''Parasite'' () is a 2019 South Korean
black comedy
Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...
directed by
Bong Joon Ho, who co-wrote the film with
Han Jin-won. The film, starring
Song Kang-ho,
Lee Sun-kyun,
Cho Yeo-jeong,
Choi Woo-shik
Choi Woo-shik (; born March 26, 1990) is a Canadian actor based in South Korea. He first gained recognition for starring in the film ''Set Me Free (2014 film), Set Me Free'' (2014) and the Korean drama, television series ''Hogu's Love'' (2015) ...
,
Park So-dam,
Jang Hye-jin,
Park Myung-hoon, and
Lee Jung-eun, follows a poor family who infiltrate the life of a wealthy family.
The script is based on a play Bong wrote in 2013. He later adapted it into a 15-page film draft, and Han split it into three different drafts. Bong said he was inspired by the 1960 Korean film ''
The Housemaid'' and by the
Christine and Léa Papin incident in the 1930s. Filming began in May 2018 and finished that September. The project included cinematographer
Hong Kyung-pyo, film editor
Yang Jin-mo, and composer
Jung Jae-il.
''Parasite'' premiered at the
2019 Cannes Film Festival
The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president for the main competition. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho won the , the festival's top prize, fo ...
on 21 May 2019, where it became the first Korean film to win its top prize, the
Palme d'Or. It was released in South Korea by
CJ Entertainment on 30 May, and was praised for Bong's direction and screenplay, and also for its editing, production design, and the performances of the cast. It grossed $258 million worldwide on an $11.4 million budget.
Among its
numerous accolades, ''Parasite'' won the
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards (also known as Oscars) presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film a ...
at the
92nd Academy Awards, becoming the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It won an additional three Oscars, for
Best Director,
Best Original Screenplay, and
Best International Feature Film. It is the first South Korean film to receive any Academy Award recognition, and one of only four films overall to win both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Picture, the first such achievement in over 60 years. It won the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the
BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and became the first non-English-language film to win the
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. ''Parasite'' was ranked in the Sight and Sound poll of 2022 as the 90th
best film of all time.
As of February 2025, a HBO limited television series based on the film is in early development.
[
]
Plot
Kim Ki-taek and Chung-sook live in a semi-basement flat () in Seoul with their daughter Ki-jung and son Ki-woo. As the family has financial struggles and low-income jobs, family friend Min-hyuk gives them a scholar's rock meant to promise wealth. Leaving to study abroad, he suggests that Ki-woo lie about his qualifications to take over Min-hyuk's job as an English tutor for Da-hye, the daughter of the wealthy but naïve Park family. Min-hyuk trusts Ki-woo because he likes Da-hye and wants to ask her out when he returns. After Ki-jung helps forge a certificate for him, Ki-woo, posing as a Yonsei University student named "Kevin", goes to the Park's home. The mother explains how fond they are of Min and that Ki-woo needs to be up to his standard. She then asks to sit in on Da-hye's first lesson, and he is hired.
The Kims scheme to secure jobs for each family member within the Park household while concealing their true identities. Ki-woo recommends "Jessica," actually Ki-jung, as an art therapist for the Parks' young son, Da-song, who has been traumatised after seeing a "ghost" in their kitchen. Ki-jung then frames Yoon, the Parks' chauffeur, by making it appear as though he had a sexual encounter in the car, leading to Ki-taek being hired as his replacement. The Kims exploit the peach
The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and Agriculture, cultivated in China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and the glossy-skinned, non-fuzzy varieties called necta ...
allergy of the Parks' longtime housekeeper, Moon-gwang, to convince Mrs Park that Moon-gwang has tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
, and Chung-sook is hired as her replacement. Meanwhile, Ki-woo begins a secret romantic relationship with Da-hye.
