Blue Dragon Film Awards: Every Best Film Winner

Park Chan-wook (박찬욱) is one of three directors with four Best Film wins, and the only one whose wins span 25 years: Joint Security Area (공동경비구역 JSA) in 2000, Lady Vengeance (친절한 금자씨) in 2005, Decision to Leave (헤어질 결심) in 2022 and No Other Choice (어쩔수가없다) in 2025.¹⁶

Decision to Leave won seven awards from 13 nominations at the 43rd ceremony. No Other Choice, which premiered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival on August 29, 2025, won six from 12 at the 46th. Park was named Best Director both years.³⁸

The first Blue Dragon Film Awards ceremony was held on November 30, 1963, by the newspaper The Chosun Ilbo.² Its first Best Film was Bloodline (혈맥), directed by Kim Soo-yong (김수용), which was also named Best Film at that year’s Grand Bell Awards.¹⁴

Kim won again for Sorrow Even Up in Heaven (저 하늘에도 슬픔이, 1965), Flame in the Valley (산불, 1967) and When a Woman Breaks Her Jewel Box (옥합을 깨뜨릴 때, 1971): four of the first eight Best Film awards. He directed more than 100 films and died in December 2023, aged 94.¹⁹ The Korean Film Archive streams Bloodline in full on its Korean Classic Film channel.¹²

Im Kwon-taek (임권택) won with Seopyeonje (서편제) in 1993 and The Taebaek Mountains (태백산맥) in 1994. He is the only director to win Best Film at two ceremonies in a row. He added Festival (축제) in 1996 and Chi-hwa-seon (취화선) in 2002.¹

Seopyeonje, a film about singers of pansori (Korean narrative song), was the first Korean film to draw more than a million viewers in Seoul alone, according to its Wikipedia article.¹⁰ Chi-hwa-seon won Im the Best Director prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, shared with Paul Thomas Anderson.¹¹

Bong Joon-ho (봉준호) has won Best Film three times: The Host (괴물) in 2006, Mother (마더) in 2009 and Parasite (기생충) in 2019.¹ At the 40th ceremony Parasite had the most nominations (11) and the most wins (5).³

Parasite was the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, the first non-English-language film to do so.⁵

Ryoo Seung-wan (류승완) has won three times: The Unjust (부당거래) in 2011, Escape from Mogadishu (모가디슈) in 2021 and Smugglers (밀수) in 2023.¹

Both recent wins topped their ceremonies. Escape from Mogadishu led the 42nd with 13 nominations and five wins, including Best Director for Ryoo. Smugglers led the 44th with 12 nominations and four wins.³

The 41st ceremony, for 2020, was set for December 11, 2020. On December 8 the organiser postponed it because of a new wave of COVID-19 cases, and it was held on February 9, 2021, at Paradise City in Incheon with no live audience.³

Best Film went to The Man Standing Next (남산의 부장들), which had the most nominations that year (11). It was the second win for director Woo Min-ho (우민호), after Inside Men (내부자들) in 2016.¹³

12.12: The Day (서울의 봄), directed by Kim Sung-su (김성수), won Best Film at the 45th ceremony on November 29, 2024. Its lead, Hwang Jung-min (황정민), won Best Actor.¹³⁶

It was not the night’s most-awarded film. Exhuma (파묘) had the most nominations (12) and the most wins (4), including Best Director for Jang Jae-hyun (장재현).³

At least three Best Film winners were their director’s first feature, according to the films’ Wikipedia articles: Green Fish (초록물고기, 1997) by Lee Chang-dong (이창동), Christmas in August (8월의 크리스마스, 1998) by Hur Jin-ho (허진호) and The Attorney (변호인, 2014) by Yang Woo-suk (양우석).¹⁴

Hur won again three years later with One Fine Spring Day (봄날은 간다, 2001). The Attorney sold 11,375,954 tickets in South Korea.¹⁴

Counting the South Korean distributor named in each film’s Wikipedia article, CJ Entertainment released eight Best Film winners, from Joint Security Area (2000) to No Other Choice (2025). Showbox released six, including three in a row from 2015 to 2017: Assassination (암살), Inside Men and A Taxi Driver (택시운전사).⁴

CJ Entertainment was merged into CJ E&M in 2011, part of today’s CJ ENM.⁷

The Chosun Ilbo stopped the awards after 1973. Its sister paper Sports Chosun revived them in 1990, and they have been held every year since.²

Edition numbers carried on from where they stopped, so the 1990 ceremony was the 11th. Wikipedia’s list of winners also has no 1968 edition: the 5th ceremony was in 1967 and the 6th in 1969.¹