10 Best K-Dramas to Watch if You Love ‘Black Mirror’
Season 7 of Black Mirror took the world by storm with a fresh slate of stories that sent chills down viewer’s spines. But unlike the show’s earlier, more satirical tone, the latest installment reveals a different side of technology. While it remains disruptive and morally murky, Season 7 explores how tech can also be wielded for personal gain and temporary happiness – though often at a staggering ethical cost. This discourse around technology isn’t limited to just Western media. In fact, what defines modern technology today is its global reach.
K-Dramas have fully embraced this, using futuristic and speculative storytelling to explore how technology reshapes human behavior, ethics, and identity. From time loops to digital identities, Korean dramas are asking the same big questions. For those who are into technology-induced dystopian dilemmas, here are 10 must-watch K-Dramas to watch if you love Black Mirror.
- Release Date
-
December 4, 2011
- Network
-
Channel 4, Netflix
- Directors
-
Owen Harris, Toby Haynes, James Hawes, David Slade, Carl Tibbetts, Ally Pankiw, Bryn Higgins, Dan Trachtenberg, Euros Lyn, Jodie Foster, Joe Wright, John Hillcoat, Sam Miller, Tim Van Patten, Uta Briesewitz, Colm McCarthy, Jakob Verbruggen, James Watkins, John Crowley, Otto Bathurst, Anne Sewitsky, Brian Welsh
- Writers
-
Jesse Armstrong
10
SF8′ (2020)
Created by: Min Kyu-dong
Arguably the Korean version of Black Mirror, SF8 is an anthology series that follows individuals who live seemingly perfect lives. In a world surrounded by artificial intelligence, augmented reality, robots, and more, the world they live in is molded into a technological utopia, or so they think. Just like Black Mirror, the K-Drama dives into the impact of these innovations and how they affect mankind on a personal level.
Each episode reveals a different plot. One episode follows a fortune-telling service called Manxin that operates on AI. In contrast to its machinery, Manxin questions life and the essence of humankind. Another episode is set in a care home, in which an exhausted carer is replaced by a nursing robot. But things become complicated when the robot is forced to save only one person.
9
‘Celebrity’ (2023)
Directed by: Kim Cheol-kyu
Celebrity reveals the dark side behind what’s happening on our social media feeds. At a glance, the life of an influencer is full of glitz and glamor. Always looking good for the camera, endless PR packages and endorsements, and invites to the hottest social events in the city. But underneath the Internet fame and fortune hides an industry that feeds on these rising public figures.
Told primarily from the eyes of Seo Ah-ri (Park Gyu-young), Celebrity exposes the influencer industry. Whether it’s as discreet as buying followers, to more dangerous extremes like social media manipulation, Ah-ri is caught in between the rumors and scandals. Although fictional, Celebrity couldn’t be further from the truth — it is a reflection of today’s reality, one that’s obsessed with views, likes, and clout.
8
‘Mask Girl’ (2023)
Directed by: Kim Young-hoon
Darky stylish and eerily creepy, Mask Girl is what happens when someone falls too hard, too fast over the Internet. Kim Mo-mi (Lee Han-byeol) is a timid office worker who’s been told all her life she’s “not pretty enough” — but by night, she transforms into the confident, seductive Mask Girl, a camgirl who dances behind a mask. What starts as a secret outlet spirals into a chain of violence, false identities, and desperate escapes.
Told over the course of a decade and featuring three actresses — including Nana and Ko Hyun-Jung — Mask Girl is a chilling portrait of a woman pushed to the edge by society’s cruel beauty standards in the age of the Internet. With haunting visuals and a twisty suspense, the series is more than just a tale of revenge. At its heart, it is a thriller that shows the perils of women navigating a world that tries to define them.
7
‘Circle’ (2017)
Created by: Lee Myung-han
As told through different timelines, Circle is an ambitious take on storytelling that shifts between different decades. The plot begins in 2007 when twin brothers Kim Woo-jin (Yeo Jin-goo) and Kim Bum-gyun (Kim Ye-joon) encounter an alien woman with memory-controlling technology. Flash forward to 2017: Woo-jin, now a neuroscience student, is pulled into a string of student suicides that may be murders — and that may involve his missing brother and the alien from the past.
Jump again to 2037, where South Korea is split into Smart Earth, a utopian city with no crime, and polluted, lawless Normal Earth. A detective there investigates missing twins from 20 years prior, revealing the price of so-called perfection. Presenting big questions about memory and what it means to be human, it’s a sci-fi thriller that has a philosophical edge to it.