While the Parks are away on a camping trip, the Kims revel in the luxuries of the house. Moon-gwang appears at the door, claiming to have forgotten something in the basement. She goes through a hidden entrance to an underground bunker created by the house's architect and previous owner, who had kept its existence secret from the Parks. There, Moon-gwang's husband, Geun-sae, has been hiding from loan sharks and is revealed to be the "ghost" Da-song saw when he was trying to leave the bunker to steal food. Moon-gwang begs Chung-sook to allow Geun-sae to continue living there in exchange for regular payments, but the three other Kims, who are eavesdropping, accidentally reveal their true identities. Moon-gwang films them and threatens to expose their deception to the Parks.
After the Parks call to inform the Kims that they are returning early due to a sudden severe rainstorm, the Kims quickly destroy all evidence of their ruse and subdue Moon-gwang and Geun-sae in the bunker, although Moon-gwang is injured during the struggle. The Kims manage to escape, but the torrential rain floods their flat with sewage water, forcing them to take shelter in a gymnasium alongside other displaced people.
The next day, Mrs Park organises an impromptu garden party for Da-song's birthday, with the elder Kims assisting while the younger Kims are invited as guests. Ki-woo enters the bunker with his scholar's rock, intending to kill Geun-sae and Moon-gwang. Moon-gwang is already dead from injuries sustained in the previous day's brawl; Geun-sae bludgeons Ki-woo with the rock, leaving him unconscious. Geun-sae then leaves the bunker and stabs Ki-jung with a kitchen knife in front of horrified party guests. Da-song suffers a seizure upon seeing the "ghost" again. Chung-sook impales Geun-sae with a barbecue skewer after a struggle. While Ki-taek tends to Ki-jung, Mr Park orders him to drive Da-song to the hospital. Ki-taek, momentarily enraged by Mr Park's lack of empathy, stabs him with Geun-sae's knife and flees.
Weeks later, Ki-woo is recovering from brain surgery, and he and Chung-sook have been convicted of fraud and placed on probation. Ki-jung has died from her injuries, and Ki-taek – now a wanted fugitive – has disappeared. Geun-sae is presumed to have been a random homeless man, and the motives for the murders remain unsolved. Ki-woo spies on the Parks' former home, now owned by a foreign family, and notices a Morse code
Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...
message in a light visible from outside. Ki-taek, hiding in the bunker, has buried Moon-gwang in the garden and sends daily messages, hoping Ki-woo will see them. Still living in their semi-basement flat with his mother, Ki-woo writes a letter to Ki-taek, vowing to earn enough money one day to buy the house and free him.
Cast
* Song Kang-ho as Kim Ki-taek (), the Kim family father who is hired as Park Dong-ik's chauffeur
* Lee Sun-kyun as Park Dong-ik (), the Park family father
* Cho Yeo-jeong as Choi Yeon-gyo (), the Park mother
* Choi Woo-shik
Choi Woo-shik (; born March 26, 1990) is a Canadian actor based in South Korea. He first gained recognition for starring in the film ''Set Me Free (2014 film), Set Me Free'' (2014) and the Korean drama, television series ''Hogu's Love'' (2015) ...
as Kim Ki-woo / "Kevin" (), the Kims' son who is hired as Da-hye's ESOL tutor. Choi said the character is "intelligent but does not have the vigor needed to succeed in examinations".
* Park So-dam as Kim Ki-jung / "Jessica" (), the Kims' daughter who is hired as Da-song's art therapist
* Jang Hye-jin as Chung-sook (), the Kim family mother who is hired as the Parks' housekeeper
* Lee Jung-eun as Gook Moon-gwang (), the Parks' housekeeper, who also worked for the house's architect and previous owner. Bong Joon Ho said her relationship with the architect and parts of her story "that happen in between the sequences in the film" will be explored in the spin-off TV series.
