South Korea has made a name for itself as one of the most famous film markets in the world. Korea has long produced cinema that pushes boundaries and blurs genres. In addition to its well-known ultra-violence and political satire, the history includes heartbreaking melodramas, subversive comedy, psychologically disturbing horror, and high-octane action movies. Here is the list of the Top 10 Best Korean Movies that are all-time Favorites.
1. The Wailing
The Wailing is a long, powerful, and ambitious masterwork of atmospheric horror that never feels tedious. It also incorporates aspects from other horror subgenres, such as frightening kids, demons, and zombies, without ever feeling haphazard or patchwork. The story centers on a police officer attempting to save a hamlet from a mysterious virus before it claims his daughter develops gently enough for you to feel no sense of alarm.
2. Parasite
The first non-English production to win the Best Picture Oscar and the highest grossing Korean picture internationally, Parasite is hailed as one of the best movies of the twenty-first century. All those things are admirable, but Bong Joon-real ho's accomplishment makes the film's scathing critique of capitalism accessible to a large worldwide audience. The message isn't exactly subtle: until the social order inevitably corrects itself, living in the slums of Seoul attaches itself to an affluent one and even moves in secretly.
3. A Tale Of Two Sisters
This atmospheric horror fable, adapted from a folk tale and released during a pivotal year for Korean cinema, is reminiscent of The Shining in its complex setting—a gothic mansion filled with ominous corridors and chilling William Morris wallpaper—and its eerie mood. However, Kim Jee-astute woon's directing & Lee Byung-Hitchcockian woos score lift it even further, creating a masterpiece of psychological horror from one of Korea's top directors.
4. Memories Of Murder
One of the best criminal procedurals ever produced, Bong Joon-serial ho's killer film has an odd couple of cops who are positively high on the drug. Bong's menacing, mercurial crime masterwork seems to imply that his nation is so corrupted and corrosive, so desensitized to murder, that not only are the killer's female victims dying but justice itself.
5. The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil
A ruthless cop and a crime lord, played by Ma Dong-Seok of Eternals, work together to apprehend a serial killer currently on the loose in Seoul. Won-Tae Lee, like the best Korean genre filmmakers, takes a formulaic plot and elevates the style to such brilliant heights that the clichés become unrecognizable.
6. Burning
In hindsight, it is clear how the works of Lee and the Japanese author are related: both like twisting their narratives in unforeseen, unclear directions. But as a farm boy-turned-aspiring writer gets in with a mystery playboy with some nefarious hobbies, Lee adds specific Korean worries about class distinctions and the north-south divide.
7. I Saw The Devil
I Saw The Devil is the violent gangster epic from screenwriter Park Hoon-Jung resembles a well- known mashup of The Godfather and Infernal Affairs. However, what it lacks in novel storytelling, it more than makes up for immaculate execution. Lee Jung-Jae of Squid Game, Choi Min-Sik of Oldboy, and Hwang Jung-min of The Wailing all deliver mesmerizing performances that vividly depict the complex tale of a power struggle within a criminal organization. Its cinematographer, Chung Chung-hoon, who recently worked on Disney's Obi-Wan Kenobi series and Last Night in Soho, is responsible for the film's vibrant visual style.
8. Silenced
The centerpiece is this intense courtroom drama starring Gong Yoo. Based on horrifying real-life incidents at the Gwangju Inhwa School for the Hearing Impaired, where staff members daily mistreated deaf kids. Over four million South Koreans came to the movies to see it despite its somber subject matter. In the wake of the incident, a criminal inquiry got reopened.
9. Oldboy
Before Oldboy and After Oldboy are movies from Korea. The middle installment in Park Chan- retribution wook's trilogy is an experience entirely of its genre, the film that, & with good reason, brought global notice to the transformation happening in the nation's film industry. The main character is confined in a small room against his will by unidentified captors for reasons. After 15 years, his position gets worse. He sets out to find out who stole the last ten years of his life and exact retribution after being falsely accused of his wife's murder.
10. Train To Busan
Despite Squid Game's Gong Yoo initially being hooked to his phone as a workaholic fund manager too busy to interact with his little daughter, Train to Busan is not a parody of wage slavery in the vein of Shaun of the Dead. Instead, it's a thrilling ride where the confined people must devise creative survival strategies while the undead rips at their carriage doors.
