Known for Directing
Hong Sang-soo (born October 25, 1960) is a South Korean writer-director. He has directed 35 films as of 2026. Certain elements are commonly found in Hong's films. A typical Hong film highlights a theme of domestic realism with many of the scenes set on residential streets, cafes, hotels, schools, and in the stairwells of apartment buildings. Characters are seen walking around the city, drinking soju, and having sex. The main characters are often movie directors or actors, and scenes typically consist of a single shot, often beginning and ending with a camera zoom. The budgets for his movies average about $100,000. Hong is often spontaneous when shooting, delivering the day's scene on the morning of the shoot and frequently changing stories while on set. He rarely prepares scripts in advance. Hong's style has been compared to Eric Rohmer's, and it has even been argued that allusions to Rohmer's films appear in some films directed by Hong.
Born
October 25, 1960 (age 65)
Birthplace
Seoul, South Korea
Filmography
171 films


Nowhere to Lay My Eyes
2026 · 1h 13m
country: South Korea
With her brother, Sanghee visits her mother on Jeju Island. It’s been 10 years. Her mother's restaurant has become a hit. Her stepfather is making a film about a "grass tomb". His daughter has just started painting. Previously unknown facts, needless advice and cheap compliments are passed back and forth. On the morning of her departure, the other family members watch one of Sanghee’s films.


The Day She Returns
2026 · 1h 25m
country: South Korea
Having stepped back from acting after marriage and a subsequent divorce, actress Bae Jeongsu returns to the profession with a role in an independent film. As the film’s release approaches, she takes part in a series of press interviews, only to discover later, when asked to revisit those moments in her acting class, that she cannot clearly recall what was said.


Tree Above Volvo
2025 · 1m
country: South Korea
"we went to seoul for lunch the year before our son was born. it was very hot, but with some breeze." — Hong Sangsoo


What Does That Nature Say to You
2025 · 1h 49m
country: South Korea
A young poet drops his girlfriend off at her parents' house and is amazed by its size. He bumps into her father, meets her mother and sister, and they all end up spending a long day together; fueled by conversation, food and libations.
It Snows on You
It Snows on You
2024 · 2m
country: South Korea
Hong Sang-soo’s short film made for the 62nd edition of the New York Film Festival.


By the Stream
2024 · 1h 51m
country: South Korea
After a scandal breaks out among several students involved in the production of a skit, a lecturer at a South Korean women's college brings in her uncle, a famous actor, to bring the work to fruition.


A Traveler's Needs
2024 · 1h 30m
country: South Korea
Iris, a woman abroad in Seoul, teaches French and English in an idiosyncratic fashion that allows her to pursue her own philosophical and personal interests. Through four encounters over a single day, Iris probes students and strangers for information about poetry, their own histories, and their relationship to their egos.
Greetings for the New York Film Festival
Greetings for the New York Film Festival
2023 · 2m
country: South Korea
Hong Sang-soo's short film made for the 61st edition of the New York Film Festival.


In Our Day
2023 · 1h 24m
country: South Korea
Recently returned to South Korea, an actress in her forties is staying with her friend and her cat. Meanwhile, an aging poet in declining health lives alone after the death of his own cat. One day, each receives a visit from a different young aspiring artist, who come equipped with questions about their careers and life itself.


In Water
2023 · 1h 1m
country: South Korea
A director, a cinematographer, and an actress spend the days leading up to a movie shoot together on-location, waiting for the director to come up with an idea for what the film will be about.


Walk Up
2022 · 1h 38m
country: South Korea
A series of interactions take place between an established film director, his estranged daughter interested in interior design, an interior designer, and others inside a multi-story commercial and residential building.


Small Flower
2022 · 2m
country: South Korea
A greeting from Hong Sang-soo.


The Novelist's Film
2022 · 1h 32m
country: South Korea
A novelist visits a bookstore run by a young colleague who's been out of touch, then takes a walk with a film director and his wife. She meets an actress and tries to convince her to make a film together.