* Park Myung-hoon as Oh Geun-sae (), Moon-gwang's husband
* Jung Ji-so as Park Da-hye (), the Parks' daughter
* Jung Hyeon-jun as Park Da-song (), the Parks' son
* Park Keun-rok as Yoon (), Park Dong-ik's chauffeur
* Park Seo-joon as Min-hyuk (), Ki-woo's friend
* Jung Yi-seo as a pizza parlour owner
Production
Development
The idea for ''Parasite'' originated in 2013. While working on '' Snowpiercer'', Bong was encouraged by a theatre actor friend to write a play. He had been a tutor for the son of a wealthy family in Seoul in his early 20s and considered turning his experience into a stage production. The film's title, ''Parasite'', was selected by Bong as it served a double meaning, and he had to convince the film's marketing group to use it. He said: "Because the story is about the poor family infiltrating and creeping into the rich house, it seems very obvious that ''Parasite'' refers to the poor family, and I think that's why the marketing team was a little hesitant. But if you look at it the other way, you can say that rich family, they're also parasites in terms of labor. They can't even wash dishes, they can't drive themselves, so they leech off the poor family's labor. So both are parasites."
Writing
After completing ''Snowpiercer'', Bong wrote a 15-page film treatment for the first half of ''Parasite'', which his production assistant on ''Snowpiercer'', Han Jin-won, turned into three different drafts of the screenplay. After finishing '' Okja'', Bong returned to the project and finished the script. Han is credited as a co-writer.
Bong said the film was influenced by the 1960 Korean "domestic Gothic" film '' The Housemaid'', in which a middle-class family's stability is threatened by a disruptive interloper in the form of household help. Bong further referenced the design of the wealthy protagonist's house in Kurosawa's 1963 film '' High and Low'' as an important visual influence, as was the incident of Christine and Léa Papin to the story—an event wherein two live-in maids murdered their employers in 1930s France. Bong had also tutored for a rich family himself. He said: "I got this feeling that I was infiltrating the private lives of complete strangers. Every week I would go into their house, and I thought how fun it would be if I could get all my friends to infiltrate the house one by one." Additionally, Moon-gwang's allergy to peaches was inspired by one of Bong's university friends having this allergy.
Darcy Paquet, an American residing in South Korea, translated the English subtitles, writing directly with Bong. Paquet rendered Jjapaguri or Chapaguri, a dish cooked by a character in the film, as ''ram-don'', meaning ramen-udon
Udon ( or ) is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, used in Japanese cuisine. There are a variety of ways it is prepared and served. Its simplest form is in a soup as with a mild broth called made from dashi, soy sauce, and mirin. It is usual ...
. It is a mix of Chapagetti and Neoguri produced by Nongshim. The English version of the film shows packages labeled in English " ramyeon" and "udon" to highlight to English speakers how the name was created. Paquet believed the word ''ram-don'' did not previously exist as he found no results on Google. On one occasion, Paquet used Oxford University
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
as a reference instead of Seoul National University
Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a public university, public research university in Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the SKY (universities), SKY universities and a part of the Flagship Korean National Universities.
The university's main c ...
, and in another, used WhatsApp
WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...
as the messaging application instead of KakaoTalk. Paquet chose Oxford over Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
because of Bong's affinity for the United Kingdom, and because Paquet believed using Harvard would be "too obvious". Paquet wrote, "In order for humor to work, people need to understand it immediately. With an unfamiliar word, the humor is lost."
Filming
Principal photography for ''Parasite'' began on 18 May 2018 and ended on 19 September. Filming took place around Seoul
Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
and in Jeonju
Jeonju (, , ) is the capital and List of cities in South Korea, largest city of North Jeolla Province, South Korea. It is both urban and rural due to the closeness of Wanju County which almost entirely surrounds Jeonju (Wanju County has many resi ...
. The director of photography was Hong Kyung-pyo, a well-known South Korean cinematographer
The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the recording of a film, television production, music video or other live-action piece. The cinematographer is the chief of the camera ...
who had worked with other well-known directors. He shot the film with the Arri Alexa 65 and used Angénieux zoom lens.
