10 Best Movies Set in or About North Korea

10 Movies Set in or About North Korea

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on North Korea.

1. 

   1. Joint Security Area

   공동경비구역 JSA · 2000

   After a deadly shooting at the tense border between North and South Korea, a neutral investigator pieces together conflicting accounts and uncovers a secret friendship that crossed the divide. Park Chan-wook's gripping, humane thriller.

2. 

   2. The Spy Gone North

   공작 · 2018

   In the 1990s, a South Korean intelligence agent goes deep undercover posing as a businessman to infiltrate the North Korean elite and uncover their nuclear secrets, a years-long masquerade of nerve and moral ambiguity. A gripping espionage drama based on true events.

3. 

   3. A State of Mind

   2004

   This documentary follows two young North Korean gymnasts and their families over months of training for the mass games, offering a rare, intimate glimpse inside the secretive nation's daily life. An eye-opening portrait.

4. 

   4. Team America: World Police

   2004

   A gung-ho paramilitary squad — performed entirely by marionettes — races to stop North Korea's Kim Jong-il from arming terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. Trey Parker and Matt Stone's outrageous puppet satire.

5. 

   5. The Propaganda Game

   2015

   Granted rare access, a filmmaker tours North Korea guided by a Spanish-born spokesman for the regime, probing the blurry line between the country's carefully staged image and the outside world's own assumptions. A provocative documentary.

6. 

   6. All the Dictator's Men

   Corée du Nord : les hommes du dictateur · 2017

   This documentary investigates how North Korea, under crippling sanctions and isolation, managed to quietly build a nuclear arsenal, tracing the shadowy networks and figures behind the program. A revealing geopolitical inquiry.

7. 

   7. Welcome to North Korea!

   Vítejte v KLDR! · 2009

   This documentary follows a group of Czech tourists on a tightly controlled package tour through North Korea, capturing the surreal, stage-managed spectacle of the world's most closed country. A wry, unsettling travelogue.

8. 

   8. The Interview

   2014

   When a vapid celebrity talk-show host and his producer land an interview with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, the CIA recruits them to assassinate him, with disastrous, farcical results. A raunchy political comedy.

9. 

   9. Die Another Day

   2002

   James Bond, betrayed and imprisoned in North Korea, breaks free and follows a trail of diamonds and a rogue tycoon to uncover a plot involving a devastating orbital weapon. A globe-trotting entry in the 007 series.

10. 

    10. Take Point

    PMC: 더 벙커 · 2018

    In 2024, a team of elite mercenaries on a covert CIA mission to snatch a North Korean official from a bunker beneath the DMZ finds itself trapped when the operation spirals into a geopolitical crisis. A tense, contained action thriller.