Korean GL Dramas & Films: The Complete Guide

Starring Girl's Day's Lee Hyeri opposite Chung Su-bin, this webtoon-based suspense drama follows two top students locked in a dangerously intimate rivalry at an elite prep school. After airing on Korea's U+ Mobile TV in early 2025, it hit #1 among Asian dramas on Hulu Japan and #1 among Korean dramas on ABEMA and Watcha, reached about 190 countries via Rakuten Viki, and won Best Couple at the APAN Star Awards. A GL drama with a mainstream star lead becoming a global hit — that made it a genuine turning point for Korean GL.

Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden competed at Cannes and won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language; his adaptation of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, relocated to 1930s Korea, is a fixture at the very top of international lesbian-film rankings. Moonlit Winter — a quiet reunion story set in snowy Otaru, Japan — won Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 41st Blue Dragon Film Awards and got a Japanese theatrical release in 2022. On the indie side, Our Love Story took the Korean Competition Grand Prize at Jeonju IFF, and Memento Mori (1999, the second film in the Whispering Corridors horror series) was one of the first Korean commercial films to portray a lesbian relationship head-on.

Heavy Snow is the de-facto screen debut of Han So-hee (shot in 2019, before her stardom), premiering at Jeonju IFF and invited to BFI Flare in London. Concerning My Daughter adapts Kim Hye-jin's award-winning novel about a mother confronting her daughter's life with a female partner. International streaming for Korean queer films can be limited, but they regularly surface at festivals and special screenings — check each work page for current options.

Free from broadcast constraints, Korean GL built its own ecosystem on YouTube. Sukfilm's office romance ONnOFF ran as an ABEMA exclusive with Japanese subtitles, has reportedly passed 10 million cumulative views, and its third season is already out. SOO NOT SUE — the studio behind Out of Breath, She Makes My Heart Flutter, and An Office Thing — keeps turning out GL web dramas, and 2015's Lily Fever remains an early landmark of the format. Most are on YouTube with English subtitles, making this the easiest entry point into Korean GL.

Korea's festival short-film scene is strong too. Most run around 20 minutes — a quick way to get a feel for Korean indie GL.