The Parks' house
The Parks' house was a specially constructed set. The ground floor and the garden were constructed on an empty outdoor lot, while the basement and first floor were constructed on set. "We built the main floor of the house in a backlot and for the second floor it was all green screen outside", explained editor Yang Jin-mo. "When we shot toward the outside from inside, everything beyond the garden was all VFX."
As part of the scripting, Bong also designed the home's basic layout. "It's like its own universe inside this film. Each character and each team has spaces that they take over, that they can infiltrate, and also secret spaces that they don't know." A fictional architect, Namgoong Hyeonja, was created as the home's designer and previous owner, and production designer Lee Ha-jun considered the house's form and function based on how Namgoong would design it. It was designed and constructed to be not only beautiful but "a stage that served the precise needs of his camera, compositions, and characters, while embodying his film's rich themes".
Lee said, "Since Mr Park's house is built by an architect in the story, it wasn't easy finding the right approach to designing the house...I'm not an architect, and I think there's a difference in how an architect envisions a space and how a production designer does. We prioritize blocking and camera angles while architects build spaces for people to actually live in and thus design around people. So I think the approach is very different." For example, Ha-jun established that Namgoong would have used the first floor's living room to appreciate the garden, so it was built with a single wide window and only spartan seating options for this function. Some of the interior artwork in the house sets were by South Korean artist Seung-mo Park, including existing artwork of hers and some created for the film. The team designed the home and interiors to make the set amenable for filming at the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, favouring wide and deep rooms rather than height.
Lee said the sun was an important factor when building the outdoor set. "The sun's direction was a crucial point of consideration while we were searching for outdoor lots", he said. "We had to remember the sun's position during our desired time frame and determine the positions and sizes of the windows accordingly. In terms of practical lighting, the DP ong Kyung-pyohad specific requests regarding the color. He wanted sophisticated indirect lighting and the warmth from tungsten light sources. Before building the set, the DP and I visited the lot several times to check the sun's movement each time, and we decided on the set's location together".
The Kims' flat
The Kims' semi-basement flat and its street were also built on set, partially out of necessity for the flooding scenes. Lee Ha-jun visited and photographed several abandoned villages and towns in South Korea scheduled to be torn down to help inform the set design. He also created stories for the Kims' neighbours and added details of those residents along the street to improve the authenticity of the street's appearance.
Editing
According to editor Yang Jin-mo, Bong chose to shoot the film without traditional coverage. To give them more editing options with limited shots, they sometimes stitched together different takes of the same shot. Yang edited the film using Final Cut Pro 7, a program not updated since 2011.
The film was produced for release in colour. A black and white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
version was produced before the world premiere in Cannes, debuted on 26 January 2020 at the International Film Festival Rotterdam
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...
, and was re-screened from 29 to 31 January. It also received a limited release in some countries.
Music
The score, by South Korean composer Jung Jae-il, consisted of "minimalist piano pieces, punctuated with light percussion", setting the film's "tense atmosphere". It also had a baroque texture with excerpts from Handel's opera '' Rodelinda'' and the 1964 Italian song " In ginocchio da te" by Gianni Morandi. It was recorded mostly through computer sounds.
The soundtrack was published and released in Korea, in digital and physical formats, by Genie Music
Genie Music (), a subsidiary of KT Corporation, is a South Korean company that specializes in the production and distribution of music content. Its music streaming service is the second most used in South Korea with 2.5 million subscribers as ...
and Stone Music Entertainment on 30 May 2019. Internationally, it was released on 11 October 2019 by Milan Records. It was released in English titles, but the names and nouns are different from the English subtitles as translated by Paquet. On 14 February 2020, it was released in double-vinyl by Sacred Bones Records (a division of American film production company Neon) and Waxwork Records, in multicolour variants.
An original song, "" (), written by Bong and performed by Choi Woo-shik
Choi Woo-shik (; born March 26, 1990) is a Canadian actor based in South Korea. He first gained recognition for starring in the film ''Set Me Free (2014 film), Set Me Free'' (2014) and the Korean drama, television series ''Hogu's Love'' (2015) ...
