From record-breaking romances to revenge dramas full of incredible twists and turns, 2024's best K-dramas have been nothing short of entertaining. Though some of the shows have been well-anticipated successes, others have been a big surprise and have proven that a Netflix release isn't crucial to a K-drama's international success. In that way, the future of the genre is looking even more exciting.

2024's shows are some of the incredible K-drama couples are just some of the keys to their individual successes and show the very best of what the genre has to offer. These 2024 K-dramas make bold choices to deliver hours of entertainment and solidify them as must-watches for all K-drama fans.

20 Mr. Plankton

Starring Woo Do-hwan And Lee Yoo-mi

Mr. Plankton combines some of the best aspects of comedy and tragedy to make for a compelling watch. It might kick off with an outlandish premise, but many of the best K-dramas do, heading into sometimes soap opera territory to craft a fascinating tale.

In Mr. Plankton, a man finds out he has a terminal illness and decides to take one final journey. That journey aims to find his birth father but to do it, he kidnaps his ex, whom the show labels the unluckiest woman in the world, just before her wedding to someone else. The two end up on a trip that includes some messy moments, but also comedy hijinks and healing for the two of them.

One of the best parts of the series is that the audience knows how the show will end from the start. This is one K-drama that is not about giving the characters a happy ending, but about the journey they take along the way to whatever their ending is.

19 A Killer Paradox

Starring Choi Woo-shik And Son Sku-ku

A Killer Paradox brings a moral dilemma to K-drama audiences in the form of a serial killer’s story. The show is a little darker than the average K-drama, but it also features a lot of humor.

The series calls into question whether someone who accidentally murders a serial killer is justified in their actions, or if what they did makes them just as bad as the person they killed. It does this by following the new killer (who does not stop at one morally reprehensible victim) and the cat-and-mouse game he plays with the detective pursuing him.

What makes the series all the more interesting is that the detective knows who this new killer is; he just cannot prove it. Likewise, the killer knows that the detective is on to him. It gives a fresh spin on a crime series, and even a fresh spin on a drama like the American series Dexter, which is currently seeing a rise in interest thanks to both a sequel series and a prequel series.

A Killer Paradox was nominated for Oustanding Korean Drama at the Seoul International Drama Awards.

18 Welcome To Samdal-ri

Starring Ji Chang-wook And Shin Hye-sun

Welcome To Samdal-ri actually began airing in late 2023, but it finished its run in 2024, so it does qualify as one of the best K-dramas of the year. The series has a slower-moving pace than a lot of modern K-dramas, but it is also beautifully shot, allowing the audience to fully immerse themselves in the scenery of Jeju, a beautiful province in South Korea where much of the series takes place.

The show follows two people who have been friends since childhood, but their lives have kept them apart to an extent. After the death of one of their mothers, one grows up to be a weather forecaster in their hometown, while the other grows up to become a fashion photographer in Seoul. They have a romance, but it moves slowly, allowing the characters room to breathe and grow as the audience watches their story unfold.

This series is absolutely for those who love their K-dramas with a healthy dose of romance, but it is also one for those who do not need to consume a television show as quickly as possible.

Welcome To Samdal-ri was nominated for six APAN Star Awards, winning two.

17 No Gain No Love

Starring Shin Min-a And Kim Young-dae

Many of the romantic comedies among K-dramas focus on the idea in Korean culture that it is better to be a married adult than a single one. There is especially a stigma attached to being a single woman, even if that woman happens to have a successful career already. That idea is explored a little bit in No Gain No Love but in a very different way than the usual K-drama.

Here, the main character is a woman who is not being pressured into marriage by her family, which is the typical K-drama trope. Instead, she is being penalized at work because the executives at her company believe a woman needs to have a husband and a career in order to be successful. In order to get a promotion, she hires a man working part-time at a nearby convenience store to pretend to be her husband.

Because it’s a rom-com, the audience knows that the fake relationship is going to turn into a real one, but there are a lot of laughs and heart to get there. Some of the highlights of the show are not even the romantic aspects, but the friendships between the main female characters in the series.

No Gain No Love received a spin-off series called Spice Up Our Love, which aired in late 2024 as well.

16 Love In The Big City

Starring Nam Yoon-su And Lee Soo-kyung

...the series got lost in the wider landscape of K-dramas for some fans, but they should not overlook it.

Love In The Big City is an interesting addition to the K-drama world for a few reasons. For one thing, it was adapted from an existing novel. For another, both the K-drama and the movie adaptation of the same name debuted in 2024. That might mean the series got lost in the wider landscape of K-dramas for some fans, but they should not overlook it.

