From critically acclaimed dramas like The Glory to heart-pumping action thrillers like Taxi Driver, there are plenty of brilliant K-dramas about revenge. The theme of revenge is a popular and perfect subject for many amazing K-dramas. By nature, it provides so much potential for creating drama through lies, deception, and complex issues like psychological trauma and bullying. The burning desire of the characters to get what they want drives the story's pace forward at a thrilling speed, leading to exciting fight sequences, dramatic confrontations, and dark and intense tones.

Prime Video's newest successful revenge K-drama, Marry My Husband, proves how popular these stories are. Shows like Vincenzo showcases a unique blend of mafia drama and dark comedy, featuring a protagonist who battles corporate greed and corruption with his cunning and resources. Meanwhile, Itaewon Class tells a more gripping story of personal and professional revenge, pulling at the heartstrings and focusing on the journey of a young entrepreneur fighting against the odds to make his mark in the competitive world of Itaewon. Each of these shows, with their unique exploration of revenge, makes them fascinating and captivating K-dramas.

15 Pyramid Game (2024)

A High School Tale Of Revenge

Pyramid Game is inspired by a webtoon of the same name, and it’s set in an area ripe for revenge: an all-girls school. The show doesn’t take a long-term look at revenge like so many other K-dramas do, but a more immediate one.

In this school, popularity polls are used to rank classmates. Those with the most positive rankings are treated well by the other students and teachers while those who fall to the bottom are relentlessly targeted and bullied. When a transfer student finds herself the target of harassment and even violence, she decides to change the game. She makes it her mission to climb the social pyramid of the school in order to save herself, but it leads to revenge and rebellion.

The series was named among NME’s best K-dramas of 2024 and earned Jang Da-ah a Blue Dragon Series Award nomination for Best New Actress.

14 Crazy Love (2022)

A Secretary Attempts To Get Revenge For The Way Her Boss Treats Her

Most revenge K-dramas are some of the darker series to come out of South Korean television. Crazy Love takes a slightly more light-hearted approach to revenge because the series is a romantic comedy with some telenovela tendencies.

When a high-powered man receives death threats, he fakes amnesia so that others will be more likely to help him. His secretary decides to take advantage of that amnesia, pretending to be his fiancée as a way to enact revenge against him for the way he’s treated her at work. That isn’t the wackiest plot point in this series though as it gets both more dramatic and sillier as the show goes on.

There are exes enacting schemes of their own, terminal illnesses, and an attempted murder plot. The revenge plot might not be exactly the same as those looking for a darker series would expect, but it’s definitely a unique entry into the subgenre.

13 The World Of The Married (2020)

A Woman Wants Revenge For Her Husband's Infidelity

The World of the Married took some fire from critics when it first premiered in 2020, with some believing that it featured too much sex and violence. Despite that, it became one of the most-watched shows in South Korea in 2020 as well as one of the highest-rated K-dramas on television at the time.

The series follows a woman who appears to have the perfect life to outsiders. She’s a successful doctor with the seemingly perfect husband. She, however, discovers that her husband has been having an affair and that her friends know about it. With the knowledge that everyone in her life has been lying to her, she decides to attempt to take revenge on everyone who has hurt her.

The World of the Married is a riveting drama that leaves the audience on the edge of their seats and wondering just how far one woman will go to get even.

12 Reborn Rich (2022)

Time Travel And Revenge Combine

Time travel shows make for a fascinating subgenre on Korean television. There has been an influx of them since 2020, but only a few of them tie into the concept of a revenge K-drama. Reborn Rich melds the two concepts together in an interesting way, and South Korean fans loved it, making it the most-watched K-drama of 2022 in the country.

This series kicks off with a murder. An employee at a chaebol (a huge family-owned business in South Korea) sees something he suspects is wrong and ends up killed for trying to do the right thing. He gets a second chance to make things right though because his soul is brought back to life as the youngest member of a chaebol family years before his murder.

He decides to start using what he knows of the future to improve his life and to take revenge against those responsible for his death.

11 Perfect Marriage Revenge (2023)

A Woman Gets A Second Chance For Revenge Against Her Family

Perfect Marriage Revenge was originally a webnovel before being adapted into a webtoon, and finally, a live-action K-drama. Like Reborn Rich, the series combines time travel elements with those of revenge.

It features a young woman who was adopted by a wealthy family and tries her best to please them. Nothing she does is ever good enough though as she discovers her husband has feelings for her little sister and her mother has been selling her reproductions of paintings as counterfeit art and framed her for the crime. When she ends up dead, she wakes up one year before all of these events unfold, giving her the chance to get revenge on her family.

She strikes up a deal with the man she knows her little sister has had a crush on, marrying him and agreeing to help gain the approval of his grandmother in exchange for his help. The family drama combined with the revenge elements make this one fascinating K-drama.

