K-drama fans are used to their favorite shows being bottle series—meaning a story resolves within one season. However, there are plenty of K-drama shows out there that span across seasons and allow us to follow fan favorites and antagonists in a familiar setting once again. Some honorable mentions go to Netflix’s champion dramas, including Kingdom, which has two seasons and a movie, as well as the global phenomenon Squid Game and the horror favorite, Hellbound.
These K-dramas span multiple seasons, but it’s hard to claim each is great. This is the case with Squid Game and Hellbound, which started at a high and had some ups and downs in later installments. Some of our favorite K-dramas from recent years are gearing up for season two: Moving, Kang Full‘s brilliant superhero tale, and Bloodhounds, the Woo Do-hwan action thriller that won viewers over instantly. While we wait for them, here are K-drama shows with no bad seasons that you can enjoy.
7
‘Let’s Eat’ (2013–2018)
Fans of South Korean culture often indulge in foods like ramyun (instant noodles), tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), and bulgogi (Korean-style grilled beef). They go to Korean restaurants in the desire to feel like their favorite K-drama character, and eat spicy noodles while watching their favorite shows. Let’s Eat is a show for foodies and lovers of everything Korean—a brilliant mix of drama, comedy, and culinary indulgence. Let’s Eat has three visually gorgeous seasons that will keep you hungry throughout but also allow you to enjoy the chemistry between the four leads across 16 episodes.
Lee Soo-kyung stars as, well, Lee Soo-kyung, but she’s a fictional character. Soo-kyung is a divorced, arrogant paralegal who shows off a kinder side throughout the series as she falls for Dae-young (Yoon Doo-joon), her handsome neighbor and foodie. The other two characters are Hak-moon (Shim Hyung-tak), Soo-kyung’s rude boss, and Jin-yi (Yoon So-hee), the new girl and design student. When Jin-yi asks Soo-kyung and Dae-young to go out and eat together—since dining out in Seoul isn’t designed for one person—they become fast friends and are involved in each other’s lives. The show helped particular foods to become popular, and Let’s Eat helped single people across Korea find dining partners. Let’s Eat is a feel-good series about singles bonding over their love of food, and the food depictions are stunning.
6
‘Sweet Home’ (2020–2024)
Sweet Home is one of the most popular horror K-dramas of the past five years. It’s an apocalyptic drama with additions of horror, and it’s a brilliant series full of heart, soul, and admirable twists. It was based on a webtoon of the same name, which garnered over two billion views. It’s not for fans who prefer a quiet night in, though—so you were warned. Sweet Home has three seasons, and it lasted between 2020 and 2024. It stars Song Kang as the heroic protagonist, Lee Jin-wook as a mysterious assassin, and Lee Si-young as a former firefighter and skilled martial artist. She is an integral character in the series, but doesn’t appear in the webtoon.
Sweet Home follows a high school dropout with mental health issues, Hyun-su (Song). He moves into the apartment complex called Green Home, where he meets a bunch of people, mysterious and not, and starts settling in. But one evening, vicious monsters begin ravaging the city, and Green Home becomes an isolated battleground where people band together to fight the threat. The second and third seasons depict the survivors outside of Green Home. Sweet Home was greenlit by Netflix and had a pretty big budget—its visual and practical effects are proof. They look amazing on-screen, and the show is a feast for the eyes if you like monster stories and high-octane survival action.
5
‘Voice’ (2017–2021)
Voice is one of the longest-lasting K-dramas we know of, and with four seasons, it definitely falls into a rare category. This crime show is akin to an American network series, garnering viewership over time and becoming an integral part of people’s Monday nights. Over the course of four seasons, the show’s popularity remained steady, and Voice broke records for South Korean cable TV trends for years to come. Voice also stars Lee Jin-wook, who was a big deal in the 2010s, and viewership increased with his addition in Season 2. Lee Ha-na stayed on for all four seasons and is the real protagonist of this crime thriller series.
Voice is about the dispatch team members in the 112 call center. They assess levels of threats and dispatch appropriate teams on the field through voice calls only; the show depicts their lives, too, though the primary focus is on the phone call cases. Each episode focuses on different 112 calls, and some are so realistic and intense that viewers complained about the use of violence in them. OCN, the show’s network, had to adjust its age rating to fit the episodes’ themes. Voice is exciting and holds your attention even when it’s just a single person in the frame.
4
‘Hospital Playlist’ (2020–2021)
Often dubbed the best medical K-drama, Hospital Playlist is one of the essential K-dramas any fan and newbie in this world should watch. This two-season miracle is a combination of medical drama, comedy, and a slice-of-life approach, where we watch five doctors in their forties excel at their jobs, navigate love and friendship, and fulfill their respective dreams and purposes. Hospital Playlist is one of the ten most-watched K-dramas of all time, and the creators have always had three seasons in mind, but exhaustion and long hours deterred them from moving forward. The cast often talks about how willing they’d be to make another season, so Hospital Playlist may be far from over—but the creators have to be ready for it.
