How Many Episodes Are in a Kdrama? 20 Dramas, Counted in Hours

Reply 1988 has 20 episodes and Alchemy of Souls has 30, yet they take about the same time to finish: Reply's episodes run 90 to 110 minutes and Alchemy's 60 to 70, which puts both past 30 hours. So how many episodes are in a kdrama? The traditional answer is 16, and 16 is still the most common count among the 20 dramas below. It is falling, though. The Korea Times reported in February 2025 that 12- and 10-episode seasons are replacing the 16-episode format, and in this table streaming originals go as low as six.

Every count and runtime here is from each drama's English Wikipedia infobox, checked against our own drama pages on October 3, 2026. Summertime has no Wikipedia article yet, so its runtime is from our Summertime page. Binge time is episodes multiplied by runtime, without specials or ad breaks. Where Wikipedia lists no runtime, the cell says so instead of guessing.

How many episodes are in a kdrama, drama by drama

Grouped by count, shortest first. Open a title for its cast and where it streams, or see our guide to where to watch K-dramas legally for the platforms themselves.

Drama	Aired	Episodes	Runtime	Binge time
8 episodes or fewer
Parasyte: The Grey	Netflix, 2024	6	43–61 min	4.3–6.1 h
Vigilante	Disney+, 2023	8	40–50 min	5.3–6.7 h
10 to 12 episodes
Summertime	wavve, 2026	10	20–25 min	3.3–4.2 h
Trigger	Netflix, 2025	10	37–61 min	6.2–10.2 h
Strangers from Hell	OCN, 2019	10	60 min	10 h
Business Proposal	SBS, 2022	12 (+1 special)	not listed (70-min time slot)	up to 14 h
All of Us Are Dead	Netflix, 2022	12	53–71 min	10.6–14.2 h
Happiness	tvN, 2021	12	70 min	14 h
14 to 16 episodes
The Judge from Hell	SBS, 2024	14	60–73 min	14–17 h
Oh My Ghost	tvN, 2015	16	60 min	16 h
Forecasting Love and Weather	JTBC, 2022	16	70 min	18.7 h
18 Again	JTBC, 2020	16	67–75 min	17.9–20 h
Family by Choice	JTBC, 2024	16	60–70 min	16–18.7 h
The Glory	Netflix, 2022–23	16 (2 parts)	47–72 min	12.5–19.2 h
Queen of Tears	tvN, 2024	16 (+2 specials)	80–90 min	21.3–24 h
20 episodes and up
Doctor Stranger	SBS, 2014	20	not listed	not listed
Reply 1988	tvN, 2015–16	20 (+1 special)	90–110 min	30–36.7 h
My Love from the Star	SBS, 2013–14	21 (+1 special)	60 min	21 h
365: Repeat the Year	MBC, 2020	24	35 min	14 h
Alchemy of Souls	tvN, 2022–23	30 (20 + 10)	60–70 min	30–35 h

The count behind the table

Split the 20 by premiere year and the shrinking shows up in plain numbers. The four dramas here that premiered from 2013 to 2015 average 19.3 episodes. The nine from 2019 to 2022 average 16.4. The seven from 2023 onward average 11.4, and none of them goes past 16. Split by where they premiered and the gap is wider: the six streaming originals on Netflix, Disney+ and wavve average 10.3 episodes, the 14 that aired on Korean TV channels 17.4 (Happiness, which ran on tvN and TVING, counts as TV). These are averages of this table, not of the industry, but they point the same way as The Korea Times.

The count is a poor guide to time, though. 365: Repeat the Year lists 24 episodes and takes 14 hours, the same as Happiness with 12. Reply 1988's 20 episodes can outlast Alchemy of Souls' 30. The quickest binge here is Summertime at 3.3 to 4.2 hours; the longest is Reply 1988 at up to 36.7. Four of these, Parasyte: The Grey, All of Us Are Dead, Strangers from Hell and Happiness, also sit on our Korean horror dramas scare ladder, if you would rather sort by nerve than by length.

From 24 episodes to 8: how the standard shrank

The miniseries format spread in the 1990s with 12 to 24 episodes, according to Wikipedia's history of the Korean drama. The Korea Times picks it up from there: dramas "would span 24 episodes before being reduced to 20 and eventually settling at 16." By early 2025, Motel California, Love Scout and The Queen Who Crowns were running 12 episodes, Good Girl Boo Semi 10, and Netflix's The Trauma Code eight. That last cut was deliberate: the paper reports The Trauma Code was planned as ten 60-minute episodes and released as eight 45-minute ones to tighten the pacing. Our Teach You a Lesson guide makes the same case for a ten-episode Netflix run in 2026.

