Squid Game오징어 게임

Squid Game (오징어 게임) is a South Korean survival thriller drama series created, written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk (황동혁) for Netflix. In it, 456 players, all deep in debt, compete in children's games for a ₩45.6 billion prize, and losing a game means death. Lee Jung-jae (이정재) leads the cast as Seong Gi-hun, player 456. Hwang wrote the story in 2009 but could not find a company to fund it until Netflix took an interest around 2019.¹ Siren Pictures produced it. Season 1 was released worldwide on September 17, 2021, Season 2 on December 26, 2024, and Season 3, the final season, on June 27, 2025: 22 episodes in all.¹²

Netflix ranks its shows by "views" (hours watched divided by running time) in their first 91 days. On its all-time list of non-English shows, the three seasons hold the top three places, with 265.2 million, 192.6 million and 145.8 million views; see DabPop's season-by-season comparison. Season 1 was the first Korean drama to top Netflix's weekly global top 10 for TV, and Season 3 was the first Netflix series to debut at No. 1 in all 93 countries where Netflix publishes a top 10.² Season 1 stayed Netflix's most-watched title until the animated film KPop Demon Hunters passed it on September 3, 2025.³

Season 1 was also the first non-English-language series nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. At the 2022 Emmys it received 14 nominations and won six, including Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Lee Jung-jae and Directing for a Drama Series for Hwang, the first Asians to win those two categories.²⁴ O Yeong-su (오영수) won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, the first Korean-born actor to win a Golden Globe, and each of the three seasons won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Series.²