6
‘Memories of the Alhambra’ (2018)
Created by: Choi Jin-hee
When word of a revolutionary AR game about medieval battles reaches Korea, Yoo Jin-woo (Hyun Bin) sees it as an exciting investment prospect. Before he closes the deal, Jin-woo travels all the way to Granada to meet the game’s creator, Jung Se-joo (Park Chan-yeol). By the time Jin-woo reaches Spain, Se-joo mysteriously disappears. As Jin-woo and Se-joo’s older sister Jung Hee-Joo (Park Shin-hye) attempt to get to the bottom of the case, the lines between the real world and the AR dimension overlap with each other.
Memories of the Alhambra slightly parallels Black Mirror’s “Playtest”, since much of the main story revolves around a virtual game gone wrong. With the border between the two realms blurred, it’s difficult to differentiate what’s real and what’s not. Paired with convincing VFX, the show constantly switches between different atmospheres, contrasting the lively streets of Granada and thunder and storm, to build tension between reality and AR.
5
‘Somebody’ (2022)
Directed by: Jung Ji-woo
A social connecting app takes a murderous turn in Somebody. During the day, the genius yet troubled Kim Sum (Kang Hae-lim) is a developer for “Somebody,” an app designed to connect people with each other. Ironically, Sum has a hard time communicating with those around her. However, she is close friends with Mok-won (Kim Yong-ji) and Gi-run (Kim Soo-yeon) — the latter works as a detective.
Trouble arises when a murderer is on the loose. The worst part is that Sum’s app might have something to do with the killing. She begins to have her suspicions when the architectural designer Sung Yun-oh (Kim Young-Kwang) shows up out of nowhere. Though he may look calm and innocent, something tells Sum that he’s hiding something.
4
‘Are You Human Too?’ (2018)
Directed by : Cha Young-hoon
In Are You Human Too? acclaimed scientist Oh Laura (Kim Sung-ryung), an expert on brain science and AI, is hit with a personal tragedy when her son Nam Shin (Seo Kang-joon) attempts to take his life. Although he survived the unfortunate incident, he fell into a coma. In order to protect his position as the heir to a chaebol, Oh Laura sends one of her AI robots modeled after Nam Shin to take his position, conveniently named Nam Shin III.
Using her scientific expertise, the robotic Nam Shin III is built on proper emotions, ensuring that it is modeled following the behaviors of an actual human. Despite being made out of metal, Nam Shin III proves to be more human than anybody else around him. Are You Human Too? questions what it truly means to be human — is it something by nature, or rather, is it something that can be nurtured.
3
‘Rugal’ (2020)
Directed by: Kang Cheol-woo and Lee Jung-soo
Rugal literally punches out eyeballs. Elite detective Kang Ki-Beom (Choi Jin-Hyuk) loses everything when the sinister crime syndicate Argos murders his wife and gouges out his eyes. But instead of staying down, he’s recruited by the NIS to join Rugal, a secret team that outfits him with cutting-edge artificial eyes — each equipped with extraordinary abilities.
As Ki-Beom wages war on organized crime, the line between man and machine begins to blur. With eye-popping CGI and a techno-noir aesthetic, Rugal takes its title literally. Translating to “dry tears,” the title symbolizes Ki-Beom’s emotional descent as he transforms into a vengeance-fueled machine..
2
‘Dr. Brain’ (2021)
Directed by: Kim Jee-woon
In Dr. Brain, the exceptional brain scientist Koh Sewon (Lee Suh-kyun) is at the peak of his career when the unthinkable happens: his family passes away in a mysterious accident. With no evidence or leads, Sewon relies on his expertise to figure out who killed them. Desperate for answers, Sewon performs “brain syncs” on the deceased to access the memories. His risky experiment eventually comes at the cost of his own sanity.
With only six episodes, Dr. Brain follows the evolution of a meek scientist who’s stuck in his lab, to a brave hero willing to put his career on the line. His methods may be questionable — even unethical, to say the least. But it’s not everyday audiences get to see a Ph.D break every code of conduct for the greater good.
Dr. Brain
- Genre
-
Sci-Fi, Thriller
- Debut Date
-
November 4, 2021
1
‘Sisyphus: The Myth’ (2021)
Directed by: Jin Hyuk
The concept of time is bent and broken in Sisyphus: The Myth. Han Tae-sul (Cho Seung-woo), a brilliant yet troubled engineer, discovers shocking truths about his brother’s death, pulling him into a high-risk future-altering mission. Things get more complex when Tae-sul encounters Kang Seo-hae (Park Shin-hye), a fierce warrior from a dystopian future ruled by corruption and violence.
Armed with survival skills and a noble purpose, she’s traveled across timelines to find Tae-sul and prevent a nuclear apocalypse. But breaking the time loop won’t be easy. Together, they look into a string of government secrets, violent factions, and existential choices. What brings the sci-fi spectacle together are the philosophical questions regarding human morality – like regret, selfishness, and the false dichotomies that make up human conflict.
