From Memorist to Tell Me What You Saw: Underrated Korean Thriller Dramas You Absolutely Can’t Miss

Tell Me What You Saw (2020) is a South Korean suspense-thriller series starring Jang Hyuk, Choi Soo-young, and Jin Seo-yeon. The story follows a brilliant criminal profiler, Oh Hyun-jae, who goes into isolation after losing his fiancée to a serial killer. Years later, when a new murder shows signs of the same killer, he teams up with a rookie police officer with a perfect memory and a sharp police chief. Together, they track down the mysterious killer through intense clues, making it a gripping and psychological crime drama.

365: Repeat the Year (2020) is a South Korean suspense-thriller series starring Lee Joon-hyuk, Nam Ji-hyun, Kim Ji-soo, and Yang Dong-geun. The story follows ten people who get a chance to travel one year back in time to reset their lives, but things take a dark turn when they start dying one by one under mysterious circumstances. What begins as a second chance soon becomes a deadly game filled with suspense, twists, and shocking secrets. 

Memorist (2020) is a South Korean mystery-thriller series starring Yoo Seung-ho, Lee Se-young, and Jo Sung-ha. Based on a popular webtoon, the story follows Dong Baek, a detective with the supernatural ability to read people’s memories through touch. He teams up with a brilliant criminal profiler to track down a dangerous serial killer. Packed with action, mystery, and psychological twists, the drama focuses purely on crime and suspense, with no romance in the storyline.

Through the Darkness (2022) is a South Korean crime thriller starring Kim Nam-gil, Jin Seon-kyu, and Kim So-jin. Set in the late 1990s, it follows a quiet but highly perceptive police officer who helps create Korea’s first criminal profiling team. As they interview serial killers and study their behavior, the team works to solve brutal crimes while dealing with the emotional toll of the job. Based on real events and the memoir by Korea’s first profiler, the drama focuses deeply on criminal psychology and investigation, with no romance, just intense, realistic storytelling.

This refers to A Model Family (2022), a dark Korean crime thriller starring Jung Woo, Park Hee-soon, Yoon Jin-seo, and Park Ji-yeon. Despite its title, the drama is far from lighthearted, it tells the story of a struggling professor who stumbles upon a car filled with drug money and gets pulled into a dangerous cartel world to save his family. Dark, tense, and fast-paced, the series explores how far a person will go to protect their loved ones, often drawing comparisons to shows like Ozark and Breaking Bad. It is available to stream globally on Netflix. 

The Deal (2023) is a South Korean crime thriller mini-series starring Yoo Seung-ho, Kim Dong-hwi, and Yoo Su-bin. Directed by Lee Jeong-gon, the 8-episode drama premiered on Wavve on October 6, 2023. The story follows three former classmates whose casual reunion turns dark when two of them fake the kidnapping of their wealthy friend for a huge ransom. What starts as a desperate plan quickly spirals into a tense web of betrayal, fear, and psychological chaos.