, who plays Ki-woo, is heard during the film's end credits. For marketing the soundtrack's international digital releases, the song was displayed in English as "Soju One Glass"; it was later changed to a grammatically correct title to be shortlisted for the Best Original Song category at the 92nd Academy Awards.
Themes and interpretations
The main themes of ''Parasite'' are class conflict, social inequality
Social inequality occurs when resources within a society are distributed unevenly, often as a result of inequitable allocation practices that create distinct unequal patterns based on socially defined categories of people. Differences in acce ...
and wealth disparity. Film critics and Bong Joon Ho himself have considered the film as a reflection of late-stage capitalism, and some have associated it with the term " Hell Joseon" (), a satirical phrase that posits that living in hell would be akin to living in modern South Korea. This term came about due to high rates of youth unemployment, the intense demands of pursuing higher education
Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education.
The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...
, the crisis of home affordability, and the increasing socioeconomic gap between the wealthy and poor. In ''Coronavirus Capitalism Goes to the Cinema'', Nulman writes that the word "parasite" originally referred to a "person who eats at the table of another", which occurs in one scene of the film. Nulman also notes the connection between parasites and the Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
quote: The capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
... is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one sole driving force, the drive to valorize itself, to create surplus-value
In Marxian economics, surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and ...
, to make its constant part, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labor. Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
The film also analyses the use of connections and qualifications to get ahead, for rich and poor families alike. Some argue that its discussion of class relates to Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (, ; ; ; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influ ...
's concept of habitus.
Bong has referred to ''Parasite'' as an upstairs/downstairs or "stairway movie", in which staircases are used as a motif to represent the positions of the families in the homes of the Kims and the Parks, as well as the basement bunker. The Kims' semi-basement apartment is typical for poorer Seoul residents due to its lower rent, despite having issues such as mold and increased risk of disease. Monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...
floods such as the one depicted in the film commonly damage these types of residences the most. The film presents class in spatial terms that speak to hierarchy, according to Nulman.
According to Bong, the ending implies that Ki-woo will not be able to earn the funds needed to buy the house, as the final shot shows him still in the basement flat and recalls the first scene; he described this shot as a "surefire kill" (), referring to a coup de grace to ensure death. The ending song refers to Ki-woo working to make money to get the house. Choi Woo-shik estimated that it would take approximately 564 years for Ki-woo to earn enough money to purchase the house. Nevertheless, he was optimistic: "I'm pretty sure Ki-woo is one of those bright kids. He'll come up with some idea, and he would just go into the German family's house, and I think he will rescue his father". But on many interpretations, this dream subscribes to a bootstrapping mentality and is unlikely to be achieved; furthermore, "it does not address the fundamental problem at hand. Even in this fantasy scenario, Ki-taek would still be contained in the house by a legal system that would seek his prosecution and imprisonment. The forces that created and upheld the Kim family's separation would not be undone, merely adapted to".
Park Da-song is obsessed with " Indians" and owns Native American-themed toys and inauthentic replicas. Nulman makes the link between the "native" Park family and the invaders: the Kims, who bring with them deadly parasites to which the natives have no immunity. Nulman points to the miasma theory of scent carrying disease: it was thought that natives could catch diseases just by smelling the noxious air carried by colonising Spaniards. This connects to the film's theme around the class distinction of smell. Bong has noted: "I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a commentary on what happened in the United States, but it's related in the sense that this family starts infiltrating the house and they already find a family living there. So you could say it's a joke in that context. But at the same time, the Native Americans have a very complicated and long, deep history. But in this family, that story is reduced to a young boy's hobby and decoration. The boy's mother mentions the tent as a US imported good, and I think it's like the Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14th May 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentines, Argentine Communist revolution, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and Military theory, military theorist. A majo ...
T-shirts that people wear. They don't know the life of the revolutionary figure, they just think it's a cool T-shirt. That's what happens in our current time: the context and meaning behind these actual things only exists as a surface-level thing".
