Top K-Dramas of 2024 According to 200 Industry Insiders — ‘Queen of Tears’ vs ‘Lovely Runner’

Joy News 24 recently published survey results for the Top Dramas of 2024, where “Lovely Runner” and “Queen of Tears” are tied for the overall winner in “Drama of the Year.”

It surveyed a panel of 200 entertainment and broadcasting experts, producers, and reporters from September to October.

“Lovely Runner,” starring Byun Woo-seok, and “Queen of Tears,” starring Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won, tied in first place with 60 votes each.

Set to be a 2023 time-slip romance drama directed by Yoon Jong-ho, Lovely Runner tells the story of Ryu Seon-Jae (Byun Woo-seok), a top artist whose life ends up going through upheaval after he meets someone.

Coming from the expectations it had in the beginning, the show was a huge hit, hitting over 50% viewership among the MZ generation on multiple platforms.

CJ ENM channel business division director Park Sang-hyeok explained that while the drama is achieving high ratings overall among women in their 20s, it has also gained a higher viewership rating through buzz created by topicality.

Queen of Tears, meanwhile, has also received praise for its premise, which focuses on a married couple going through a major crisis. The series broke multiple ratings records, with the finale receiving 24.9%, and went on to become the highest-rated TVN drama of all time.

Aside from terrestrial dramas, we have Jang Na-ra of “Good Partner” making solid strides this year with an overall rating of 17.7%. It received 19 votes to make it the most-voted drama for the second half of 2024.

This legal drama about the wavy waves of life and its moral dilemmas has a polished cast led by Jang Na-ra, playing top lawyer Cha Eun-kyung, who pursues divorce cases no one dares to touch.

Ji Sung felt a lot of love for the Connection, which was in fourth place with eight votes, while Netflix’s Whirlwind also gained positive reviews with eight votes each.

Both “Snow White Must Die” and the “Korea-Khitan War” were tied for fifth, with seven votes each. The cool thing is that both series are based on novels.

The former is an MBC title that adapted German mystery crime novelist Nele Neuhaus’s 2010 international bestseller Snow White Must Die.

The latter is a historical dramedy based on Gil Seung Soo’s 2018 South Korean Novel “Goryeo–Khitan War: Sweet Rain in Winter,” and aired on KBS2.

In addition to these above K-Dramas: Pachniko 2, The Judge from Hell, A Killer Paradox, The Pyramid Game, Love Next Door and No Gain No Love also received high scores in the survey.