Best South Korean thriller movies

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

When a zombie virus pushes Korea into a state of emergency, those trapped on an express train to Busan must fight for their own survival.

With no clue how he came to be imprisoned, drugged and tortured for 15 years, a desperate man seeks revenge on his captors.

1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sookee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to elope with him, rob her of her fortune, and lock her up in a madhouse. The plan seems to proceed according to plan until Sookee and Hideko discover some unexpected emotions.

During the late 1980s, two detectives in a South Korean province attempt to solve the nation's first series of rape-and-murder cases.

Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. Soo-hyeon, a top-secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself.

A tight-knit team of FBI investigators, along with their District Attorney supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

A soldier and his team battle hordes of post-apocalyptic zombies in the wastelands of the Korean Peninsula.

Deliveryman Jong-su is out on a job when he runs into Hae-mi, a girl who once lived in his neighborhood. She asks if he'd mind looking after her cat while she's away on a trip to Africa. On her return, she introduces to Jong-su an enigmatic young man named Ben, who she met during her trip. One day Ben tells Jong-su about his most unusual hobby.

An ex-special agent is involved in a convoluted drug ring drama. He has to save a drug smuggler's innocent daughter from being the victim of her parents' fight.

From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire.

Released after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 13 years, a woman begins executing her elaborate plan of retribution.

A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

Connected by phone in the same home but 20 years apart, a serial killer puts another woman’s past — and life — on the line to change her own fate.

Joong-ho is a dirty detective turned pimp in financial trouble as several of his girls have recently disappeared without clearing their debts. While trying to track them down, he finds a clue that the vanished girls were all called up by the same client whom one of his girls is meeting with right now.

Seoul, South Korea, 1997. When the young but extremely anxious student Jin-seok, his parents and his successful older brother Yoo-seok move to a new home, mysterious and frightening events begin to happen around them, unexplained events that threaten to ruin their seemingly happy lives. Unable to understand what is happening, Jin-seok wonders if he is losing his mind.

After tracing the origin of a disturbing supernatural affliction to a wealthy family's ancestral gravesite, a team of paranormal experts relocates the remains—and soon discovers what happens to those who dare to mess with the wrong grave.

After barely surviving a brutal attack by a sadistic serial killer, crime boss Jang Dong-su is left humiliated. Determined to catch the killer known as K, he forms an uneasy alliance with Jung Tae-seok, a relentless and incorruptible detective who often disrupts his illegal business. However, while Jang Dong-su wants K dead, Jung Tae-suk is determined to bring him to justice. With a deal in place—whoever finds K first will decide his fate—the hunt begins, blurring the lines between crime and law.

Grieving the loss of a best friend she couldn't protect, an ex-bodyguard sets out to fulfill her dear friend's last wish: sweet revenge.

A respected priest volunteers for an experimental procedure that may lead to a cure for a deadly virus. He gets infected and dies, but a blood transfusion of unknown origin brings him back to life. Now, he’s torn between faith and bloodlust, and has a newfound desire for the wife of a childhood friend.

Honed from childhood into a merciless killing machine by a criminal organization, assassin Sook-hee is recruited with the promise of freedom after ten years of service. However, secrets from her past destroy everything she’s worked for and now she embarks on a roaring rampage of revenge.

Tragedy, betrayal and a mysterious discovery fuel a woman's vengeance for the loss of her tribe and family.

Having died unexpectedly, firefighter Ja-hong is taken to the afterlife by 3 afterlife guardians. Only when he passes 7 trials over 49 days and proves he was innocent in human life, he’s able to reincarnate, and his 3 afterlife guardians are by his side to defend him in trial.

After a deadly earthquake turns Seoul into a lawless badland, a fearless huntsman springs into action to rescue a teenager abducted by a mad doctor.

At work, she's a renowned assassin. At home, she's a single mom to a teenage daughter. Killing? That's easy. It's parenting that's the hard part.

A case of the flu quickly morphs into a pandemic. As the death toll mounts and the living panic, the government plans extreme measures to contain it.

