8 bittersweet high school K-dramas and movies that will break your heart (and heal it too)

Released in late 2025, this bittersweet high school Korean film found new life—and a wider audience—when it dropped on Netflix earlier this year. Adapted from a Japanese novel and remade from the Japanese film of the same name, it stars breakout actor Choo Young-woo—fresh off the back-to-back success of The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call and Head Over Heels—alongside Resident Playbook’s Shin Shi-ah.

The two play Kim Jae-won and Han Seo-yoon, high school students each harbouring a heartbreaking secret. Seo-yoon lives with anterograde amnesia, losing her short-term memories every time she falls asleep, while Jae-won quietly battles a congenital heart condition.

Against all odds—and the rules Seo-yoon sets when they begin dating—the pair fall in love. Determined to give her something to hold onto, Jae-won devotes each day to creating new, joyful memories. But then the unthinkable happens, and audiences are left to ponder: can love survive in the absence of memory?

See more: 10 must-watch TV shows with Choo Young Woo before the release of ‘Love Doctor’

Kim You-jung of Love in the Moonlight, My Demon and Dear X fame, and Byeon Woo-seok, star of the global K-drama hit Lovely Runner, star as Na Bo-ra and Poong Woon-ho in this bittersweet high school romance set in the late ‘90s. The Netflix original film perfectly taps into the nostalgia of the era—with VHS tapes, pagers and phone booths—and captures the highs of first love.

Bo-ra and Woon-ho’s courtship is sweet and innocent, defined by clumsy hand-holding, chaste kisses and grand confessions. But when one tearful goodbye leads to a broken promise, Bo-ra is left wondering what went wrong for years. Leaning more toward the “bitter” side of bittersweet, the film builds toward a gut-wrenching twist that is sure to break your heart.

Time-slip meets soul-swap meets bittersweet romance in this K-drama remake of the Taiwanese series Some Day or One Day. It stars Ahn Hyo-seop—fresh from his 2026 Oscars debut and set to headline the upcoming Netflix rom-com Sold Out on You—alongside Jeon Yeo-been. The two play dual roles as Gu Yeon-jun/Nam Si-heon and Han Jun-hui/Gwon Min-ju, star-crossed lovers who jump through time to defy fate and be together.

When the consequences of the time loop force them to choose between life and love, sacrifices have to be made. To keep each other safe, they must fix the timeline, but it comes at a steep cost—they will lose their memories of each other.

The drama ends on a hopeful note, though. In the final scene, new timeline versions of Si-heon and Jun-hui meet again, hinting at the possibility that they might still get their happy ending.

Like 20th Century Girl, Twenty Five Twenty One is set in the late ‘90s and is full of throwbacks to the era—from fashion and analogue tech to pre-social media friendships. The coming-of-age rom-com stars Kim Tae-ri as Na Hee-do, a bright and cheerful high school fencing athlete determined to make it into the national team, and Nam Joo-hyuk as Baek Yi-jin, a quiet, introspective young man whose life is upended by the 1997 IMF Crisis.

Despite the obvious differences in their personalities and the considerable age gap, the two form an unlikely friendship that blooms into romance when they reconnect as adults. They become each other’s lifeline, providing love, comfort and support.

But this won’t be a bittersweet K-drama without the bitter. Fans may have plenty to say about the controversial ending, but Twenty Five Twenty One is a reminder that, even in K-dramas, some first loves are only meant to shape us, not last.

If you’re a fan of the quiet intimacy of Still Shining, look no further than director Kim Yoon-jin’s earlier masterpiece, Our Beloved Summer. In this bittersweet high school K-drama, Choi Woo-shik and Kim Da-mi, co-stars of The Witch: Part 1 - The Subversion, reunite as Choi Ung and Kook Yeon-soo.

Already locked in an adversarial dynamic, the two are dismayed when they’re chosen for a documentary that follows the daily lives of the school’s top- and bottom-ranked students. K-drama rules, however, dictate that all that bickering leads to romance, and eventually the two fall in love. They stay together until university, when the differences in their circumstances drive them apart.

Years later, their little documentary goes viral, calling for a “Where are they now?” sequel from viewers curious to see where they ended up. Now adults, the two meet again and are forced to confront their messy history.

If you’ve already got your box of tissues out for the ending, put it away. Unlike some of the K-dramas on this list, Our Beloved Summer’s ending is sweeter than bitter.

Before Weak Hero Class 2 brought them back together, Ryeoun and Choi Hyun-wook starred alongside Business Proposal’s Seol In-a and Lightshop’s Shin Eun-soo in the bittersweet high school K-drama Twinkling Watermelon.

In the series, Eun-gyeol (Ryeoun), a hearing child of deaf parents (CODA), travels back in time to 1995, where he meets the teenage version of his father, Ha Yi-chan (played by Choi Hyun-wook), and bonds with him by playing in the band Watermelon Sugar together. Armed with the power to change the future, Eun-gyeol becomes particularly invested in preventing the accident that led to his father’s hearing loss—and to make sure that Yi-chan falls for his mother, Yoon Chung-a (Shin Eun-soo).

Through his time-travelling adventures, Eun-gyeol goes on a journey of self-discovery. While he comes back to a happier present timeline thanks to his efforts, he learns to embrace the things he cannot change and understands that, more often than not, happiness comes at a price.

Eaten up with grief over the death of her high school friend and first love, Kim Ram-woo (Gong Myung from Netflix’s Love Untangled), Jung Hee-wan (Pachinko’s breakout star Kim Min-ha) has all but given up on life.

Then one day, Ram-woo shows up on her doorstep. He has returned as the grim reaper to tell her that she only has a week left to live. Rather than dwell on her impending death, the two spend her final days ticking off items on her bucket list—small, meaningful moments that slowly bring Hee-wan back to life.

At the end of their week together, Hee-wan spirals over the thought of losing Ram-woo all over again. But this time, she is no longer alone. With a renewed sense of purpose and a support system around her, she chooses to keep living—holding on to the belief that he lives on through the memories she carries forward.

Bittersweet high school K-dramas and movies continue to resonate because they capture the intensity of first love—its fleeting joy, its inevitable heartbreak and the way it shapes who we become. Whether you’re revisiting a favourite or discovering a new tearjerker, these stories are a reminder that growing up rarely comes with neat endings—but that’s what makes them unforgettable.

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