Some critics note the importance of working-class solidarity as presented in the film. The Kims' problems are a result of lack of class solidarity with the other poor family, Geun-sae and Moon-gwang. At the film's climax, Ki-taek becomes aware of his class identity when Mr Park is disgusted by Geun-sae's smell. Others said ''Parasite'' revealed the misfortunes of poor, powerless victims of an indifferent world who are transformed into liberation through the comical effect of mass slaughter.
Release
Theatrical
Neon
Neon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is the second noble gas in the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with approximately two-thirds the density of ...
acquired the US and Canadian rights to the film at the 2018 American Film Market. Darcy Paquet, an American film critic and author, provided English translations for the film's international release. The film's rights were also pre-sold to German-speaking territories (Koch Films), French-speaking territories (The Jokers) and Japan (Bitters End). The film had its world premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival
The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president for the main competition. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho won the , the festival's top prize, fo ...
on 21 May. It was released in South Korea on 30 May 2019.
It was released in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Films on 27 June 2019 (becoming both the highest-ever-grossing Korean film in the region and the distributor's highest-ever-grossing non-English-language film in Australia). It screened at the Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
in Toronto, Canada, in September 2019 and was released generally in the US and Canada on 11 October 2019. It was released in South Africa by Brandchina on 11 October 2019. The film was originally scheduled to be screened as a closing film at FIRST International Film Festival Xining in China on 28 July 2019, but on 27 July, the film festival organisers announced that the screening was cancelled for "technical reasons".
It was licensed for the United Kingdom and Ireland by Curzon Artificial Eye at Cannes, and had preview screenings in cinemas nationwide with an interview with Bong shared live by satellite on 3 February 2020, followed by the film's general release on 7 February.
Neon expanded the number of North American cinemas showing the film from 1,060 to 2,001 starting on the weekend of 14 February 2020, following the film's recognition at the Academy Awards, despite the film having already been released on home video in the region. A special IMAX
IMAX is a proprietary system of High-definition video, high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and movie theater, theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (image), aspect ratio (approximately ei ...
remaster was shown at limited North American cinemas during the week of 21 February 2020. The same remaster will be re-released in IMAX cinemas on 7 February 2025 to celebrate the film's five-year anniversary.
Home media
By December 2019, the film had earned a net revenue of from home entertainment, television and international sales. On 28 January 2020, ''Parasite'' was released on Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
and DVD by Neon, with distribution by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Universal Pictures Home Entertainment LLC (UPHE) is the home video distribution division of Universal Pictures, an American film studio owned by NBCUniversal, the entertainment unit of Comcast.
UPHE is the home video distributor for all of the ...
, and on 2 June it was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray
Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-ray) is a digital optical disc data storage format that is an enhanced variant of Blu-ray. Ultra HD Blu-ray supports 4K UHD (3840 × 2160 pixel resolution) video at frame rates up to 60 progre ...
. On 13 February 2020, it was announced that the film will be released on home media by The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
. On 15 July 2020, The Criterion Collection announced the release date of 27 October 2020, featuring the long-awaited black-and-white version.
On 24 February 2020, the subscription-based streaming service Hulu
Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...
announced that it had secured exclusive rights to stream the film in the US, starting on 8 April 2020. Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...
began streaming the film outside the US on 28 March 2020. In the UK, it was 2020's best-selling foreign language film on physical home video
Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
formats.
Black and white edition
A special monochrome version of the film, ''Parasite: Black-and-White Edition'', had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2020 and was released in cinemas in some cities in the United States in the same month.
It was released on 24 July 2020 in the UK and Ireland by Curzon Artificial Eye in cinemas and on-demand simultaneously, and was released on 27 October 2020, in the US and Canada by The Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, as part of their special edition re-release. The black and white transfer of the film was overseen by Bong and cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo.
Reception
Box office
''Parasite'' grossed $71.4 million in South Korea and $53.7 million in the US and Canada, part of a worldwide total of $258.1 million. It set a new record for Bong, becoming the first of his films to gross over $100 million worldwide. ''Deadline Hollywood
''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. It is updated several times a day, with en ...