Two North Korean soldiers are killed in the border area between North and South Korea, prompting an investigation by a neutral body. The sergeant is the shooter, but the lead investigator, a Swiss-Korean woman, receives differing accounts from the two sides.

An undercover cop has his loyalties tested when the boss of the corporate gang he's spent years infiltrating dies.

Carter, who awakens two months into a deadly pandemic originating from the DMZ that has already devastated US and North Korea. He who has no recollections of his past finds a mysterious device in his head, and a lethal bomb in his mouth. A voice in his ears gives him orders to avoid getting killed and he's thrown into a mysterious operation while the CIA and North Korean coup chase him close.

The 'Beast Cop' Ma Seok-do heads to a foreign country to extradite a suspect, but soon after his arrival, he discovers additional murder cases and hears about a vicious killer who has been committing crimes against tourists for several years.

In Chinatown, law and order is turned upside down when a trio of feral Chinese gangsters arrive, start terrorizing civilians, and usurping territory. The beleaguered local gangsters team up with the police, lead by the badass loose cannon Ma Seok-do, to bring them down. Based on a true story.

A man is on his way home when the poorly constructed tunnel he is driving through collapses, leaving him trapped leaving himself for the unexpected whilst emergency services struggle to help.

A girl wakes up in a huge secret laboratory, then accidentally meets another girl who is trying to protect her house from a gang. The mystery girl overthrows the gang with her unexpected powers, and laboratory staff set out to find her.

A woman's life is turned upside-down when a dangerous man gets a hold of her lost cell phone and uses it to track her every move.

After trying to cover up a car accident that left a man dead, a crooked homicide detective is stalked by a mysterious man claiming to have witnessed the event.

A Korean man in China takes an assassination job in South Korea to make money and find his missing wife. But when the job is botched, he is forced to go on the run from the police and the gangsters who paid him.

As the deceased soul Ja-hong and his three afterlife guardians prepare for their remaining trials for reincarnation, the guardians soon come face to face with the truth of their tragic time on Earth 1,000 years earlier.

While investigating a terroristic threat that goes viral online, Korean authorities discover that a suspect has recently boarded an international flight bound for the United States. When a healthy passenger on the same flight suddenly dies a gruesome death of unknown cause, panic erupts both in-flight and on the ground. With steadily decreasing fuel and international refusals to offer aid, the captain and crew will be forced to take unprecedented emergency measures in an attempt to save the lives of their passengers.

The world has been reduced to rubble by a massive earthquake. While no one knows for sure how far the ruins stretch, or what the cause of the earthquake may be, in the heart of Seoul there is only one apartment building left standing. It is called Hwang Gung Apartments. As time passes, outsiders start coming in to Hwang Gung Apartments trying to escape the extreme cold. Before long, the apartment residents are unable to cope with the increasing numbers. Feeling a threat to their very survival, the residents enact a special measure.

A group of unlikely heroes from across the Korean peninsula try to save the day after a volcano erupts on the mythical and majestic Baekdu Mountain.

A disillusioned Seoul woman visits a remote island to reconnect with a childhood friend, only to find her trapped in an oppressive cycle of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. As tensions escalate, the situation spirals into a harrowing tale of survival and retribution.

When an earthquake hits a Korean village housing a run-down nuclear power plant, a man risks his life to save the country from imminent disaster.

While under heavily armed guard, the dangerous convicts aboard a cargo ship unite in a coordinated escape attempt that soon escalates into a bloody, all-out riot. But as the fugitives continue their brutal campaign of terror, they soon discover that not even the most vicious among them is safe from the horror they unknowingly unleashed from the darkness below deck.

Set in the late 1920s, The Age of Shadows follows the cat-and-mouse game that unfolds between a group of resistance fighters trying to bring in explosives from Shanghai to destroy key Japanese facilities in Seoul, and Japanese agents trying to stop them.

Detective Ma Seok-do changes his affiliation from the Geumcheon Police Station to the Metropolitan Investigation Team, in order to eradicate Japanese gangsters who enter Korea to commit heinous crimes.