The paper's reasons are viewers who have lost patience with slow pacing and filler, and streaming, where people watch episodes back to back. Wikipedia adds the industry's side: the turn to multi-season dramas is read as a result of Korea's 52-hour workweek, viewers tiring of long dramas and an oversupply of shows. Shorter runs cost money too. The Korea Times notes that production companies lose revenue, broadcasters lose ad income, and channels have to replace dramas in their schedules more often.

None of this applies to the daily dramas that air Monday to Friday in the 7 to 9 p.m. slots. Those follow a telenovela format and, per Wikipedia, rarely run past 150 episodes. The long end sits further back: MBC's Country Diaries aired for 22 years, from October 21, 1980 to December 29, 2002, and ran 1,088 episodes according to Korean Wikipedia. Collider calls it the longest-running K-drama of all time.

The episode counts people get wrong

Alchemy of Souls is 30 episodes, not 20. It aired on tvN in two parts: Part 1 ran 20 episodes from June 18 to August 28, 2022, and Part 2, Light and Shadow, added 10 from December 10, 2022 to January 8, 2023, per its Wikipedia article. A count of 20 is a count of Part 1.

The Glory is one 16-episode season that Netflix released in two parts, on December 30, 2022 and March 10, 2023. My Love from the Star was planned at 20 episodes and got a 21st because of viewer demand, per Wikipedia. 365: Repeat the Year lists 24 because MBC split what would have been 70-minute episodes into two 35-minute halves with a commercial break between them, two a night, as its Wikipedia article explains.

Specials are the other trap. Queen of Tears has two on top of its 16, Reply 1988 one on top of 20, My Love from the Star one on top of 21, and Korean Wikipedia lists one for Business Proposal. My Love from the Star's was a 70-minute recap of episodes 1 to 15. None of the specials is counted in the hours above.

Second seasons are the newer habit. Wikipedia cites The Penthouse, which ran three seasons across 2020 and 2021. In this table, Vigilante and The Judge from Hell both have a second season confirmed, and All of Us Are Dead finished filming its second on February 18, 2026, close to four years after it was renewed. While you wait on The Judge from Hell, our nine kdramas like The Judge from Hell are scored trait by trait.

Mina's Take

Count hours, not episodes. Happiness and 365: Repeat the Year look like a 12-episode show and a 24-episode one, and both are 14 hours. Once you do that math, the 16-episode norm stops looking sacred: 16 hour-long episodes is more than two weeks of evenings at one a night, and most romcoms run out of plot well before that. Business Proposal says everything it needs to in 12. The cuts can go too far, and six episodes is a sketch of a series rather than a season. The range I'd defend is 10 to 12 episodes of about an hour. The one drama I'd exempt from all of this is Reply 1988: up to 36 hours, and the length is the point.

K-drama episode count FAQ

How many episodes does a K-drama usually have?

Sixteen is the traditional standard, and it is the most common count in our 20-drama table. Newer shows often run 12 or 10, and streaming originals can be as short as six or eight.

How many episodes does Alchemy of Souls have?

Thirty, in two parts on tvN: 20 in Part 1 (June 18 to August 28, 2022) and 10 in Part 2, Light and Shadow (December 10, 2022 to January 8, 2023).

Why are K-dramas only 16 episodes?

Sixteen is where the miniseries settled after shrinking from 24 and then 20 episodes, according to The Korea Times. Dramas usually air two nights a week, so 16 episodes fill eight weeks.

Why do new K-dramas have 12 or fewer episodes?

The Korea Times points to viewers who want faster pacing and less filler, and to streaming, where people watch back to back. Wikipedia adds the 52-hour workweek and an oversupply of dramas as reasons behind the shift to seasons.

How long does it take to binge a K-drama?

A 16-episode drama with hour-long episodes takes about 16 hours. In our table the range runs from 3.3 hours for Summertime to as much as 36.7 for Reply 1988, so multiply episodes by runtime before you start.

What is the longest K-drama?

By years on air, MBC's Country Diaries, which ran from 1980 to 2002 and 1,088 episodes per Korean Wikipedia; Collider calls it the longest-running K-drama of all time. In our table, Alchemy of Souls has the most episodes at 30.

Do K-dramas have a season 2?

More of them do now. Wikipedia describes the season system as a change in the industry, tied to the 52-hour workweek. Vigilante and The Judge from Hell both have second seasons confirmed, and All of Us Are Dead finished filming its second in February 2026.