10 Rugal (2020)

A Former South Korean Police Officer Embarks On A Quest For Revenge After Being Framed

Rugal is a sci-fi action thriller following a former South Korean elite police officer who, after being framed for his wife's murder, s an organization armed with biotechnological enhancements to fight against a national crime syndicate in his quest for vengeance. The show is extremely bloody, featuring very realistic execution-style murders, so it's not for the faint of heart.

Rugal is based on a manga by Rel.mae.

Rugal also features impressive production quality and visuals, but being a webtoon adaptation, it encounters some pitfalls common to adaptations, with forced musical montages and network TV quality. The series is a bloody revenge tale, with Kang Gi-beom not only seeking revenge for his wife's brutal murder but also for framing him for her murder. It also has tinges of sci-fi, as he is blinded in the attack on his wife and receives two artificial eyeballs to regain and enhance his sight, a sort of superpower.

9 Revenge Of Others (2022)

A High School Student Sets Out To Avenge The Death Of Her Sister

Revenge of Others follows Ok Chan-mi (Shin Ye-eun), a high schooler seeking revenge after her twin's mysterious death. Teaming up with the morally upright but troubled Ji Soo-heon (Lomon), they navigate a creepy, gothic school filled with suspects, including school bullies and a repeat senior with a shady medical history. The show's excessive use of dramatic plot twists can be overwhelming.

Yet, the engaging lead performances and the show's stylish execution that blends in early 2000s teen horror still make it worth the watch. The series is all about revenge, as Ok Chan-mi is looking for the person she believes is responsible for her brother's apparent suicide, and she won't stop until they find those responsible and make them pay for the death. Since the police deemed it a suicide, she is in this alone, which adds to the stakes of everything she does. The series premiered on Disney+ in the United States.

8 The Innocent Man (2012)

A Having His Heart Broken, A Gigolo Pursues The Stepdaughter Of His Ex

The Innocent Man, listed on Netflix as Nice Guy, follows the story of Kang Maru (Song Joong-ki), who seeks revenge against the woman who betrayed him. Once a promising medical student, Kang Ma-ru's life spirals when his love, Han Jae-hee, lets him take the blame for a crime he didn't commit. Years later, Ma-ru, now a bartender and gigolo, plots against Jae-hee using Seo Eun-gi, a chaebol heiress and the woman he once loved's step-daughter, only to fall for her.

The Innocent Man is retitled Nice Guy on Netflix in America.

Despite criticisms due to a particular amnesia plotline, the show is full of some emotional moments that tug at the heartstrings. This is a very different revenge tale, as it isn't revenge against criminals, but it is revenge against someone who hurt him, and he is targeting a daughter instead of the woman who betrayed him. However, as a romantic story, it hits the right notes and is a fan favorite. It went on to win six honors at the KBS Drama Awards with 13 nominations.

7 Vincenzo (2021)

An Italian Mafia-Raised Lawyer Plans To Dismantle A Powerful Corporation

Adopted into an Italian mafia family, Vincenzo follows Vincenzo Cassano (Song Joong-ki), a skilled lawyer and mafia consigliere. When a power struggle forces him to flee to Seoul, he tries to recover hidden gold stashed in a plaza now claimed by the Babel Group. Teaming up with fierce attorney Hong Cha-young (Jeon Yeo-been), whose father was murdered for exposing Babel's criminal activities, Vincenzo uses his mafia tactics to dismantle the corporation.

Despite a sluggish start, Vincenzo maintains its momentum with tight plotting, compelling character arcs including one of K-drama's most menacing villains, and a satisfying number of vengeful undercurrents. This series approaches the revenge a little bit differently, as Vincenzo is going after the gold and the Babel family first and foremost. but he still has a grudge to settle against Paolo, Fabio's biological son, who tried to kill him, setting Vincenzo on his path to independence.

6 My Name (2021)

An Undercover Cop Infiltrates A Drug Gang After Her Father's Death

In My Name, after her father's sudden death, Yoon Ji-woo (Han So-hee), an undercover cop, seeks revenge by infiltrating the drug crime gang Dongcheon, led by Choi Mu-jin (Park Hee-soon). Alongside her partner, Detective Jeon Pil-do (Ahn Bo-hyun), she delves deep into the underworld to uncover the truth behind her father's demise. The series is all about revenge, but it takes a slightly different look since it is a police officer who seeks revenge.

My Name has a 100% critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yoon Ji-woo sets out to get revenge despite being part of the force that upholds the law. The show's realistic depiction of the challenges within the criminal and legal realms make it a standout dark and gritty revenge story. It's a tense thriller jam-packed with some great action sequences and strong performances by the cast. The series earned Han So-hee a Best Actress nomination at the Baeksang Arts Awards.