A Heartbreaking 2025 K-Drama Has Entered IMDb's Top 250 List

There are plenty of recognizable television shows among IMDb's top 250 list. AMC's "Breaking Bad" tops the list, and others like "The Sopranos," "Avatar: The Last Airbender," "Game of Thrones," "Friends," and "South Park" probably don't come as a surprise as members of the top 100. However, one of the best and most heartbreaking K-dramas of the year is also in the top 100: Netflix's "When Life Gives You Tangerines."

The 2025 series follows the story of a young woman, Oh Ae-sun (IU), as she decides to leave the man she's supposed to marry and be with the one she truly loves, Yang Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum), with whom she starts a family. What follows is their daughter, Yang Geum-yeong (IU), narrating their lives across the decades, including the life of the man who Ae-sun almost married. Audiences follow the family through the years, right up to one of their deaths, watching as they grow — not only with each other but also in the context of the changing South Korean state of the late 20th century.

While "When Life Gives You Tangerines" is considered a slice-of-life drama, it is so much more than that. It's a story showing how life changed for families after the war in Korea. That history is imbued within the series, and it's not often shown in K-dramas. You have to be a bit familiar with it to catch it, but when you do, it makes the show amazing.

In addition to weaving in the historical nuances, "When Life Gives You Tangerines" focuses on an immensely simple concept: you will feel everything in life the same way, no matter how old you are. This is not something we may think about, as we often associate older age with a greater ease in handling what life can throw at you. The Korean drama shows how that's not true in the purest way. Time describes this idea, which Ae-sun explained to her daughter, as "devastatingly profound." 

Ae-sun's comment, "Getting old is nothing special. You feel the same on the inside, but when you look in the mirror, you see an old woman. That's all aging is" hints that all that changes in life is your appearance. How you handle something, how you feel about it — none of that ever changes. This important message, combined with the beauty of showing a couple's experiences together over their lifetimes, makes "When Life Gives You Tangerines" one of the most heartbreaking and exciting shows of the year.