In 2011, I was foolish enough to think I could catch-up to all of Hong Sang-soo's films. I had that crazy belief after I saw 3 of his newest films in cinemas in 2010. However, I didn’t anticipate the prolific output of Hong Sang-soo where he went from a single film per year to as many as 3 in 2017 and multiple 2 films per year outputs (2018, 2021, 2022, 2023). As of Mar 2024, these are the 31 directed features to his name (not including shorts):
1. The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well (1996)
2. The Power of Kangwon Province (1998)
3. Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000)
4. On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate (2002)
5. Woman Is the Future of Man (2004)
6. Tale of Cinema (2005)
7. Woman on the Beach (2006)
8. Night and Day (2008)
9. Like You Know It All (2009)
10. Hahaha (2010)
11. Oki’s Movie (2010)
12. The Day He Arrives (2011)
13. In Another Country (2012)
14. Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013)
15. Our Sunhi (2013)
16. Hill of Freedom (2014)
17. Right Now, Wrong Then (2015)
18. Yourself and Yours (2016)
19. On the Beach at Night Alone (2017)
20. Claire’s Camera (2017)
21. The Day After (2017)
22. Grass (2018)
23. Hotel by the River (2018)
24. The Woman Who Ran (2020)
25. Introduction (2021)
26. In Front of Your Face (2021)
27. The Novelist’s Film (2022)
28. Walk Up (2022)
29. In Water (2023)
30. In Our Day (2023)
31. A Traveler’s Needs (2024)
In 2011, I had seen 5 of his 12 features to-date so I was 7 films behind. Now, I have seen 24/31 of his features so the gap is still amazingly at 7. One reason why this gap exists is because his films are not easily available via legal means. No single streaming service or traditional Blu-Ray/DVD distributor holds all the rights to his movies. Not attending film festivals also restricts my ability to view his new films. So in a sense, I will always be a few years behind in seeing his films and if his output remains at 2-3 films per year, chances are that gap will always stay at 5-7 films if not more.
Still, I am determined to close the gap after drawing inspiration from reading Dennis Lim’s excellent book on Hong Sang-soo’s Tale of Cinema. Lim uses that singular film as a basis to examine the various themes and styles found in Hong’s cinema. I will expand on some of these aspects in a future entry but for now, I want to list my Top 10 Hong Sang-soo films to place a marker to examine his future films against.
Top 10 Hong Sang-soo films
1. Right Now, Wrong Then (2015)
2. The Day He Arrives (2011)
3. Tale of Cinema (2005)
4. Like You Know It All (2009)
5. The Day After (2017)
6. In Front of Your Face (2021)
7. Woman Is the Future of Man (2004)
8. On the Beach at Night Alone (2017)
9. Night and Day (2008)
10. In Another Country (2012)
