7 Fresh K-Dramas You Should Be Streaming Right Now

If your watchlist still begins and ends with Squid Game, it is time to catch up. Korean drama makers have not taken a single day off this year, and the current crop of on-air series is already sparking next-day water-cooler memes across Seoul and beyond. Below are seven titles that dropped episodes in the last two weeks, plus the reasons they are worth your bedtime scrolling hours.

My Youth (JTBC, Viki)

Song Joong-ki sheds his cool-guy armor to play a washed-up child actor who peaked at age twelve and now installs home IoT devices for a living. When his former co-star—also his first crush—returns to town as a bestselling novelist, the two thirty-somethings try to figure out whether they are nostalgic for each other or just for the time when life felt possible. The drama leans into small-town textures: cramped book cafés, seaside motels, and the awkwardness of running into an ex at the only decent coffee machine in the neighborhood. Three episodes in, the ratings are modest, but Viki comments are filling up with viewers saying, “Finally, a romance that remembers adults can be shy too.”

Queen Mantis (Netflix)

Think Killing Eve if Eve happened to be the killer’s son. Kim Hye-soo headlines as a reformed serial murderer who now breeds orchids in rural Gangwon. Peace ends when copycat crimes surface using her old signature: a mantis-style double stab. The detective assigned to the case is her estranged son, who still thinks mom abandoned him for a “business trip” in 1998. The show’s palette is deliberately cold—gray cliffs, rusted greenhouses, interrogation rooms the color of old salad—so when blood arrives, it really pops. Episode 4 ends on a cliff-hanger so nasty that Korean netizens coined the phrase “mantis trauma” to describe the shock. If you liked Signal or Through the Darkness, queue this up.

Confidence Queen (Prime Video)

Park Min-young can cry on cue, but who knew she could smirk just as well? Here she leads a small-time fraud ring that sells fake Picassos to chaebol chairmen, then donates the proceeds to victims of the same elite. Each week the crew tackles a new scam—slush-fund art, rigged crypto casinos, cult real estate—while one relentless prosecutor trails them. The tone is Ocean’s-Eight-meets-K-drama: split-screen cons, brassy soundtrack, and enough shoe porn to crash fashion Twitter. Early reviews praise the chemistry between Park and her partners, played by rookie scene-stealer Chae Won-bin and veteran character actor Lee Moon-sik, who can apparently make a Bluetooth earpiece feel iconic.

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty (Netflix)

Fantasy romance is everywhere, but this one adds butter. A Michelin-star chef from Lyon wakes up in 19th-century Joseon and is dragged to the palace after concocting a croissant that makes the famously cruel King pause mid-beheading. The twist: the monarch suffers from anhedonia and the only thing that sparks joy is her food. Cue forbidden midnight tastings, political factions trying to poison the king with overcooked noodles, and a slow-burn love measured in sourdough starter. Shot with the same earthy pastels as Mr. Sunshine, the drama is already trending for its “food ASMR” sequences—close-ups of crackling duck skin that will ruin your diet plans.

Trigger (Netflix)

Imagine a Korea where even cops do not carry guns. Now imagine illegal Glocks start surfacing, and two men on opposite sides of the law decide to pull the trigger for the first time. Kim Nam-gil plays a bankrupt factory worker who stumbles into an arms cache; Yoo Ah-in is a black-market broker who quotes Thomas Hobbes between sales. The first two episodes unfold like a panic attack: shaky cams, subway sirens, and the sick realization that one bullet can buy a month’s rent. Director Lee Jeong-beom (the mind behind The Man from Nowhere

The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call (Netflix)

Medical procedurals are K-drama comfort food, but this entry wants to give you heartburn. Ju Ji-hoon stars as a genius surgeon who only works the night shift because daylight gives him migraines—and also because disciplinary hearings keep chasing him. Each episode dissects a new catastrophe: subway crashes, factory explosions, influencer botox gone wrong. The catch: the hospital is broke, so the team must MacGyver solutions—think 3-D printed heart valves and supermarket coolers as makeshift blood banks. Critics admire the gore realism; viewers on Reddit just want to know if Ju’s character will ever sleep. Spoiler: he naps in the morgue drawer because “it’s quiet.”

Resident Playbook (Netflix)

Remember the band in Hospital Playlist? This spin-off keeps the same cozy vibe but swaps guitars for ultrasound wands. We follow five first-year OB-GYN residents—three women, two men—as they learn to deliver babies while still feeling like babies themselves. The pilot opens with a rookie fainting at her first C-section; by episode 3, the same doctor is coaching a terrified dad through labor breathing in an elevator stuck between floors. Showrunner Shin Won-ho admitted the writers room interviewed 30 real residents, and the exhaustion looks authentic: banana-custard vending-machine dinners, hallway naps on yoga mats, locker-room tears that get interrupted by code pink alarms. If you need a serotonin boost without the macho flex of typical hospital shows, start here.

How to keep up without losing sleep

Netflix and Viki drop two episodes weekly for most titles; JTBC airs on Saturdays. The simplest hack is to pick two shows max—one thriller for weekday adrenaline, one healing drama for weekend couch time. Everything else can wait for the clip channels. And if you worry about spoilers, mute character names on Twitter; Korean viewers love live-tweeting every plot twist in all caps.

Bottom line: K-drama is no longer a single genre. It is a buffet that now spans orchid-greenhouse noir, pastry-fueled monarchy, and OB-GYN slice-of-life. Sample widely, and do not be shocked if this month’s favorite becomes next year’s Emmy nominee. Happy streaming—and maybe keep a croissant nearby just in case.