In Front of Your Face
2021 · 1h 26m
country: South Korea
She has never lived in a high-rise apartment, and she wonders how her sister can live at this height every day. A few days ago she kind of burst in to stay with her sister, and she is now becoming re-accustomed to life in Korea. While seeming to keep a grave secret to herself, she manages life one day at a time with a sense of mindfulness. Meanwhile a certain director, some years younger than her, has asked her to join his project, and after a polite refusal, they have agreed to meet for the first time today. Downtown Seoul is filled with narrow alleys that harbor tiny old bars, and that's where they meet. As they are getting drunk, there is sudden rainfall and thunder.


Letter to the New York Film Festival
2021 · 3m
country: South Korea
Hong Sangsoo's short film made for the 59th edition of the New York Film Festival.


Introduction
2021 · 1h 6m
country: South Korea
Youngho is summoned by his father, who is a doctor. Finding him busy with his patients, one of whom is a famous actor, Youngho has to wait. When his girlfriend Juwon moves to Berlin for her studies, Youngho shows up in the city to surprise her. Through her mother, Juwon has found accommodation at the home of an artist whose beauty intimidates her. Some time later, Youngho goes to lunch with his mother who wants to introduce him to a colleague – it is the same man Youngho met at his father’s clinic. Youngho asks his friend Jeongsoo to accompany him, and after lunch they go to the beach. Youngho falls asleep, and dreams of Juwon. When he wakes up, he braves the considerable cold and goes swimming, while Jeongsoo watches.


Hong Sangsoo – Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay
2021 · 2m
country: South Korea
A short film about the award ceremony at Berlinale '21 and then also about a snail.


The Woman Who Ran
2020 · 1h 17m
country: South Korea
While her husband is on a business trip, Gamhee meets three of her friends. She visits the first two at their homes, and the third she encounters by chance at a theater. While they make friendly conversation, as always, several currents flow independently above and below the surface of the sea.


Hotel by the River
2019 · 1h 36m
country: South Korea
An aging poet summons his estranged sons to the hotel he is staying at because he feels his death is near; meanwhile, he encounters two women staying at the hotel.


Grass
2018 · 1h 6m
country: South Korea
Ahreum sits in a small café, typing on her laptop. Around her, customers enact various dramas from their lives. Is she writing what she hears or is she hearing what's been written?


Claire's Camera
2018 · 1h 8m
country: South Korea
The story of female friendship as Frenchwoman Claire helps the subject of her photograph, Min-Hee, discover why she was fired without apparent cause.


The Day After
2017 · 1h 31m
country: South Korea
On her first day at work, Ahreum replaces a woman who broke up with the boss. The wife of the boss finds a love note, bursts into the office, and mistakes Ahreum for the other woman.


On the Beach at Night Alone
2017 · 1h 41m
country: South Korea
In a foreign city, an actress wanders through a seaside town, reflecting on her relationship with a married man. How important is love in one’s life? Younghee wants to find out.


Yourself and Yours
2016 · 1h 27m
country: South Korea
While a South Korean man wanders the city in search of the woman he just broke up with, she successively meets and flirts with two men who claim to have met her before.


Right Now, Wrong Then
2015 · 2h 1m
country: South Korea
By mistake, film director Ham Chunsu arrives in Suwon a day early. With time to kill before his lecture the next day, Chunsu stops by a restored, old palace and meets an artist named Yoon Heejung. Together, they go to Heejung's workshop to look at her paintings, have Sushi with Soju for dinner, and get close. Later, they go to another café and have more drinks with Heejung's acquaintances. When asked if he is married, Chunsu is forced to reveal the fact that he is, and Heejung gets deeply disappointed...


Hill of Freedom
2014 · 1h 7m
country: South Korea
Kwon returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori, who has come back from Japan to propose to her. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology.


