Pop Culture & Entertainment
The Most-Watched Korean Films of All Time
The Korean films that sold the most cinema tickets in South Korea. The Admiral: Roaring Currents leads with 17.6 million admissions, about one for every three people in the country, and all 25 films here passed 10 million.
Pictured: the main trailer for The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014), #1 with 17,616,661 admissions.
How this list works. Films are ranked by admissions: the number of tickets sold at South Korean cinemas over each film’s whole run. That is how Korea measures a hit, and it avoids favouring new films just because tickets cost more today. Ranked by money taken instead, The King’s Warden would be first with about ₩163.3 billion, followed by Extreme Job (₩139.6 billion), and The Admiral (₩135.7 billion) would drop to fourth among all films, behind Avatar: The Way of Water.[2] Only Korean films count, so foreign hits such as Avengers: Endgame (13.9 million tickets) are left out.[2] The year is the film’s Korean release year, and the genre is RList’s own broad label for each film. “Tickets per 100 South Koreans” divides admissions by South Korea’s population, 51,600,388 in mid-2026 according to the UN’s World Population Prospects 2024 (the same figure as in RList’s country population ranking), and multiplies by 100.[4] It is a rough yardstick, not a share of people: many viewers saw a film more than once, and the country had a few million fewer people when the older films came out. Korea’s official ticket-tracking system, KOBIS, started in 2004, so the total for Silmido (2003), the first Korean film to pass 10 million, comes from reports at the time.[3][5] For worldwide box office in US dollars, see Highest-Grossing Films of All Time. Where the data comes from: the rows are from DabPop’s ranking of the highest-grossing Korean films (data as of October 11, 2026), which takes its totals from KOBIS, run by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), via Wikipedia’s KOBIS-based list.[1][3] RList checked them against KOBIS’s live all-time chart on October 12, 2026.[2] Most agree to within a few thousand tickets, since re-releases and later corrections keep nudging totals. The biggest gap is Tidal Wave: DabPop lists 11,324,958, but KOBIS now puts it at 11,453,338, enough to lift it one place above The Attorney. This page uses the KOBIS figure for Tidal Wave and DabPop’s for every other film.
The Top 10
#1
The Admiral: Roaring Currents — 17.6 million
Choi Min-sik plays Admiral Yi Sun-sin in Kim Han-min’s retelling of the 1597 Battle of Myeongnyang, when Yi took on a Japanese fleet of 133 ships with just 12 of his own. CJ Entertainment released it on July 30, 2014, and 682,882 people saw it that day, a one-day opening record for any film in South Korea.[6] It reached 10 million tickets in 12 days, faster than any film before it. On August 15, 2014 it passed Avatar’s 13.62 million to become the most-watched film ever shown in the country, and nothing has overtaken it since.[6][2]
#2
The King’s Warden — 16.9 million
Jang Hang-jun’s first period film tells the story of Danjong, the boy king who was pushed off the throne and sent into exile in 1457. Showbox opened it on February 4, 2026, just before the Lunar New Year holiday. On February 16 it drew 537,190 people, the busiest single day for any film in Korea since March 2020, and it passed 10 million on March 6.[7] It sold about 700,000 fewer tickets than The Admiral, but because tickets cost more now, it has taken more money than any other film in Korea.[2] It also won the Grand Prize for film at the 62nd Baeksang Arts Awards.[7]
#3
Extreme Job — 16.3 million
In Lee Byeong-heon’s comedy, a team of hapless narcotics detectives takes over a fried-chicken restaurant as cover for a stakeout, and the chicken turns out to be a hit. CJ Entertainment released it on January 23, 2019, and it passed 10 million on February 6.[8] By February 10 it had overtaken Miracle in Cell No. 7 (#10) as Korea’s most-watched comedy, and by February 18 it was second on the all-time list. It stayed there until The King’s Warden passed it in 2026.[8][7]
#4
Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds — 14.4 million
Kim Yong-hwa turned a popular webtoon about a dead firefighter’s trials in the afterlife into two films, shot at the same time. Lotte Entertainment released this first part on December 20, 2017. It sold 422,339 tickets on opening day and reached 10 million on January 3, 2018, 15 days later.[9] The second part, The Last 49 Days, came out on August 1, 2018 and passed 10 million too. It sits at #15, so both halves of the story are in the Top 25.[9][3]
#5
Ode to My Father — 14.3 million
