From Concrete Utopia to Train to Busan, 10 must-watch Korean disaster movies to see before you die, ranked from good to great

Korean disaster movies are capturing audiences around the world, and the genre has been growing since the release of Tidal Wave in 2009

We pick our top 10 Korean disaster films, from Exit, starring Cho Jung-seok and Im Yoon-ah, to Concrete Utopia and the ultimate zombie classic Train to Busan

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Lee Byung-hun in a still from “Concrete Utopia”, a 2023 social satire uses a devastating earthquake as the trigger for a scabrous takedown of authoritarian rule, xenophobia, and Korea’s aspirational housing crisis.

Published: 4:15pm, 16 Aug 2023Updated: 11:02pm, 16 Aug 2023

The disaster movie has proved a perennially popular film genre, combining large ensemble casts and state-of-the-art special effects to deliver a thrilling ride of eye-popping spectacle and relatable human drama.

From Irwin Allen classics like The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure to Roland Emmerich’s The Day after Tomorrow and 2012, Hollywood has inevitably led the way, but in recent years, the growing Korean film industry has shown it has the budgetary clout necessary to produce such spectacles.

Certainly, since the success of 2009’s Tidal Wave (also known as Haeundae) Korean studios have enthusiastically exploited the popularity of the disaster movie.

While some offerings were little more than glossy soap operas unspooling in front of a green screen (The Flu, Pandora), and others merely hitched their wagon to the zombie craze resurrected by Train to Busan (Peninsula, Deranged, #Alive), many of their epic productions had something substantial to offer.

With the release this week of Um Tae-hwa’s Concrete Utopia, we have selected 10 of the best Korean disaster movies of recent years.

From Concrete Utopia to Train to Busan, 10 must-watch Korean disaster movies to see before you die, ranked from good to great

10. Exit (2019)