Cinetropa's 100 Best Korean Movies of All Time

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Full title: 100 Best Korean Movies of All Time (Ranked) and Why They’re the Best in the World

By Dennis Clemente Jan 30, 2021

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.

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.