that series with a more slow, deliberate outlook can also find as much popularity as shows that have a more commercial makeup.Reply 1988is the best example of such a series, as it stands as the highest-rated drama in Korean television history. The series is set in the titular year of 1988 and follows days in the lives of five friends and families, which are filled with various mundanities, often of the absurd variety.
Reply 1988is an absolute gem that, on paper, has all the hallmarks of a typical K-drama: romance, a lively cast, fantastic chemistry, and comedic bickering that will have your belly aching in laughter. At the same time, though, it is so much more than that. Amidst its many humorous circumstances and chuckle-worthy banter, the series surreptitiously bears an immense weight of genuine emotion that breaks through all at once, giving you an experience that is unlike anything else. Hidden in its slow, meandering rhythms, the series carries a core essence of life and human connection.
1Boys Over Flowers (2009)
Boys Over Flowersis the original Hallyu moment, dating back all the way to 2009. It became a dominant template for the Korean high school drama, featuring exaggerated representations of classic K-drama tropes like the chaebol kid, and therich-poor romance trope.
Koo Hye-sun appears in the lead role as a spirited teenager from a humble background who finds herself admitted to an elite school on a scholarship. Once there, her unapologetic demeanor brings her against the crosshairs of the school bullies, a fearsome group of four chaebol heirs who mercilessly bully anyone they take a shine to. But events take a different turn when her intrepid personality causes the leader of the group to become attracted to her.
Boys Over Flowersgives you a glimpse of the Korean melodrama in its most raw and original form. While the most popular K-dramas in recent days tend to balance an approachable cinematic style with K-drama tropes, this iconic series lingers, exaggerates, and magnifies, creating an unforgettable experience for anyone new to K-dramas. And if you already have a soft spot for Hollywood rom-coms, then you’re sure to binge this iconic series as the overdramatization is undeniably addictive.