'' calculated the net profit as $46.2million.
In South Korea, ''Parasite'' grossed $20.7 million on its opening weekend. It closed its box-office run with $72.2 million and more than 10 million admissions, equal to roughly one-fifth of the country's population and ranking first among the year's top five films.
In the film's US opening weekend, it grossed $376,264 from three cinemas. Its per-venue average of $125,421 was the best since '' La La Land''s in 2016, and the best ever for an international film. It expanded to 33 cinemas in its second weekend, making $1.24 million, and then made $1.8 million from 129 cinemas in its third. The film made $2.5 million in its fourth weekend and $2.6 million in its fifth. Its initial showings count peaked in its sixth weekend at 620, when it made $1.9 million. It continued to hold well over the following weekends, making $1.3 million and then $1 million.
In its tenth week of release the film crossed the $20 million mark (rare for an international film), making $632,500 from 306 cinemas. During the weekend of the Oscars, the film made $1.5 million from 1,060 cinemas for a running total of $35.5 million. After Neon's doubling of showings in the week after the Academy Awards, the film made $5.5 million in revenue from the US and Canada, one of the largest Best Picture bumps since '' Slumdog Millionaire'' in 2009 and the largest in ten years.
On 5 February, ''Parasite'' became the first Korean film in nearly 15 years to surpass one million filmgoers in Japan. In the UK, it broke the record for the opening weekend of a non-English-language film, making £1.4 million ($1.8 million) including previews over its debut weekend, from 135 screens, and in Australia it took in over $1.9 million. In the weekend after its Oscars wins, it made $12.8 million from 43 countries, bringing its international total to $161 million and its global running gross to over the $200 million mark.
Following its Academy Awards success, ''Parasite'' received significant rescreening, generating significant further revenue. The Associated Press reported the biggest "Oscar effect" since 2001 after '' Gladiator'' won Best Picture. ''Parasite''s box office revenue increased by more than 230% compared to the prior week, grossing $2.15 million in a single day. It also ranked No. 1 in Japan, the first Korean film to do so in 15 years. The Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia announced that $749K worth of cinema tickets were sold in a single weekend, with the film reentering the top 10 at the local box office more than six months after it debuted in Australian cinemas. ''Parasite'' also surged back to fourth place in South Korea's box office by attracting more than 80,000 viewers.
Critical response
On review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, ''Parasite'' has an approval rating of based on 487 reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "An urgent, brilliantly layered look at timely social themes, ''Parasite'' finds writer-director Bong Joon Ho in near-total command of his craft." The site ranked it fifth on their "300 Best Movies of All Time" list in 2025. On Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, 56 compiled reviews from critics were identified as positive, giving the film a weighted average score of 97 out of 100. On the same site, ''Parasite'' was rated the best film of 2019 and ranked seventh among the films with the highest scores of the decade. As of 20 November 2021, it is the forty-eighth-highest-rated film of all time on the website.
Writing for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', A. O. Scott called the film "wildly entertaining, the kind of smart, generous, aesthetically energized movie that obliterates the tired distinctions between art films and popcorn movies". Bilge Ebiri of '' Vulture'' magazine wrote that ''Parasite'' is "a work that is itself in a state of constant, agitated transformation—a nerve-racking masterpiece whose spell lingers long after its haunting final image". In his five-star review, Dave Calhoun of '' Time Out'' praised the film's social commentary, calling the work "surprising and fully gripping from beginning to end, full of big bangs and small wonders". '' Variety''s Jessica Kiang called the film "a wild, wild ride", writing that "Bong is back and on brilliant form, but he is unmistakably, roaringly furious, and it registers because the target is so deserving, so enormous, so 2019: ''Parasite'' is a tick fat with the bitter blood of class rage". Joshua Rivera of '' GQ'' gave a glowing review and declared ''Parasite'' possibly one of the best films of 2019.
