Every Bong Joon-ho Movie, Ranked from Great to Greatest

Bong Joon-ho is a one of a kind.

He’s only made 8 films in the past 25 years, but each feature is a precious jewel, expertly chiseled and finely shined. There are a handful of thematic and narrative obsessions that he cleverly reworks throughout his films — the injustices associated with Capitalism, the transformative power of trauma, the importance of communication, animal rights – each time revealing new layers and finding new angles. These are beautiful, powerful, funny, wildly entertaining films. They are endlessly rewatchable and always break new ground. His 2019 feature “Parasite” was the first South Korean movie to ever be nominated for an Academy Award; it wound up winning four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best International Feature Film. (It also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and many, many other awards around the world.)

His latest, “Mickey 17,” is one of his best. It’s a searing satire, a sci-fi extravaganza and a deeply empathetic character study (it just so happens that the character keeps dying and being brought back to life). It has everything that makes his films so special, pumped up to 11 and full of quirky, idiosyncratic performances (led by a loony Robert Pattinson).

But where does it rank among his filmography? Read on to find out!

8. “Barking Dogs Never Bite” (2000)

When we say “Barking Dogs Never Bite” is director Bong’s worst movie, what we mean by that is that it is his least excellent movie. It is still terrific. And it’s fascinating to see a debut feature from a filmmaker that is so fully formed, so full of the nuance and detail that would define the rest of his career. In the movie, Lee Sung-jae plays an out-of-work professor who becomes obsessed with the barking dogs in his sprawling apartment complex, with Bae Doona (who would later become known by international audiences for her work with the Wachowskis) starring as a maintenance worker who attempts to solve the mystery of the missing dogs.

“Barking Dogs Never Bite” has an offbeat sense of humor that would become a trademark of his later films (it’s arguably the most overtly comedic of all of his films), but it also features scenes of unbelievable suspense. (There’s one in the apartment complex’s dingy basement that will have you on the edge of your seat.) It also includes his deeply empathetic attitude towards animals, another big element. If you have seen all of his other films but not his first, it’s worth revisiting or watching the first time. It’s definitely worth tracking down.

7. “Snowpiercer” (2013)

Again – it speaks to the quality of Bong’s filmography that the second-to-last movie on this list is the epic sci-fi triumph “Snowpiercer.” Based on a French comic book, which later inspired a long-running cable series of the same name, “Snowpiercer” is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth that, attempting to counteract the effects of global warming, attempts to cool the world. That attempt backfires (of course) and plunges the planet into a perpetual winter. The last remaining humans ride a train (the titular Snowpiercer), with the poorest people in the back of the train and the richest in the front. This is the class system Bong so despises, writ large.

The movie is a propulsive joy, even when it gets super dark, with Chris Evans leading the band of scrappy rebels as they fight their way to the engine room to gain control of the train. Evans is joined by fellow passengers played by a murderer’s row of talented character actors, including Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, John Hurt and Bong regular Song Kang-ho, while Tilda Swinton and Ed Harris represent the oily ruling elite. Bong’s first (mostly) English-language movie was an unqualified success, even as he found himself fighting with Harvey Weinstein about the final cut of the film. (He won out, but they decided to release the movie direct-to-digital, a unique strategy at the time.) “Snowpiercer” is a movie so full of ideas and social commentary and incredible set pieces – you can see how it inspired other media, although nothing came close to Bong’s perfect film.

6. “Mother” (2009)

Perhaps Bong’s most underrated film, “Mother” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it generated some buzz but nothing like what would accompany later films like “Parasite” or “Okja.” Kim Hye-ja, known in Korean for her cuddly performances, plays the mother of a mentally handicapped son (Won Bin) who is accused of killing a young girl in their village. Since this is a Bong Joon-ho movie, she decides to investigate the murder herself, in an effort to exonerate her son. She teams up with a small-time hood (and friend of her son) played by the irrepressible Jin Goo.

