Oooh, my top ten dramas EVER will look very different from my top ten K-dramas, so I’ll do K-dramas first.
I Can Hear Your Voice, because it changed everything – it changed how I view my own tastes, opened me up, wrecked me, put me back together again, and although it has fallen from my graces as rewatches exposed its flaws, it will always have a place here
Thirty But Seventeen, because it depicts a perfect world that washes me clean with every rewatch
Age of Youth 2, because it sees me
You’re Beautiful, because it was my second K-drama and my actual first taste of what is special about Korean dramas, and caused a fiercely loyal love for Park Shin-hye that has never left me
Healer, because I’ve never seen a story about intergenerational trauma done to such pitch-perfect perfection, and these actors were born to play these characters
You From the Stars, because it did everything right at exactly the right time and I literally crave it every winter
Extraordinary You, because it made me fall in love with existential fiction and the meta of storytelling
Reply 1988, because it was the last drama I watched with my Mum, a masterpiece I will never be able to finish
Finally Shining Inheritance, because it’s an amalgamation of everything I love about K-dramas, and stories in general
I had to cut out Go Back Couple and Live for this, which was beyond painful, but this feels right – my list is made up of the dramas that bring me the most comfort.