In this animated prequel to "Train to Busan," a group of survivors deals with a zombie pandemic that unleashes itself in downtown Seoul.

A former serial killer with Alzheimer's fights to protect his daughter from her mysterious boyfriend who may be a serial killer too.

An assassin named Tae-goo is offered a chance to switch sides with his rival Bukseong gang, headed by Chairman Doh. Tae-goo rejects the offer that results in the murder of his sister and niece. In revenge, Tae-goo brutally kills Chairman Doh and his men and flees to Jeju Island where he meets Jae-yeon, a terminally ill woman. Though, the henchman of the Bukseong gang, Executive Ma is mercilessly hunting Tae-goo to take revenge.

In 2029, an elite police squad combats an anti-reunification terrorist group while another enemy lurks nearby.

In real life, Kwon Yoo is unemployed, but in the virtual game world he is the best leader. Kwon Yoo is then framed for a murder. With the help of hacker Yeo-Wool, he tries to uncover the truth behind the murder case.

'Monster Cop' Ma Seok-do investigates an illegal online gambling business led by a former STS Baek and an IT genius CEO Chang. Ma proposes an unexpected alliance to Jang and begins hunting down the criminals.

Four young men want to leave their dystopian world behind and go to a distant paradise to execute a money robbery, a daring act that will have unexpected consequences.

A serial killer ruthlessly hunts down a deaf woman through the streets of South Korea after she witnesses his brutal crime.

Eun-yi is hired as a maid in a mansion owned by a wealthy businessman. He quickly starts seducing his employee who seemingly has little choice but to comply with his sexual advances. Soon the women of the family plot against Eun-yi who must fight an equally devious battle to protect herself.

Ethan learns he carries the spirit of a warrior who battled dragons in 16th-century Korea -- and one day he'll find a tattooed girl carrying the spirit of that warrior's beloved. Years later, he meets Sarah and dragons soon descend on Los Angeles seeking out the two souls of the ancient lovers.

Due to sudden deteriorating weather conditions, visibility on the Airport Bridge is severely impaired, leaving people stranded and at risk of the bridge collapsing due to a series of chain collisions and explosions. Amidst the chaos, the canine subjects "Echo" from the military experiment "Project Silence," who were being transported in secret, break free, and all human survivors become targets of relentless attacks.

A serial killer reappears 15 years after his murder spree with a book detailing his crimes. The resentful cop who failed to catch him before is assigned to protect him. The families of the victims plan revenge. And as the media circus spirals out of control, a masked man called "J" appears claiming to be the real killer.

When an old collaborator gets severely injured, a veteran policeman tries to figure out the way to bring to justice the ultimately suspected aggressor, a spoiled young executive, heir to a mega corporation, who believes he is above the law.

A young, expectant wife must figure out how to stop her husband's nightmarish sleepwalking habits before he harms himself or his family.

A pastor who believes in divine revelation and a detective haunted by visions pursue a missing person case — exposing their own demons in the process.

Diplomats from the North and South Korean embassies in Somalia attempt a daring joint escape from Mogadishu when the outbreak of civil war leaves them stranded.

Nicknamed after a human-devouring spirit, the ruthless leader of an overseas black ops team takes up a dangerous mission in a city riddled with spies.

When retired hitman’s wife goes on vacation with her friend, she asks him to look after the friend's teenage daughter. Things go awry when he is forced to use a little violence to protect the girl from juvenile delinquents, but then they are found dead and the girl is kidnapped.

In Japanese-occupied Korea, three freedom fighters are assigned a mission to assassinate a genocidal military leader and his top collaborator. But the plan goes completely awry amidst double-crossings, counter-assassinations, and a shocking revelation about one of the assassins' past.

South Korea, 1993. An agent of the National Intelligence Service is sent to Beijing to infiltrate a group of North Korean officials with the ultimate goal of obtaining information about their nuclear program.

After waking up with mysterious wounds on his hands, a champion fighter finds himself in an otherworldly battle against evil forces that wreak havoc in the human world.