An abundance of K-dramas is always a good thing, and if we can trust the upcoming release schedule of South Korean series across various networks and streamers, the abundance will be even more plentiful in 2026. This year is shaping up to be an amazing one for K-dramas, and end-of-year lists will surely have a hard time deciding the best ones.
Whether you're into the first-ever young adult horror K-drama, a continuation of a beloved cult series, or a collaboration between Japanese and Korean creators, this year will keep your watchlist packed. Here are the upcoming K-dramas you cannot miss; make sure you add them to your list.
10 'If Wishes Could Kill'
April 24, 2026
Image via NetflixNetflix Korea boldly steps into YA horror this spring, blending occult chills with the relatable anxieties of adolescence in the upcoming series If Wishes Could Kill. With a rising young cast including Jeon So-young, Kang Mina, and Baek Seon-ho, the series promises a fresh, unpredictable ride, and if we can trust the trailer at all, it's going to be downright terrifying in places, too. It comes out on April 24.
If Wishes Could Kill is Netflix’s first Korean young adult horror series, and it follows five high school friends whose lives are shattered when their wishes start coming true—at a deadly cost. After being cursed by a mysterious wish-granting app called GIRIGO, the students suddenly begin receiving death notices and must race against time to break the curse before it claims them, all while uncovering the app's sinister truth. If Wishes Could Kill is helmed by director Park Youn-seo, who previously served as second unit director on Kingdom Season 2 and co-directed the hit drama Moving, so we know it's going to be fun and unique.
9 'Gold Land'
April 29, 2026
Image via Disney+Gold Land is a brand-new series starring Park Bo-young, and it's Disney's latest K-drama effort, though there are a few others on the list you shouldn't miss from the streamer's original content. Interestingly, Gold Land marks the streaming debut of legendary screenwriter Hwang Jo-yoon, co-writer of the iconic film Oldboy; if the description and trailer can be trusted, the series promises his signature blend of stylish brutality and psychological depth. Gold Land is set to premiere on April 29.
Gold Land follows Kim Hui-ju (Park), a young woman from a small town, who finally escapes her difficult past, lands a reputable job at an airport, and begins dating a successful pilot. But her newfound stability crumbles when her boyfriend calls for help, dragging her into a dangerous smuggling scheme. Within days, she finds herself on the run with a fortune in stolen gold bars, hurtling back toward the hometown she swore she'd never return to. Kim Sung-cheol plays a criminal and Hui-ju's old acquaintance, adding a personal layer of betrayal to the high-stakes chase. With Park in a career-defining role and a stacked cast including Lee Kwang-soo and Moon Jeong-hee, Gold Land is shaping up to be one of 2026's biggest crime thrillers.
8 'The Scarecrow'
April 20, 2026
Image via ENAIt seems to be the busiest time of Park Hae-soo's acting life, since he's been in almost every K-drama in the past year or two. The Scarecrow promises to be one of his best shows yet, since it was inspired in part by the real-life Hwaseong serial murders, which also influenced the classic masterpiece Memories of Murder and the legendary drama Signal. The creative team behind the hit revenge thriller Taxi Driver reunites to deliver a dark, character-driven mystery in The Scarecrow, creating a slow-burn thriller that spans across 30 years, switching between 1988 and 2019. It's set to premiere on April 20 on ENA.
The Scarecrow follows a once-celebrated detective, Kang Tae-ju (Park), who is demoted and sent back to his rural hometown after a career-ruining incident. There, he is drawn into a series of brutal "Scarecrow Killings" that mirror unsolved murders from 1988. To hunt the killer, Tae-ju must ally with Cha Si-young (Lee Hee-joon), an elite prosecutor and former school bully whose political ambitions depend on solving the case. Their relationship immediately raises red flags, indicating a partnership based on resentment, creating a tense dynamic that can go either way, exacerbating the tension.