Yoon Je-kyoon’s drama follows one ordinary man, played by Hwang Jung-min, through South Korea’s history from the Korean War to the present. CJ Entertainment released it on December 17, 2014, and on January 13, 2015 it became the 11th Korean film to sell 10 million tickets.[10] It was made under a standard labour contract, which capped the crew’s days at 12 hours and guaranteed overtime pay and a day off each week.[10] Yoon also directed the disaster film Tidal Wave, #22 here.[3]
#6
Veteran — 13.4 million
Ryoo Seung-wan’s action comedy sets a stubborn police detective, again played by Hwang Jung-min, against the spoiled heir of a powerful business family. CJ Entertainment released it on August 5, 2015, and it sold 2.75 million tickets in its first five days.[11] A sequel, I, the Executioner, had a midnight screening at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and sold 7.52 million tickets in Korea.[11] Hwang is the lead in three Top 10 films in a row: #5, #6 and #7.[1]
#7
12.12: The Day — 13.1 million
Kim Sung-su’s thriller replays the military coup in Seoul on December 12, 1979, giving the real people involved made-up names. Megabox Plus M released it on November 22, 2023, and it became the year’s biggest Korean film.[12] It went on to win Best Film at the 2024 Blue Dragon Film Awards and the Grand Prize for film at the 60th Baeksang Arts Awards, and it was South Korea’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.[12]
#8
The Host — 13.0 million
In Bong Joon-ho’s monster film, a creature climbs out of Seoul’s Han River and carries off a schoolgirl, and her family sets out to find her. Showbox opened it on July 27, 2006 on 620 screens, a Korean record at the time, and it drew 2.63 million people on its first weekend.[13] Its final total of 13,019,740 made it the most-watched Korean film until The Admiral arrived in 2014.[13] Bong is back at #25 with Parasite. Song Kang-ho leads both films, and also A Taxi Driver (#16) and The Attorney (#21): four films in this Top 25.[1]
#9
The Thieves — 13.0 million
Choi Dong-hoon’s heist film follows a gang of Korean and Hong Kong thieves after a diamond in a Macau casino. Showbox released it on July 25, 2012. It sold 436,622 tickets on day one, behind only The Host, and reached 10 million in 22 days, just the sixth film ever to do so in Korea.[14] Its promoter later announced that it had overtaken The Host, but the Korean Film Council’s count left it about 36,000 tickets short. Choi’s Assassination (2015) is #11.[14][3]
#10
Miracle in Cell No. 7 — 12.8 million
Lee Hwan-kyung’s comedy-drama is about a father with an intellectual disability who is jailed for a murder he didn’t commit, and the cellmates who help him see his young daughter. NEW released it on January 23, 2013. It needed only 1.7 million tickets to break even, so when it passed 10 million, after 32 days, it had made a bigger profit than any earlier film to reach that mark.[15] It has since been remade in other countries, including Turkey (2019) and Indonesia (2022).[15]
Sources
- DabPop, “The Highest-Grossing Korean Films of All Time” (data as of October 11, 2026) — https://dabpop.co/posts/highest-grossing-korean-films. Source of every row’s admissions, year and director, and of the lead actors named in the write-ups.
- Korean Film Council (KOFIC), KOBIS (Korean Box Office Information System), “역대 박스오피스” (all-time box office), Korean films, checked October 12, 2026 — https://www.kobis.or.kr/kobis/business/stat/offc/findFormerBoxOfficeList.do. Source of the takings figures and the cross-check of admissions.
- Wikipedia, “List of highest-grossing films in South Korea”, domestic films by admissions (compiled from KOBIS; revision of August 20, 2026, as used by DabPop) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_South_Korea
- United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant, Republic of Korea, mid-2026 — https://population.un.org/wpp/
- Wikipedia, “Silmido (film)” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silmido_(film)
- Wikipedia, “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Admiral:_Roaring_Currents
- Wikipedia, “The King’s Warden” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Warden
- Wikipedia, “Extreme Job” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Job
- Wikipedia, “Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Along_with_the_Gods:_The_Two_Worlds
- Wikipedia, “Ode to My Father” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_My_Father
- Wikipedia, “Veteran (2015 film)” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veteran_(2015_film)
- Wikipedia, “12.12: The Day” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12.12:_The_Day
- Wikipedia, “The Host (2006 film)” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Host_(2006_film)
- Wikipedia, “The Thieves” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thieves
- Wikipedia, “Miracle in Cell No. 7” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_in_Cell_No._7
