5 K-Dramas to Watch If You Loved Crash Landing on You

Crash Landing on You did something specific. It paired a love story with stakes large enough that you couldn’t quite relax — the kind of romance where you’re rooting for the couple and dreading every plot reveal at the same time. If that combination is what got you, here are five K-dramas worth your next binge. None of them are direct copies. Each one earns the comparison differently.

1. Goblin (도깨비)

If you liked CLOY’s mix of impossible meet-cute and a relationship that shouldn’t logically work, Goblin is the obvious next stop. A 939-year-old immortal who needs a specific human bride to end his existence. A grim reaper who can’t remember his own past. It sounds absurd on paper. The execution makes it land. The cinematography alone — every shot composed like a still — would be worth it. The plot delivers on top of that.

2. Itaewon Class (이태원 클라쓰)

Less of a romance and more of an ensemble revenge story, but the slow-build emotional payoff is similar. A young man opens a bar in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood as part of a long plan against a powerful family. The romance subplot is restrained in a way that may feel familiar to CLOY fans: the characters spend most of the show being almost-together rather than together. When the show lets them resolve, the wait was worth it.

3. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (갯마을 차차차)

The opposite vibe — small coastal town instead of cross-border espionage — but the same emotional core. A high-strung Seoul dentist relocates to a seaside village and slowly, against her every instinct, builds a life there. The romance unfolds through specific, almost domestic moments rather than big cliffhangers. If you want CLOY’s romantic register without the war-zone tension, this is it.

4. Vincenzo (빈센조)

A Korean lawyer raised in Italy comes home as a consigliere for the Italian mafia and gets pulled into a complicated revenge plot. Sounds nothing like CLOY. But the central romantic dynamic — two people whose actual job descriptions should keep them apart, pretending they are professionals — is structurally similar. The chemistry between the leads is the kind that makes you start watching the next episode immediately.

5. Mr. Sunshine (미스터 션샤인)

Slower, sadder, and the most historically heavy of these recommendations. Set in early-1900s Korea, it follows a Korean-born American officer returning to a country he barely remembers. The romance is impossible from chapter one and the show is honest about that. If CLOY’s sense of stakes — the feeling that everything could go wrong in the most basic way — was what hooked you, Mr. Sunshine is the same kind of show, written for adults willing to sit with grief.

A note on order: if you’ve never watched a K-drama before, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is the gentlest landing. If you want maximum CLOY-style emotional stakes, jump straight to Goblin. Either way, set aside your weekend — none of these are easy to stop mid-episode.