7 'The Legend of Kitchen Soldier'
May 11, 2026
Image via TVINGThe Legend of Kitchen Soldier is a brand-new mix of genres, even for the K-drama landscape. It's a surrealist comedy set in the military and has a video game-inspired twist, which sounds like a first type of genre mashup in any K-drama, to be honest. The Legend of Kitchen Soldier was based on the webtoon Kitchen Soldier, which has 650 million global views; the series was invited for a special screening at France's Series Mania 2026 as the only Korean content at the event, and it was praised as "a surrealist joyride that finds profound vitality in the wreckage of loss, weaponizing its formal daring with a truly original wit."
The Legend of Kitchen Soldier follows Kang Sung-jae (Park Ji-hoon from Weak Hero), who was born into a life of economic disadvantage. After losing his father, Sung-jae enlists in the military to escape his difficult circumstances, and there he becomes a top trainee but unexpectedly loses his way. Because of that, he is reassigned to the cook unit. At the cook unit, he encounters a mysterious virtual "Quest" system that guides his path toward becoming a legendary army cook, and he overcomes his own problems and circumstances to fight his way through.
6 'The Second Signal'
June 2026
Image via tvNThe long-awaited sequel to the 2016 masterpiece Signal is planned to return with writer Kim Eun-hee and the original main cast—Kim Hye-soo, Cho Jin-woong, and Lee Je-hoon—reuniting for another time-bending cold-case thriller. Once again, detectives from the past and present communicate via a mysterious walkie-talkie to solve decades-old murders, and we cannot be more excited. It's fitting that Season 2 comes a decade later, though we can argue that all three of the main cast look pretty much the same as they did back then; what possibly changed is their fashion sense.
To recall, Season 1 of Signal is about a profiler (Lee) who communicates with a detective in the past (Cho) and works with another detective in the present (Kim) to solve cold cases across South Korea. They also try to save Cho's character from dying, and—spoilers ahead—the series ends with the possibility that he was saved and is still alive. Signal is widely considered one of the greatest K-dramas ever made, and the sequel has the potential to recapture that lightning in a bottle. However, the drama's release hit a snag when Cho almost forcibly retired amid a juvenile offense controversy; news is that the broadcaster remains committed to finding the "best possible solution" for the project, and despite being unsure of The Second Signal's actual fate, it's still something to look forward to.
Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs
Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.
🚨The Pitt
🏥ER
💉Grey's
🔬House
🩺Scrubs
FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →
01
A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.
AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.
ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.
AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.
AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?
AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.
AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.
REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →
Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…
Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.
The Pitt
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.
- You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
- You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
- You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
- Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.
ER
You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.
- You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
- You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
- You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
- ER is television about endurance. You have it.
Grey's Anatomy
You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.
- You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
- Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
- You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
- It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.
House
You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.
- You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
- You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
- Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
- The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.
Scrubs
You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.
- You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
- You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
- You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
- Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
5 'Married Woman Killer'
August 2026
Image via TapasIf you like thrillers with hidden identities, like Flower of Evil or A Shop for Killers, you will love Married Woman Killer. It stars one of the most likable and respected actresses, Gong Hyo-jin, and she embraces her typical role of a rebellious, against-the-grain type, except she's not very cutesy this time, but a vicious sniper killer known under the codename Kingfisher. This action thriller was written by Kim Eun-hee, who authored Signal (as mentioned) and Kingdom, and directed by Yoon Jong-ho, who helmed the intense Flower of Evil. With Gong in the lead, this is a creative dream team that guarantees high-quality suspense and action.
Married Woman Killer was adapted from the popular webtoon A Bona Fide Killer and follows Yoo Bo-na (Gong), a 35-year-old professional assassin returning to her killer organization after a three-year maternity leave. On the surface, she's just a working mom trying to find peace in her family life. But her husband, Kwon Tae-seong (Jung Jun-won), who is a newspaper journalist, secretly wants to expose her double life, not knowing that she is the assassin behind the Kingfisher pseudonym. This has the potential to cause lots of tension and chaos, both for the couple and the viewers.
4 'Road'
Late 2026
Image via NetflixFans of the Nordic noir mystery Bron (The Bridge) will soon get the chance to watch a Korean-Japanese version of it, though Road was based on the popular webtoon called Blue Road. The similarities to Bron are striking, however, except that there is no physical bridge connecting Japan and South Korea; the possibilities are endless, though, and Road marks one of the most prominent high-profile Korea-Japan co-productions in recent years. The series is led by Son Suk-ku and Japanese star Nagayama Eita, promising intense, high-stakes detective work.
