Looking for your latest K-Culture fix? Well, it turns out London’s not a bad place to be this November.
As 2000 years’ worth of artworks, sculptures, and treasures grace the British Museum for the four-month Korea exhibition, the annual K-Music Festival welcomes dulcimer-driven post-rock outfit Dongyang Gozupa to the Rich Mix, while pianist Jisu Jung boldly reimagines the bebop jazz of Charlie Parker at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s. In the midst of the action, the 21st edition of the venerable London Korean Film Festival (LKFF) returns to the BFI Southbank, the ICA, and Ciné Lumiere from November 2-16 – with a bumper line-up of cutting-edge K-Cinema in tow.
With Park Chan-wook’s black comedy No Other Choice and Na Hong-jin’s sci-fi action epic Hope still fresh in our minds, a high bar has been set for LKFF 2026. But with the long-awaited return of one of the greatest filmmakers on the planet, a shockingly bloody closing gala, and vital new works starring veterans from classics like Parasite and TV’s Pachinko among the programme highlights this year, the festival clearly means business – as usual.
Still working out where to get started? Check out seven of Time Out’s top picks below – you can kamsahamnida us later.
1. Possible Love
One of the world’s greatest living filmmakers – Burning director Lee Chang-dong – finally returns from an eight-year hiatus with an expansive but nuanced tale of simmering class tensions and exploitation. Inspired by a scandal of mass layoffs and violent protest suppression, this story of a working class couple who become the subjects of an affluent woman’s documentary is made all the more incisive thanks to powerhouse performances from two of Lee’s brightest muses: 2007 Cannes Best Actor winner Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine) and three-time Grand Bell Award winner Sul Kyung-gu (Peppermint Candy). The film’s already won Lee his second Venice Silver Lion, and has also been announced as Korea’s official submission for the 2027 Academy Award. It’s a must-see.
Tue 03 Nov, 5:50pm, BFI Southbank
2. The World of Love
Yoon Ga-eun’s delicate, empathetic story of an outgoing high-schooler navigating the repercussions of an adolescent trauma was widely considered one of the country’s best films of 2025. Indeed, after its appearance at last year’s BFI London Film Festival, it almost instantly joined Time Out’s ranking of the best Korean movies of all time. One notable fan was a certain Bong Joon-ho, who ranked the director alongside Palme d’Or winners Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters) as ‘one of the “big three masters” of bringing child actors to life on the screen’.
3. The Accordion Door
A stand-out feature within the LKFF’s ‘Cinema Now’ strand, The Accordion Door follows a prodigious but introverted third-grader quietly processing a repressed childhood trauma: Ji-soo (Busan Film Festival 2025 Actor of the Year Moon Woo-jin) firmly believes that a mysterious substance entered his body when he was nine, and granted him an uncanny ability to write. The illusion is unsettled when a tomboyish, football-loving transfer student arrives at his school in this uneasy drama from feature debutant Son Kyeong-su.
4. My Daughter Is a Zombie + Q&A with actor Lee Jung-eun
In the decades since A Monstrous Corpse marked the country’s first zombie movie in 1981, Korea has established a surprisingly rich heritage for films about the living dead – after all, who can forget Train to Busan? Pil Gam-sung’s adventure-comedy spin on the genre, though, is a more quirky and colourful departure that eschews the usual fleshy violence for something much more heartfelt. It also notably reunites two key cast members from Parasite — one of whom will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A.
5. Bedford Park
This tender romantic drama earned director Stephanie Ahn the Special Jury Award for Debut Feature at Sundance – and rightly so. Bedford Park glides on the chemistry of its leads, as the film traces the unlikely connection between two second-gen Korean American immigrants: a physical therapist and an ex-wrestler. Set in New Jersey, the film offers a natural parallel to Celine Song’s 2023 sensation Past Lives in more ways than one, while needle drops from Beach House and Al Green offer a cultured touch of a different kind.
6.10pm, Nov 5, Ciné Lumière
6. Tristes Tropiques + Q&A with director Park Hoon-jung
Tristes Tropiques is so intensely violent that some of the festival programmers are still feeling anxious about screening it – although that hasn’t stopped them from booking Park Hoon-jung a flight to the UK for a Q&A at the festival’s Closing Gala screening. It’s a brutally kinetic and relentless action noir rife with assassin squads and copious headshots, But with the heavyweight director behind cat-and-mouse crime classic New World at the wheel, Tristes Tropiques promises more than just gut-churning spectacle.
Mon 16 Nov, 6:15pm, BFI Southbank
7. Hana Korea
A magnetic performance from Kim Min-ha – unforgettable in the Apple TV adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s epic novel Pachinko – drives this moving tale of a young North Korean defector struggling to adapt to a new life in the south. During pre-production, Danish filmmaker Frederik Sølberg reportedly visited South Korea around 12 times, spending months with a refugee as she navigated a five-year period of assimilation. The finished screenplay was further informed by interviews with 30 further defectors. Those stories of courage and resilience combine for a potent narrative debut.
Head to the official site for full programme info and to book tickets.
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