These Korean thriller movies everyone needs to see once.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Korea has always had a special place in my heart as an adult. In 2018, I received a prestigious US government scholarship to live and study at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, and it was there I built up my basic Korean proficiency in a way that led me to later go back, six years after this first time, on a different government scholarship to Pusan National University.

When I was in college, I really fell hard into film. I signed up for a Contemporary Korean Cinema course my very first semester of school, and I loved what I was watching on screen. Later on, I received my Bachelor of Science and one of my minors was in Film and Media Studies. Less than a year later, I was working freelance/contract as a film critic at the online outlet MovieWeb.

I did that for three years before leaving my post behind in order to pursue a Fulbright (which didn’t work out) and this blog. I produce reviews and summaries for the movies that I watch, and the fact I have this blog has offered my more flexibility in what kind of content I’m watching.

For example, when you’re working at a publication, you’re often always chasing after the latest and the greatest. There isn’t a lot of room to revisit movies and shows that are older because they’re not seen as trendy enough. Only if they’re actually trending can you write about it.

So I made this blog focused on BIPOC and international cinema, with an emphasis on Korean and pan-Asian film. I was unemployed for a bit in late 2024 and early 2025, which meant during my free time, when I wasn’t writing for some money or applying to jobs, I was watching a lot of movies, including Korean thrillers.

Here are my top Korean thrillers for those looking to get more into the genre! This is in no way a comprehensive list, as there are a ton of Korean thrillers out in the world that you should also watch.

The Housemaid (1960) , directed by Kim Ki-young

Kim Ki-young’s The Housemaid is a classic in Korean cinema, but few outside of those who are dedicated to studying its history and it as an art form. Here’s a fun fact: Bong Joon-ho was inspired by Kim Ki-young in his own filmography.

The Housemaid is about a newly middle class family in South Korea who has just purchased a home. The patriarch decides its time to decrease his wife’s workload around the house, so he begins looking for a housemaid. The woman he brings in is efficient, but when he starts having an affair with him, the thriller elements of the movie quickly reveal themselves and force some difficult decisions.

For those looking for a subtle thriller with twists, this is definitely the film for you!

The Villainess (2017), directed by Jung Byung-Gil

I always remember the first time I watched The Villainess. I was so excited to watch it and had purchased a copy through iTunes. Yes, these were the days where you would purchase movies on iTunes or the Apple Store to watch.

In this film, the main character Sook-hee is a trained assassin. We learn her backstory and how she came to be the person she is today throughout the course of the film, but these days she wants to get out of the trade in order to raise her daughter peacefully. However, when she enters the real world and expects to not be forced to live like she was, she finds out you can’t always run from the past.

Full of action and memorable moments, this is a solid one to watch with the crew or a significant other on a Friday night.

Memories of Murder (2003), directed by Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho has made quite the name for himself in recent years, especially after the release of his movie Parasite. I always remember going to the US premiere of the film and seeing him and Song Kang-ho in-person, which would be a long time before I ever saw Memories of Murder.

This is a movie inspired by a real serial killer in South Korea. Song portrays Park Doo-man, a small town detective who doesn’t know how to handle the surge of murders happening near the area. Back when forensics wasn’t a thing there, Park makes his rounds throughout the town and surrounding areas in hopes of finding the real killer before they strike again.

Combining a police movie with elements of thrillers, this is a film that is definitely a must-watch even if you aren’t a fan of thrillers.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), directed by Park Chan-wook

Park Chan-wook has been one of the most prominent film directors in contemporary Korean history. He’s most famous for his Vengeance Trilogy, which Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is the first film in. Most tend to know Oldboy if they’re familiar with Korean cinema, but this is my personal favorite.

In Sympathy, a deaf and mute man working at a factory finds himself roped into a nefarious plan by his anarchist girlfriend. After he loses the opportunity to make money to provide for his sister’s urgent needs and surgery, he kidnaps the daughter of a prominent businessman within the company he worked at. What he doesn’t expect is a violent game of cat and mouse between the two and the consequences that come with it.

For those not interested in violence and gore, then this might not be the movie for you, but if so: watch this one!

Burning (2018), directed by Lee Chang-dong

Lee Chang-dong is one of my favorite film directors, and he’s been in the movie game for a long time. I always admired his movies because of how they felt like literary novels in how well they were fleshed out—turns out he was a novelist and English teacher long before he turned to cinema as a medium.

Burning brought his work to wider acclaim, and was actually the first Korean movie to make the Oscar shortlist (a year before Parasite). In the movie, a young man from Paju finds himself meeting up with an old friend, but with her comes a cryptic foreigner who speaks strangely. When she goes missing, he decides to do whatever it takes to find her, even if it means confronting old skeletons.

This is a slow burn that has so much tension it feels like it may snap, and it’ll definitely leave you at the edge of your seat even without any major violence.

Kill Boksoon (2023), directed by Byun Sung-hyun

I remember when this movie specifically came out on Netflix. I had no idea that it was coming out, and so when I saw it on my suggested movies list I was so pumped. I love a good movie with Jeon Do-yeon, and the fact it was an action movie? Count me in.

In this film, Gil Boksoon is a very successful assassin and kills pretty much every she’s assigned to, but right before she’s about to renew her contract at the company, she’s given a case she’s not too sure about. As she grapples with whether she wants to do it or not, she struggles at parenting her young daughter, a lesbian teen with her own issues, and the fact that betrayal might be lurking around the corner.

If you love a good movie with a solid female protagonist that’s also bad as heck, this is the movie for you!

I Saw the Devil (2008), directed by Kim Jee-woon

This is one of those movies everyone kept telling me to watch for years, and I kept putting it off for so long. It’s always the movies I want to watch the most that I wait the longest to see if we’re going to be honest. It’s quite the impressive skill.

Anyways: in this movie Lee Byung-hun portrays a man with a revenge streak. After his fiance is brutally murdered on the side of the road and dismembered, his character is bent on catching the guy who did it. We know who did it upfront, but as he slowly uncovers the clues that lead him to the right man, he’s willing to do whatever it takes in order to get the proper vengeance for his lost fiance.

This is a classic in the Korean revenge thriller genre, and there’s a good reason for it. If you’re in a spiteful mood, this might be a solid watch.

The Chaser (2008), directed by Na Hong-jin

The final entry to this list is yet another movie I spent a lot of time procrastinating on watching: The Chaser. I think I knew about this movie for at least a decade before I picked it up, but I was very impressed after watching it for the first time.

Our main character in this movie is Joong-ho, who finds his living as a pimp. He once was a former police detective, which helps him run his ring, but when he figures out a customer is behind some of his girls being missing, he sends another one of his girls in to spy on him and get their address. When this goes terribly wrong, it leads to a chase through the dark underbelly of South Korea’s prostitution ring and gangs.

I recommend this one if you’re a fan of the premise of I Saw the Devil—I found these movies as similar to each other, but unique in their own ways.

Have fun watching these films! I hope this list was helpful to someone out there.

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