Road is an international crime thriller that follows two detectives, the Korean Kang Cheong-do (Son) and the Japanese Inose (Nagayama), as they try to solve a series of gruesome cross-border murders. The case begins in Tokyo with a disfigured body marked by a blood-inked message written in Korean; soon after, a similar case emerges in Korea with a message in Japanese, forcing the authorities into a joint investigation that spans both countries. Director Han Jun-hee, acclaimed for D.P. and Weak Hero, brings his gritty, realistic style to this cross-cultural thriller that promises to be incredible and tense.
3 'Teach You a Lesson'
Spring–Summer 2026
Image via NetflixK-dramas like The Glory and Weak Hero helped the urgency of school bullying to come to the forefront of the discussion in South Korean society. Netflix continues to promote content that harshly judges school bullying, and Teach You a Lesson is a brand-new form of it. Though it was announced with some controversy, with the streamer stating they're "moving responsibly" to address concerns about the show's violent premise, the series is still an anticipated piece of fiction that was undoubtedly inspired by real life and its own genre predecessors.
Based on the hard-hitting webtoon Get Schooled, Teach You a Lesson is an action drama that promises a cathartic, no-holds-barred take on the crisis in modern education. In response to rising campus violence and the decline of faculty authority, the South Korean government establishes the Educational Rights Protection Agency (ERPA), granting it legal authority to use physical force to discipline delinquent students. Agent Na Hwa-jin (Kim Mu-yeol) is dispatched to schools nationwide to dismantle student gangs and restore order by any means necessary. With a cast led by Kim and Lee Sung-min, Teach You a Lesson offers a fresh and bold approach to real-life educational challenges.
2 'Manager Kim'
June 2026
Image via SBSSo Ji-sub is a veteran actor of the K-drama world, and he's still as active and charming as ever. After the wild success of Mercy for None, the revenge action thriller, So returns in an action noir drama, Manager Kim. The series promises to be a career-defining role for the actor, and he stars in a recently popularized role as an action hero dad. Manager Kim is, at its essence, a story about a father-daughter bond, something we've been seeing more and more in popular media, from Train to Busan to The Last of Us.
Manager Kim is based on a popular webtoon of the same name and follows the mild-mannered Director Kim, who works at a small savings bank and hides a deadly secret: he was once a covert inter-Korean agent, now on North Korea's most-wanted list. When his daughter Min-ji is kidnapped, this seemingly ordinary family man breaks his carefully constructed cover and bets everything on bringing her home, unleashing his lethal skills for the first time in years. Manager Kim faces high expectations because the drama is a key part of SBS's 2026 Friday-Saturday lineup, which is top billing on the network.
1 'We Are All Trying Here'
April 18, 2026
Image via NetflixIf you're a fan of the more introspective, calmer K-dramas rooted in realism and humanity, like My Liberation Notes and My Mister, you'll absolutely love the new drama written by these shows' author, Park Hae-young, called We Are All Trying Here. This JTBC/Netflix drama explores the universal struggles of envy and self-worth through Park's signature psychological depth and subtle wit. It's the ultimate depiction of the human experience, set in an overachieving world full of deadlines, deliverables, and forced productivity.
We Are All Trying Here follows Hwang Dong-man (Koo Kyo-hwan), an aspiring director who is the only one in his famous film director group that hasn't had a directorial debut. Surrounded by successful friends, Dong-man believes he is the only one whose life isn't working out. Consumed by rage, envy, and jealousy, he embarks on a journey for peace, and on his journey, he meets Byun Eun-ah (Go Youn Jung), a fierce film producer nicknamed "The Ax." Dong-man and Eun-ah become friends, and he begins to consider her the only person he can trust. The Korean title literally translates to "Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness," and this phrase perfectly captures the drama's vulnerable, human nature. Koo is a charismatic actor, so the drama is bound to win many people over.
English (US) ·