Hong Sang-soo

Director

October 25, 1960 (65 years)

Seoul, South Korea

Biography

Hong Sang-soo (born October 25, 1960) is a South Korean writer-director. He has directed 33 films as of 2025. Certain elements are commonly found in Hong's films. A typical Hong film highlights a theme of domestic realism with many of the scenes set on residential streets, cafes, hotels, schools, and in the stairwells of apartment buildings. Characters are seen walking around the city, drinking soju, and having sex. The main characters are often movie directors or actors, and scenes typically c…

Filmography

6.6

On the Beach at Night Alone

In a foreign city, an actress wanders through a seaside town, reflecting on her relationship with a married man. How important is love in one’s life? Younghee wants to find out.

7.0

Right Now, Wrong Then

By mistake, film director Ham Chunsu arrives in Suwon a day early. With time to kill before his lecture the next day, Chunsu stops by a restored, old palace and meets an artist named Yoon Heejung. Together, they go to Heejung's workshop to look at her paintings, have Sushi with Soju for dinner, and get close. Later, they go to another café and have more drinks with Heejung's acquaintances. When asked if he is married, Chunsu is forced to reveal the fact that he is, and Heejung gets deeply disappointed...

6.6

The Woman Who Ran

While her husband is on a business trip, Gamhee meets three of her friends. She visits the first two at their homes, and the third she encounters by chance at a theater. While they make friendly conversation, as always, several currents flow independently above and below the surface of the sea.

6.1

Woman Is the Future of Man

As the first snow falls in Seoul, two old friends reunite; one is a successful college professor, and the other, a struggling filmmaker recently returned from the United States. After their reminiscences, they finally decide to go in search of the young woman each had romanced years earlier.

5.1

Venice 70: Future Reloaded

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

6.5

A Traveler's Needs

Iris, a woman abroad in Seoul, teaches French and English in an idiosyncratic fashion that allows her to pursue her own philosophical and personal interests. Through four encounters over a single day, Iris probes students and strangers for information about poetry, their own histories, and their relationship to their egos.

N/A

The Day She Returns

She has just finished the shoot of an independent film and now has to give three interviews about it. Afterwards, in her acting class, her teacher asks her to reenact the interviews. But for some reason, she is unable to remember them.

5.8

Like You Know It All

A South Korean art house film director is first invited to serve on the panel of a film festival, then to guest lecture at a film school.

6.7

On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate

After being rejected for a film role, a stage actor leaves Seoul to visit a friend and, in his travels, winds up getting involved with two women.

6.1

In Another Country

A young woman and her mother run away to the seaside town of Mohang to escape their mounting debt. The young woman begins writing a script for a short film in order to calm her nerves: There are three women named Anne, and each woman consecutively visits the seaside town of Mohang. A young woman tends to the small hotel by the Mohang foreshore owned by her parents. A certain lifeguard can be seen restlessly wandering up and down the beach that lies nearby. Each Anne stays at this small hotel, receives some assistance from the owner's daughter, and ventures onto the beach where they meet the lifeguard.

7.0

Night and Day

Kim Seong-nam travels to Paris to escape an arrest, leaving his wife behind in Korea. After he arrives, he meets an ex-girlfriend and is introduced to a small community of Korean artists.

6.5

Nobody's Daughter Haewon

Facing her mother’s departure and the weight of a secret affair with her professor, college student Haewon drifts through a series of encounters and dreams, blurring the lines between her desires and reality.

6.4

Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors

When filmmaker Young-soo introduces writer Soo-jung to his friend Jae-hoon, he unintentionally creates a love triangle. While Jae-hoon pursues Soo-jung, Young-soo clashes with his crew. Yet, just as the story appears to end, it starts all over again, this time with plenty of variations.

5.8

List

While waiting at a seaside town with her mother for a relative, a young woman creates a list of things she wants to do during her time there.

6.4

The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well

The lives of 4 interconnected South Koreans – a married couple, a novelist the wife is having an affair with, and a second woman the novelist is simultaneously involved with.

6.8

Tale of Cinema

In Seoul, a suicidal student meets a young woman who decides to join him in his fatal gesture. Dongsoo, an unsuccessful filmmaker, spots a beautiful young woman, who happens to be the lead actress in the film he has just seen. Their stories will cross paths thanks to their love for cinema.

6.5

The Novelist's Film

A novelist visits a bookstore run by a young colleague who's been out of touch, then takes a walk with a film director and his wife. She meets an actress and tries to convince her to make a film together.

6.3

Ha Ha Ha

Over drinks, two friends agree to swap fond memories of their recent trips to the same seaside town. As the stories unfold in flashback, it becomes evident their accounts take place at the same time and with the same people.

6.6

Hill of Freedom

Kwon returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori, who has come back from Japan to propose to her. Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology.

6.9

The Day He Arrives

A film director who no longer makes films arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, he wanders the city aimlessly for three days, grabbing drinks and meeting women, with each day playing out like a version of the last.