Our Sunhi
2013 · 1h 28m
country: South Korea
Sunhi, a film major graduate, visits her school to ask her Professor Choi for a recommendation letter to study in U.S. Knowing the professor favors her, she expects a good recommendation from him. Out from her shell after a long time, Sunhi also ends up meeting two men from her past: Munsu, her ex-boy friend, and Jaehak, a director who graduated from the same film school. Through the encounters between Sunhi and the three men, they give each other an 'advice on life' with good intentions. The three men who all have strong interests in her are led to guess and define her, unable to tell how she really feels inside. Strangely, the mentioned advices and traits of her are similar and seem to pass from one person to the next. The words of 'advice on life' seem doubtable and slip away as the three men's thoughts on Sunhi become more and more irrelevant.


Venice 70: Future Reloaded
2013 · 2h
country: Italy
Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.


Nobody's Daughter Haewon
2013 · 1h 30m
country: South Korea
Facing her mother’s departure and the weight of a secret affair with her professor, college student Haewon drifts through a series of encounters and dreams, blurring the lines between her desires and reality.


In Another Country
2012 · 1h 29m
country: South Korea
A young woman and her mother run away to the seaside town of Mohang to escape their mounting debt. The young woman begins writing a script for a short film in order to calm her nerves: There are three women named Anne, and each woman consecutively visits the seaside town of Mohang. A young woman tends to the small hotel by the Mohang foreshore owned by her parents. A certain lifeguard can be seen restlessly wandering up and down the beach that lies nearby. Each Anne stays at this small hotel, receives some assistance from the owner's daughter, and ventures onto the beach where they meet the lifeguard.


List
2011 · 29m
country: South Korea
While waiting at a seaside town with her mother for a relative, a young woman creates a list of things she wants to do during her time there.


The Day He Arrives
2011 · 1h 19m
country: South Korea
A film director who no longer makes films arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, he wanders the city aimlessly for three days, grabbing drinks and meeting women, with each day playing out like a version of the last.


Oki's Movie
2010 · 1h 20m
country: South Korea
Oki, a film student, gets involved in two relationships as she navigates the advances of a fellow student and grapples with her feelings for her much older professor.


Ha Ha Ha
2010 · 1h 56m
country: South Korea
Over drinks, two friends agree to swap fond memories of their recent trips to the same seaside town. As the stories unfold in flashback, it becomes evident their accounts take place at the same time and with the same people.


어떤 방문
2009
country: Unknown


Lost in the Mountains
2009 · 31m
country: South Korea
Hong Sang-soo's Lost in the Mountains depicts Mi-sook's suffering when she discovers her friend Jin-young has been secretly sleeping with her lover.


Like You Know It All
2009 · 2h 8m
country: South Korea
A South Korean art house film director is first invited to serve on the panel of a film festival, then to guest lecture at a film school.


Night and Day
2008 · 2h 24m
country: South Korea
Kim Seong-nam travels to Paris to escape an arrest, leaving his wife behind in Korea. After he arrives, he meets an ex-girlfriend and is introduced to a small community of Korean artists.


Woman on the Beach
2006 · 2h 7m
country: South Korea
A movie director entices his young friend to come to the beach on the pretext of writing a script. He then starts an affair with the friend's girlfriend.


Tale of Cinema
2005 · 1h 29m
country: South Korea
In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Dongsoo, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.


Woman Is the Future of Man
2004 · 1h 28m
country: South Korea
As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.


On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate
2002 · 1h 56m
country: South Korea
After being rejected for a film role, a stage actor leaves Seoul to visit a friend and, in his travels, winds up getting involved with two women.


Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors
2000 · 2h 7m
country: South Korea
When filmmaker Young-soo introduces writer Soo-jung to his friend Jae-hoon, he unintentionally creates a love triangle. While Jae-hoon pursues Soo-jung, Young-soo clashes with his crew. Yet, just as the story appears to end, it starts all over again, this time with plenty of variations.


The Power of Kangwon Province
1998 · 1h 49m
country: South Korea
After a breakup, a young woman goes to a mountain resort on vacation and falls for a married policeman. Unbeknownst to her, her ex is also vacationing there.


The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well
1996 · 1h 57m
country: South Korea
The lives of 4 interconnected South Koreans – a married couple, a novelist the wife is having an affair with, and a second woman the novelist is simultaneously involved with.