FILM DIRECTORS from South Korea

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary South Korean Film Directors of all time. This list of famous South Korean Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of South Korean Film Directors.

1. Kim Ki-duk (1960 - 2020)

With an HPI of 62.39, Kim Ki-duk is the most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 54 different languages on wikipedia.

Kim Ki-duk (Korean: 김기덕 [kim ɡidʌk̚]; 20 December 1960 – 11 December 2020) was a South Korean film director and screenwriter, noted for his idiosyncratic art-house cinematic works. His films have received many distinctions in the festival circuit, rendering him one of the most important contemporary Asian film directors. His major festival awards include the Golden Lion at 69th Venice International Film Festival for Pietà, a Silver Lion for Best Director at 61st Venice International Film Festival for 3-Iron, a Silver Bear for Best Director at 54th Berlin International Film Festival for Samaritan Girl, and the Un Certain Regard prize at 2011 Cannes Film Festival for Arirang. His most widely known feature is Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003), included in film critic Roger Ebert's Great Movies. Two of his films served as official submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film as South Korean entries. He gave scripts to several of his former assistant directors including Juhn Jai-hong (Beautiful and Poongsan) and Jang Hoon (Rough Cut).

2. Bong Joon-ho (b. 1969)

With an HPI of 55.76, Bong Joon-ho is the 2nd most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 52 different languages.

Bong Joon-ho (Korean: 봉준호, Korean pronunciation: [poːŋ tɕuːnho → poːŋdʑunɦo]; born 14 September 1969) is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his work is characterised by emphasis on social and class themes, genre-mixing, dark comedy, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), before achieving both critical and commercial success with his subsequent films: the crime thriller Memories of Murder (2003), the monster film The Host (2006), the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013), which served as Bong's English language debut, and the acclaimed black comedy thriller Parasite (2019), all of which are among the highest-grossing films in South Korea, with Parasite also being the highest-grossing South Korean film in history. All of Bong's films have been South Korean productions, although Snowpiercer, Okja (2017) and the upcoming Mickey 17 (2025) mostly use the English language. Two of his films have screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival—Okja in 2017 and Parasite in 2019; the latter earned the Palme d'Or, which was a first for a South Korean film. Considered an immediate favorite by the Academy Awards, Parasite became the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award nominations, with Bong winning Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, making Parasite the first film in the award's history not in English to win Best Picture. In 2017, Bong was included on Metacritic's list of the 25 best film directors of the 21st century. In 2020, Bong was included in Time's annual list of 100 Most Influential People and Bloomberg 50.

3. Lee Chang-dong (b. 1954)

With an HPI of 54.41, Lee Chang-dong is the 3rd most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Lee Chang-dong (Korean: 이창동; Hanja: 李滄東; born July 4, 1954) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, and novelist. He has directed six feature films: Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy (1999), Oasis (2002), Secret Sunshine (2007), Poetry (2010), and Burning (2018). Burning became the first Korean film to make it to the 91st Academy Awards' final nine-film shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film. Burning also won the Fipresci International Critics' Prize at the 71st Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign Language Film in Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and Best Foreign Language Film in Toronto Film Critics Association. Lee has won Silver Lion for Best Director and Fipresci International Critics' Prize at the 2002 Venice Film Festival and the Best Screenplay Award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. He also won the award for Achievement in Directing at the 4th Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2017, Jury Grand Prize at the 2018 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Best Director and Lifetime Achievement Award at the 13th Asian Film Awards in 2019, and he has been nominated for the Golden Lion and the Palme d'Or. Lee served as South Korea's Minister of Culture and Tourism from 2003 to 2004.

4. Im Kwon-taek (b. 1936)

With an HPI of 52.36, Im Kwon-taek is the 4th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Im Kwon-taek (Korean: 임권택; born December 8, 1934) is one of South Korea's most renowned film directors. In an active and prolific career, his films have won many domestic and international film festival awards, as well as considerable box-office success, and helped bring international attention to the Korean film industry. As of spring 2015, he has directed 102 films.