Hospital Playlist is about five doctors and friends: Lee Ik-jun (Jo Jung-suk), a single father and a skilled surgeon; Ahn Jeong-won (Yoo Yeon-seok), the son of the hospital’s director and a pediatric surgeon; Kim Jun-wan (Jung Kyung-ho), a heart surgeon; Yang Seok-hyeong (Kim Dae-myung), an OBGYN; and Chae Song-hwa (Jeon Mi-do), the only female doctor in the group, and a skilled neurosurgeon. The show is often about them more than their patients, but the cases they work on often prompt them to consider personal circumstances, too. It’s a beautiful series with heart, and for fans of medical dramas overall, one of the best to ever do it.
3
‘Dr. Romantic’ (2016–2023)
Dr. Romantic comes close to Hospital Playlist when it comes to being a GOAT medical K-drama. Many fans love it for its slice-of-life feel and style, while enjoying skilled doctors learn their potential and getting guidance from a man desperate for a second chance in life. Dr. Romantic is a fan-favorite drama, often cited among the best to ever exist, and if you’re looking for something with multiple seasons and a lasting legacy, this is the right show for you. It’s three seasons aired between 2016 and 2023, with all three getting critical and fan acclaim for their storylines and character development. The titular Dr. Romantic is portrayed by Han Suk-kyu, whose performance here is also often praised.
Dr. Romantic follows Boo Yong-joo (Han), a triple-board-certified surgeon who survives a traumatic accident and moves away from his career and life. He moves to a small town in the nature-filled Gangwon Province, changes his name, and begins working at a local hospital. There, he trains other doctors and guides them in navigating the bureaucracy and politics of the hospital so they don’t lose track of their patients’ well-being. This heartwarming drama also has nice lessons and messages about integrity and honesty, and Han Suk-kyu really does excel in the role. Dr. Romantic has 52 episodes and two specials.
2
‘Taxi Driver’ (2021–2025)
This doesn’t refer to Martin Scorsese‘s iconic 1976 film, Taxi Driver; it wasn’t even inspired by it, since the taxi driver in question is more of an archetypal hero than an anti-hero. Lee Je-hoon, one of Korea’s biggest action stars, portrays the titular taxi driver, going from a former military unit captain to a cabbie. However, he’s not just an ordinary cabbie—he works for a company that offers clients who were wronged the chance to get revenge on those who wronged them. He’s kind of a gun for hire, but heroic and stoic.
Taxi Driver was based on a highly popular webtoon, The Deluxe Taxi, and follows a KMA (Korean Military Academy) graduate and former captain, Kim Do-gi (Lee). After his mother is killed, Do-gi joins the Rainbow Taxi Company, a company that offers people a chance to hire them and exact revenge on someone who wronged them. Of course, Do-gi uses this opportunity to learn more about his mother’s death, and himself, and we follow him to deliver justice with a dedicated and fun team. Taxi Driver is a vigilante black comedy with revenge thriller vibes and lots of action; it’s beautiful to watch, and Lee is a delight as the action lead.
1
‘Stranger’ (2017–2020)
It’s no secret that this author is biased about Stranger—but how often do you see a show that requires you to think, draw your own conclusions, and follow along closely? Stranger is one of the best K-dramas ever made, and though two seasons aren’t really a lot to get through, both are excellent and hefty—each has 16 episodes; both are also slow burns that, by the end, have explosive revelations and secrets come to light. The twists are unpredictable, and even if you see something coming, the show doesn’t introduce it easily and without building up to it logically. Cho Seung-woo and Bae Doona star as a public prosecutor and a detective, and their chemistry is off the charts, even if they’re not romantically linked. They gravitate towards each other and work together skillfully, with justice in heart.
Stranger follows public prosecutor Hwang Si-mok (Cho), who had brain surgery as a child that left him unable to display emotions; this helps him be a more logical lawyer and solve crimes without bias. He meets detective Han Yeo-jin (Bae), who reaches him and makes him smile several times; they join forces to solve cases that trace back to corruption in the prosecution and police systems in Korea. Stranger often refers to real-life politics and events, and though it has to emphasize that everything in it is fiction, it often criticizes the roles of big players in corrupt environments. It’s fun and intense, full of cool twists. It also has a 2024 spin-off, titled Dongjae, the Good or the Bastard, and it follows the morally gray prosecutor Seo Dong-jae (Lee Joon-hyuk), who is a brilliant and polarizing character in Stranger.
Stranger
- Release Date
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2017 – 2020-00-00
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Cho Seung-woo
Hwang Shi Mok
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Lee Jun-hyuk
Seo Dong Jae
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Jeon Bae-soo
Choi Yoon Soo