Any sexuality outside of the heteronormative stereotypes is not often seen in K-dramas. There is still a stigma attached to the LGBTQ+ array that makes it difficult for writers to get those stories on screen in South Korea. Love In The Big City, however, centers its story around a gay man finding himself following a decade of friendship (and being roommates) with a straight woman, trouble getting his mother to accept him, and a trip to Thailand.

What’s also interesting about Love In The Big City is that the series is helmed by four different directors. That is unusual for K-dramas, which usually see one director and one writer (or pair of writers) for their entire run to make the style and tone fairly consistent throughout. Here, each chapter of the main character’s life is in the hands of a different director, giving it an almost anthology feel, despite centering on the same character throughout.

Love In The Big City is a huge step forward for creativity and representation in K-dramas.

15 LTNS

Starring Esom And Ahn Jae-hong

The dark comedy is a very entertaining way to explore relationship dynamics.

Before airing on television in 2024, LTNS (an acronym for Long Time No Sex) premiered its first two episodes at the Busan International Film Festival. That was in keeping with the release schedule since two episodes aired weekly during the run of the series in South Korea.

The show is definitely a unique take on relationship troubles for a couple, which is part of the reason people were so interested in tuning in. It featured an estranged couple teaming up to catch cheating significant others. While one initially works as a taxi driver, the other works the desk at a hotel. Their lives change due to one friend cheating on another, leading to this new, unconventional, career path to make money.

The duo no longer have a physical relationship, and this new career venture has them reexamining their connection to one another. The dark comedy is a very entertaining way to explore relationship dynamics. The series earned nominations at the Baeksang Arts Awards and the Blue Dragon Series Awards, so it's clear that audiences and award committees agree.

14 Doctor Slump

Starring Park Shin-hye And Park Hyung-sik

K-dramas offer a wide variety of medical shows in much the same way American medical procedurals do. While some are about medical mysteries, others are about the relationships of the main characters. The latter is the case for 2024’s Medical Slump. It’s not so much about medical expertise, but a growing love story.

The series sees two characters who were rivals as students reunite as adults. The two both work in the medical field, but they both lose their jobs as doctors due to very different circumstances and end up moving in together. While the series has some pacing issues, overall, it’s an excellent examination of how two people can think of one another as enemies during one era of their lives and grow to care deeply for one another in another era.

13 Captivating The King

Starring Jo Jung-suk And Shin Se-kyung

Historical K-dramas are incredibly popular both in South Korea and outside of the country. They often allow those not from the country to get a peek at customs and events that Koreans are already familiar with. They also provide great stories of love, mistaken identity, and in some cases, time travel.

Captivating The King is one of the most popular historical K-dramas to release in recent years. It follows a royal who is miserable, unable to trust anyone around him, and the person he plays baduk with. As it turns out, he’s right not to trust anyone. The man he plays baduk with is actually a woman who has disguised herself and turned herself into a spy in the hope of getting revenge on the royal. Along the way, however, her quest for revenge means she gets to know him, and that she falls in love with him.

Captivating The King actually steadily increased viewership from the first episode to the last as it aired. The finale had double the viewers of the first.

12 Chief Detective 1958

Starring Lee Je-hoon And Park Yeong-han

The K-drama Chief Inspector ran from 1971-1989, long before K-dramas were more likely to be a single season than have multi-season arcs. Chief Detective 1958 is actually a prequel series for that long-running K-drama.

While most period dramas in Korea go for hundreds of years in the past, Chief Detective 1958 is set just a decade before the events of the original series. It spans the late 1950s to 1960s, giving an inside look at a group of detectives before the age of modern technology aided in solving cases. Criminal profiling isn’t developed yet, forensics is still in its infancy, and corruption can make it difficult for detectives to even solve petty crimes.

It makes for a more classic look at a crime procedural than any modern series usually do. With a large ensemble cast where each character is markedly different from one another, getting to know the characters is as interesting as watching them solve cases.

11 The Midnight Studio

Starring Joo Won And Kwan Nara

The Midnight Studio also called Midnight Photo Studio, is based on the novel Night Photo Studio by Kim Yi-rang, who also worked on the television series. The series might not have had huge ratings when it originally premiered in March 2024, but it did garner a lot of interest due to its fascinating concept.

It follows a lonely photographer who many of the living see as prickly. That’s okay though since he devotes much of his time to photographing the dead instead. The series reminds the audience that “photos are all about memories,” which is the working function of the photographer’s family for generations. They photograph the dead’s final memories.

The episodes are largely procedural in nature as each one features the photographer and those around him learning the details of a different ghost. The overall story of the show, however, sees the photographer trying to escape the curse that has his family photographing the dead and dying themselves by 35. Of course, it’s also a love story, but that’s platonic as well as romantic love as the connections between the characters are explored fully for the fascinating story.