Thirty-one years in and thriving: the Busan International Film Festival owns the room with The Remarried Empress premiere, I-DLE’s Shuhua in her lead-role debut, Kim Min-ha basically everywhere, and Na Hong-jin reminding everyone why Korean cinema runs the game.
Let’s go back to 1996. No smartphones, no Netflix, K-pop as we know it was just getting started. A girl named Jung Mi showed up to work at the opening of a festival nobody had ever heard of in Busan. Every evening, she’d catch a ferry from Nampo-dong, cross the bay, and arrive at Haeundae for the outdoor screenings. What struck her most? The crowd. Directors and regular people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the same screen together, no distance between them.
Today Jung Mi is one of BIFF’s programmers, and that festival has grown massively. This year, it’s sending films to the Oscars, premiering a Disney+ series a month before it drops, and launching an idol as a lead actress. Auteur cinema and pop culture sharing the same red carpet, October 6-15.
The Glow Up
Numbers don’t lie: 247 official films from 59 countries, 95 world premieres, and 316 films total—the biggest lineup since 2019. But the real upgrade is something else entirely. Busan just officially joined the tier-A festival circuit (same level as Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, and Toronto), and the Busan Award winner can now go straight to the Oscars in the International Feature Film category. The jury? Headed by Zhang Yimou. The director behind Red Lanterns and Hero, with a Golden Bear, two Golden Lions, and three Oscar nominations under his belt—he knows cinema.
Kim Min-ha, the Queen of This Edition
If BIFF 2026 had a protagonist, it’s Kim Min-ha. She’s hosting the opening ceremony on October 6, then sitting down to watch herself on screen in the festival’s opening film, The Table: Day and Night directed by Kim Jong-kwan. Four couples, four love stories, one café: bittersweet vibes guaranteed, with Han Sun-hwa in the cast. Days later, she’s back in Dead-End Job, one of the premiering series. Three roles at one festival? That’s literally the definition of main character.
K-Drama Preview
The On Screen section is where fandoms lose it: it brings theater screenings of highly anticipated series before they hit streaming.
The hype queen is The Remarried Empress, the Disney+ adaptation of a webtoon that hit 3 billion views. The cast is insane: Shin Min-a, Ju Ji-hoon, Lee Jong-suk, and Lee Se-young. Busan gets the first three episodes; the rest of us have to wait until November 4 on Disney+.
Netflix comes through with two titles. Dead-End Job is a mystery that starts with a suspicious part-time gig, starring the omnipresent Kim Min-ha, Lee Jae-wook, Go Min-si, and Lee Hee-jun. Blue Road pairs Son Suk-ku with Japanese actor Eita Nagayama: two detectives, one from Seoul and one from Tokyo, forced to team up to catch a serial killer striking in both countries. We already know it’s hitting our watchlist.
Idol Mode: On
Shuhua from I-DLE is making her acting debut as the lead in Happily Ever After directed by Feng-I Fiona Roan in the Asian cinema section. It’s about two sisters who love each other fiercely but also drive each other up the wall (anyone with a sister gets it). Programmer Park Sunyoung picked it as a tender story about fighting and making up.
Other familiar faces: Yim Siwan is hosting the closing ceremony on October 15 and announcing the winners. Yoo Yeon-seok and Ko Asung are on the jury judging best acting performances in Korean films in the Vision section. Shim Eun-kyung, also in the opening film, is on the jury for debut features and hosting a career retrospective on October 14.
For the Film Nerds (Seriously Worth It)
If your feed is K-drama central but you’re craving something more intense, Busan has three names to bookmark.
Na Hong-jin, director of The Wailing, is bringing Hope, already in competition at Cannes. The cast includes Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Hoyeon from Squid Game, plus Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. A cast like that doesn’t happen often.
Yeon Sang-ho—yeah, Train to Busan guy—is back at Busan with PARADISE LOST. A son disappears for nine years and comes home, except he’s a completely different person. His mother finds herself caught between him and an AI-generated version of her son created with artificial intelligence. Kim Hyun-joo and Bae Hyeon-seong star. Black Mirror energy is real.
And then there’s Lee Chang-dong, director of Burning, who’s been quiet for eight years. He’s back with Possible Love, already selected by the Korean Film Council as South Korea’s Oscar submission for 2027 and fresh off winning the Grand Prize at Venice.
There’s also a retrospective dedicated to actor Ahn Sung-ki (1950–2026), a legend of Korean cinema. BIFF is screening six of his films in Those Beautiful Years, Ahn Sung-ki, all handpicked by him before his death. Plus a career tribute to Kim Dong-ho, the man who founded BIFF. Right around the time Jung Mi was taking that ferry.