The mystery unfolds fantastically, culminating in a terrifically unexpected twist. But it’s not a movie that just means to shock – it’s a fascinating portrait of a mother and her son, the lengths we go to protect the ones that we love, and how structured police systems can sometimes do more harm than good, especially if you are part of the lower class. The less you know about the movie, the better, and considering how infrequently the film is talked about, there are plenty who haven’t seen this low-wattage gem. Oh, and it also features the best final shot of any of his movies – it, like the rest of “Mother,” is achingly beautiful and deeply profound.

5. “Okja” (2017)

The unlimited freedom and unilateral support offered by the streaming giant was enough to get Bong to make one movie for Netflix. But what a movie it is. “Okja,” based on an original idea by Bong (and written with British journalist Jon Ronson), could have been the director’s most straightforward film to date. Ostensibly, it’s a film about a young girl (Ahn Seo-hyun) who forms an emotional attachment with a nonhuman creature; in this case, the titular super-pig. And to be sure, there is a certain amount of Spielbergian wonder to both the relationship between the characters and the overall movie. But this being a Bong Joon-ho movie, there is also a fair amount of satire aimed at the witless corporate goons who created the pig (led by Tilda Swinton) and a subplot about a militant animal rights organization that makes them seem very cool and also very goofy at the same time. (Paul Dano, Lily Collins and Steven Yuen are members of the organization.) There’s also Jake Gyllenhaal in arguably his most deranged performance as a zoologist and former TV personality (think if Jack Hanna had a drinking problem and some mental issues).

Working with his largest budget to date, Bong was able to stage some of his most breathless and inventive set pieces, including a prolonged chase through Seoul (partially set to a John Denver song) and the climax, which cascades through the streets of New York City. Disturbing and hilarious, heartbreaking and exhilarating, “Okja” is one of the director’s finest – and most underrated – works. Stream it today (or pick up the deluxe Criterion edition). Please.

4. “Mickey 17” (2025)

Bong’s finest American film is also his biggest – a whirling, hellzapoppin’ $117 million sci-fi juggernaut overloaded with themes, ideas and visuals, outlandish and intimate in equal measure. Based on the 2022 novel by Edward Ashton, “Mickey 17” is set in the distant future, where a low-level grunt on a colonization mission (Robert Pattison) signs up to be an “expendable.” He’ll help figure out the planet for the colonization team (which is part of a larger corporate/spiritual organization) and in return he’ll be reprinted when he dies. (Cloning has been outlawed on earth but okayed in space.) After he’s left for dead and returns to the outpost, he finds that they have already cloned him – Mickey 17 and Mickey 18, alive at once!

While this is a fun, appropriately sci-fi-y idea that has been played with before (“Moon” anyone?), Bong takes the story in some truly unexpected places. The less we say the better! Just know that the filmmaker makes sure to touch on all of his obsessions – Capitalism run amok, the importance of indigenous (and animal) rights and how a well-plotted set piece is always welcome. With an all-star supporting cast (that includes Steven Yeun, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette and Naomi Ackie, who steals the show) and a script that will have you going from giggling uncontrollably to gently weeping (there are real emotional underpinnings to all the gonzo action), well, it’s just the best. “Mickey 17” is Bong to the max. We mean that in the best way possible. It’s so fun that this is how he spent the goodwill from “Parasite.” What a treasure.

3. “Parasite” (2019)

Bong broke through with 2019’s “Parasite,” which would win the Palme d’Or at Cannes before winning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. For those of us who had already been hooked on his gently surreal, sometimes quite barbed movies, it was like watching your favorite indie band start to get radio play – exhilarating and long overdue. With “Parasite,” Bong takes aim at the class disparity in Korea in the most entertaining way imaginable. The main characters in “Parasite” are a lower class family who live in a basement apartment that is constantly flooding (tellingly, a small window overlooks the street – they are subterranean, yearning for the real world) and take odd jobs like folding pizza boxes. Soon, they start to leech off a well-to-do family, tutoring one of the kids, driving the husband to work, and the like. They want to be the family, to raise their station in life. But, of course, that has some very dire consequences, particularly when they discover that another family is already living in the rich family’s sprawling estate.

