10 SHOWS AND MOVIES LIKE SQUID GAME TO WATCH WHILE YOU WAIT FOR SEASON 2.

10 Shows and Movies Like Squid Game to Watch While You Wait for Season 2.#netflix #kdrama #squidgame
Pass the time until the next round of Squid Game with these thrillers

The dystopian thriller Squid Game surprised everyone, even Netflix executives, by becoming the biggest TV hit of 2021 and Netflix's most popular show ever. But the South Korean series' tense setpieces, relevant themes of class conflict, and distinctive visual style connected with viewers all over the world. It's been about six months since Squid Game premiered, and unfortunately, we still have no idea when Season 2 will arrive on Netflix.

While we wait for Squid Game Season 2, check out these other series, many of which hail from Korea and other parts of Asia, feature high-stakes games with major consequences, or are bleak tales of morality. Here are more shows and movies like Squid Game to watch next. 

1. All of Us Are Dead
Some of South Korea's biggest global hits have been stories about the undead, and Netflix's All of Us Are Dead is one of the biggest of them all. It's Netflix's third-most-popular series not in English ever. The jolting thriller about a zombie virus outbreak at a high school follows students as they desperately fight against flesh-eating monsters — some of whom had been their human friends just minutes before. The series stars Yoon Chan-young, Park Ji-hu, Park Solomon, Cho Yi-hyun, and Lee Yoo-mi, who you may recognize from her role as Squid Game's best supporting character, the self-sacrificing Player 240. All of Us Are Dead, which is based on the webtoon Now at Our School, is a fresh take on the zombie genre with its centering of teen characters and its setting that transforms ordinary classrooms into vicious battlegrounds. 

2. Hellbound
If Squid Game was your first Korean drama, then be sure to give the new Netflix thriller Hellbound a whirl to see what else Korean TV producers do best. The series, created and directed by Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho and based on his webtoon Hell, mixes horror with morality superbly, just as Squid Game mixes thrills with morality. When angels begin to descend upon Earth to let sinners know when they will die and that they're being taken to hell via a trio of smoking creatures who beat the victims to a bloody pulp before frying them, the rest of the world begins to take notice, especially a religious cult who see this as God's answer to our growing ambivalence of right and wrong. 

3. Dr. Brain
For the next level of Korean dramas, be sure to check out Dr. Brain, a psychological sci-fi thriller that debuted on Apple TV+ in November 2021. The drama is about a brain scientist who devises a way to transfer memories from one person to the other, with his goal being to investigate a family tragedy. 

4. Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor
It's possible that the creators of Squid Game watched the anime Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor and decided to make a live-action series based on it, because the similarities are uncanny. Its lead is a man in debt who's offered the opportunity of a lifetime to compete in a series of games with others who are in the red to pay off what he owes.

5. Alice in Borderland
If you simplify Squid Game down to "you play and win a game OR YOU DIE!," then the Japanese Netflix series Alice in Borderland is the perfect follow-up. It follows a video game enthusiast and his two friends who mysteriously find themselves in a parallel Tokyo where they're forced to play various games to survive. 

6. #Alive
If you enjoyed the rare glimpses of humanity in Squid Game between Seong Gi-hun (no. 456) and Oh Il-nam (no. 001), you'll probably enjoy Netflix's #Alive, a Korean zombie thriller about a young man who locks himself in his apartment during a zombie apocalypse. Amidst the carnage and chaos, he discovers another survivor not too far away whom he bonds with. Sure, it has nothing to do with games or winning money, but it does share Squid Game's focus on survival and morality.

7. Sweet Home
Need more of that dark, bonkers Korean drama energy that Squid Game has? Strap in and fire up Sweet Home, a fantasy horror series about a group of people locked inside an apartment complex while the world turns into monsters — monsters that reflect their inner demons — all around them. There are no shady corporations pulling strings on games, but like Squid Game, there's good interpersonal drama when there's not insane action. (Also, there are monster fights. Everyone loves monster fights.)

8. Battle Royale
The 2000 Japanese film is set in a time when a totalitarian government takes very extreme measures to curb juvenile delinquency: a high school class is taken to an island where they're told to kill each other until one person is left alive. It doesn't sound like that great of a plan, but it is that great of a movie.

9. The Purge
There are no games of life and death to be played in USA Network's The Purge, but if they did happen, they wouldn't be illegal! The series, based on the movie franchise, posits what would happen if nothing was illegal for a night (or various other amounts of time, like FOREVER), and the answer is insanity.

10. 3%

Adults shouldn't have all the fun in competing against each other for prosperity. The Brazilian young adult series 3% is set during the reign of a — say it with me — totalitarian government in which 20-year-olds have one chance to escape living in poverty and live among the rich and happy on an island paradise. But to do so, they have to be approved of while going through "the Process," a series of tests designed to evaluate the candidate's worth.
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