5. Hong Sang-soo (b. 1960)

With an HPI of 50.12, Hong Sang-soo is the 5th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Hong Sang-soo (Korean: 홍상수; born 25 October 1960) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. An acclaimed and prolific filmmaker, Hong is known for his slow-paced films about love affairs and everyday dilemmas in contemporary South Korea.

6. Kim Ki-young (1919 - 1998)

With an HPI of 49.85, Kim Ki-young is the 6th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Kim Ki-young (Korean: 김기영; October 10, 1919 – February 5, 1998) was a South Korean film director, known for his intensely psychosexual and melodramatic horror films, often focusing on the psychology of their female characters. Kim was born in Seoul during the colonial period, raised in Pyongyang, where he became interested in theater and cinema. In Korea after the end of World War II, he studied dentistry while becoming involved in the theater. During the Korean War, he made propaganda films for the United States Information Service. In 1955, he used discarded movie equipments to produce his first two films. With the success of these two films Kim formed his own production company and produced popular melodramas for the rest of the decade. Kim Ki-young's first expression of his mature style was in The Housemaid (1960), which featured a powerful femme fatale character. It is widely considered one of the best Korean films of all time. After a "Golden Age" during the 1960s, the 1970s were a low-point in the history of Korean cinema because of government censorship and a decrease in audience attendance. Nevertheless, working independently, Kim produced some of his most eccentric cinematic creations in this era. Films such as Insect Woman (1972) and Iodo (1977) were successful at the time and highly influential on the younger generations of South Korean filmmakers both at their time of release, and with their rediscovery years later. By the 1980s, Kim's popularity had declined, and his output decreased in the second half of the decade. Neglected by the mainstream during much of the 1990s, Kim became a cult figure in South Korean film Internet forums in the early 1990s. Widespread international interest in his work was stimulated by a career retrospective at the 1997 Pusan International Film Festival. He was preparing a comeback film when he and his wife were killed in a house fire in 1998. The Berlin International Film Festival gave Kim a posthumous retrospective in 1998, and the French Cinémathèque screened 18 of Kim's films, some newly rediscovered and restored, in 2006. Through the efforts of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), previously lost films by Kim Ki-young continue to be rediscovered and restored. Many current prominent South Korean filmmakers, including directors Im Sang-soo, Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, claim Kim Ki-young as an influence on their careers.

7. Kim Jee-woon (b. 1964)

With an HPI of 49.30, Kim Jee-woon is the 7th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Kim Jee-woon (Korean: 김지운; born July 6, 1964) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a theater actor and director before debuting with his self-written and directed film, The Quiet Family in 1998. Kim has worked with increasing levels of success in cinema, showing accomplished acting and a detailed stylization in his films. He is currently one of the most recognized screenwriters/directors in the Korean film industry. His films A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) and A Bittersweet Life (2005) were both critical and commercial successes. He is also known for the films The Foul King (2000), The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) and I Saw the Devil (2010).

8. Kwak Jae-yong (b. 1959)

With an HPI of 45.84, Kwak Jae-yong is the 8th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Kwak Jae-yong (born 22 May 1959) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. He studied physics at Kyung Hee University. He achieved success with his debut film Watercolor Painting in a Rainy Day in 1989, but the failure of his next two movies led to eight years of unemployment before a comeback with the smash-hit film My Sassy Girl in 2001. He is known for his fondness of love stories set in a mix of different genres.

9. Hwang Dong-hyuk (b. 1971)

With an HPI of 43.16, Hwang Dong-hyuk is the 9th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Hwang Dong-hyuk (Korean: 황동혁; Hanja: 黃東赫; born May 26, 1971) is a South Korean film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the 2011 crime drama film Silenced, and for creating the 2021 Netflix survival drama series Squid Game. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.

10. Yeon Sang-ho (b. 1978)

With an HPI of 39.50, Yeon Sang-ho is the 10th most famous South Korean Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Yeon Sang-ho (born December 25, 1978) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. He gained international popularity for working his adult animated films The King of Pigs (2011) and The Fake (2013), and the live-action film Train to Busan (2016), its animated prequel Seoul Station (2016) and live-action sequel Peninsula (2020), and first South Korean superhero film Psychokinesis (2018).