Full of hilarious digressions, suspense set pieces and some genuinely shocking moments (you’ll never look at a backyard birthday party the same way again), all leading to one of the more melancholic final moments in Bong’s films. “Parasite” is a new classic, there is no doubt about it. It is so rich and so fun and so sad. And the fact that “Parasite” broke through to the mainstream was hugely important, not just for Bong but for South Korean cinema. It’s unlikely things like “Squid Game” would have taken hold in the West without it.

2. “The Host” (2006)

Leave it to Bong to make a “Godzilla”-style monster movie that is so empathetic and exciting, inspired by a real-life incident when, in 2000, a United States military contractor dumped 24 million gallons of formaldehyde into the Han river near Seoul. Bong wisely centers the movie on a lower class family (led by frequent collaborator Song Kang-ho) who own a small snack stand on the banks of the Han river. When the titular creature emerges from the river, it snatches up his young daughter (Go Ah-sung) and disappears with her. The family is first submerged in grief (“The Host” contains perhaps the all-time greatest grieving sequence) but then resolute – they will find the creature’s lair and rescue the young girl.

There are shades of a macabre fairy tale in “The Host,” which was inspired by Bong’s love of “Godzilla” and “Ultraman,” and went on to inspire J.J. Abrams’ “Cloverfield” and countless others. (At one point, it was the highest-grossing South Korean movie ever.) Everything about “The Host” is breathtaking – the design of the creature (modeled by Wētā Workshop and animated by the sadly defunct The Orphanage), the rawness of the emotion, the incredibly staged set pieces (the government cover-up goes far beyond the formaldehyde, as they look to detonate a gas bomb to kill the creature) and the melancholic, deeply satisfying ending which no American studio would ever, ever made. The Bong difference can be felt in every nook and cranny of “The Host,” a movie that, if any other filmmaker had made it, would have been too slick to last. (Both an Americanized remake and a Bong-free sequel were announced but thankfully never came to pass.) Instead, “The Host” is a modern-day favorite.  

1. “Memories of Murder” (2003)

Bong came into his own with his sophomore feature, an electric dramatization of the first confirmed serial murders in South Korea. Based on a 1996 play called “Come to See Me” and written with Shim Sung-bo (who would later direct the excellent, Bong-produced “Sea Fog”), the film is a murder mystery like no other. Inspired by classic detective fiction and things like David Fincher’s “Seven,” the movie takes place in 1986, when two women are found raped and murdered in a small country town. The local detectives are unequipped to handle it; they are basically keystone cops and fumble the investigation from the get-go. The bumbling lead detective (Bong regular Song Kang-ho) is paired with a slicker detective, who is sent from Seoul to assist (Kim Sang-kyung, who weirdly never returned to work with the director again). They are just as stumped, logjammed by inconclusive test results and a lack of concrete evidence or suspects.

The movie is haunting precisely because of the lack of answers, leading to an absolutely crushing coda (okay, maybe this is the second greatest ending shot of any Bong movie, after “Mother”). Deeply human and exciting, its stature has only risen in the years since its release. Quentin Tarantino named it (and “The Host”) among his favorite movies since 1992 (when Tarantino started making movies), Sight & Sound included it in their list of “30 key films that defined a decade” and in 2010 Film Comment had it on their best films of the decade list (again, “The Host” was also included). You’ll also hear filmmakers cite it more and more as inspiration, with the great David Fincher, whose film “Seven” served as a chief text for “Memories of Murder,” saying that it helped inspire his own masterpiece “Zodiac.” (In South Korea it inspired two television series and in India a Bollywood movie was based on the film.) A year after “Parasite” brought new heat to distributor Neon, Neon purchased the rights and Bong oversaw a new restoration (slightly controversial) and a release via the Criterion Collection. If the movie started life as a cult film, it has now become widely accepted. As it should be. It’s really that good.  

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