What Are the Best Streaming Services for Korean Film and TV?

Published on 2024/10/02

Korean content is the hottest thing right now. Whether you're into K-pop, K-drama, or the latest movies, there's a lot to love out there. But where do you find it? We are exploring the best streaming services that can give you access to some quality Korean content.

Kocowa

We can't start any list about Korean cinema without mentioning Kocowa. This streaming service is entirely dedicated to Korean content, focussing on K-drama and K-pop. If Lifestyle was a Korean streaming service, you'd get Kocowa.

If you want to binge the latest drama, you can find romance-focused shows like "The Penthouse" or "The Heirs", or dive into a mystery with "Vagabond" or "Doctor John".

If you like your drama more like tea, you can watch shows centered around your favourite K-pop stars. You can watch idol shows like Weekly Idol or even tune into The Seoul Music Awards every year.

Netflix

Even Netflix has some Korean content for the fans beyond "Squid Game" - and you don't even need a VPN download to watch them. The spark that launched a thousand exclusivity deals, "Squid Game" gave way to TV shows like "Vincenzo", about a Korean-Italian mafia lawyer, and "Alchemy of Souls" about forbidden love in a fantasy world.

When it comes to movies, you can find titles like "The Call", "Tune in for Love", and "The Fortress", but Netflix is known for its original content and the Korean category is no different. If you like Netflix's work, check out "All of Us Are Dead" if you're into zombies taking over a high school, or "Hellbound", which looks somewhere between Death Note and Battle Royale about supernatural forces dragging people to Hell.

BFI Player

BFI Player is like the film academic of the streaming services. This is the guy that took film studies in university and would scoff if you said Tarantino was one of the best directors of our age. With that in mind, you know you're in good hands. You're only going to get the best of the best Korean classics here. Particularly, you're likely to find movies from the Korean New Wave, like 1981's "Mandala", or the famed (even in the West) thriller, "The Handmaiden".

Another selling point is that it hosts the original 2003 "Oldboy". We love you Josh Brolin, but the Western adaptation of this action thriller does not hold a candle to the original.

However, this is the film academic of the streaming services so you're going to get all the latest and greatest Korean movies direct from the film festivals around the world. �

Crunchyroll

Sure, Crunchyroll is known for its Japanese anime, but you can occasionally find a Korean animated gem amongst its diverse collection of Eastern animated shows and movies. If you're a big animation fan and are looking for something Korean, you can find a few titles that might interest you. However, if you're searching for Korean animation specifically, you might want to get to know the term "manhwa", which is essentially Korean for "webtoon".

A few examples we would recommend would be Tower of God, which is like The Godfather of manwha: everyone's heard of it, but it has also (oddly) a lot of good reviews.

Conclusion

If you're a fan of Korean movies and TV shows, your cup runneth over. Thanks to the boom of K-pop leading the way of variety shows, K-dramas and movies such as Parasite, Korean content is taking over the world, and I for one am glad to see it.