Michael Wood writing for the ''London Review of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published bimonthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews.
History
The ''London Review of Book ...
'' found its following a theme of class consciousness to be consistent with '' Snowpiercer:'' "The theme of social ascent, or social difference as a landscape, could hardly be more obvious, but we are beginning to get the movie's idea: not to avoid stereotypes but to keep crashing into them". UK film website TheShiznit awarded it an A, noting "it makes you wonder what the inflection point for such behaviour is in a culture where manners and servitude are drilled into those who can't afford not to have them". '' The A.V. Club''s A. A. Dowd awarded the film an A−, praising the fun and surprising twists.
''Parasite'' ranked first in a survey by IndieWire of over 300 critics, in the Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Film categories. It also appeared on over 240 critics' year-end top-ten lists, including 77 who ranked it first.
Accolades
''Parasite'' won the Palme d'Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival
The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president for the main competition. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho won the , the festival's top prize, fo ...
. It became the first South Korean film to do so, as well as the first film to win with a unanimous vote since '' Blue Is the Warmest Colour'' at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival
The 66th Cannes Film Festival took place from 15 to 26 May 2013. American filmmaker Steven Spielberg was the Jury President for the main competition. French actress Audrey Tautou hosted the opening and closing ceremonies.
The French film ''Blu ...
. At the 77th Golden Globe Awards, the film was nominated for three awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay, and won Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first South Korean film to achieve that feat.
It became the second international film to ever be nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture since '' Life Is Beautiful'' (1997), and ultimately won the category, making it the first international film to win the prize. ''Parasite'' was also nominated for four awards at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards— Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Not in the English Language, being the first South Korean film to receive nominations other than for Best Film Not in the English Language, and went on to win Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Not in the English Language.
''Parasite'' was submitted as the South Korean entry for Best International Feature Film for the 92nd Academy Awards, making the December shortlist. It went on to win four awards— Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. ''Parasite'' became the first non-English language film in Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
to win Best Picture. ''Parasite'' also became the first South Korean film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and the second East Asian film to receive a nomination for Best Picture since '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' (2000), and Bong Joon Ho became the fourth Asian to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, becoming the second to win, after Ang Lee
Ang Lee (; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese filmmaker. His films are known for their emotional charge and exploration of repressed, hidden emotions. During his career, he has received international critical and popular acclaim and List o ...
. It also received nominations for Best Film Editing and Best Production Design. The film is also the second film to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Palme d'Or at Cannes under the latter's name in 65 years since '' Marty'', being the third film to win both grand prizes after the former and '' The Lost Weekend''.
At the 56th Grand Bell Awards, ''Parasite'' earned a leading eleven nominations, with five wins (the most for the show): Best Film, Best Director (for Bong), Best Supporting Actress (for Lee Jung-eun), Best Screenplay (for Bong and Han Jin-Won), and Best Music (for Jung Jae-il).
During Bong's acceptance speech at the Oscars, he paused to thank Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November17, 1942) is an American filmmaker. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Martin Scorsese, many accolades, including an Academ ...
, a co-nominated director, whom Bong recognised as having historical importance to the history of filmmaking, which resulted in spontaneous applause from the audience. The next day, Scorsese sent Bong a congratulatory letter, which Bong reported while on a speaking engagement at the Film at Lincoln Center event, though Bong said he could not share the full letter due to its personal nature. He did, however, share the conclusion of the letter, saying that Scorsese told him, "You've done well. Now rest. But don't rest for too long." Bong then added that Scorsese ended his letter by saying "how he and other directors were waiting for my next movie".
The Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.
Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
commented that although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...
(AMPAS) had previously failed to adequately recognise women filmmakers in the Academy Award nominations, this time it acknowledged diversity. ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' also wrote that the film seemed to promise a "more inclusive Oscars" demanded by those who have previously criticised AMPAS. The AP noted that the film's victory, as an Oscar-winning foreign film in a regular Academy category, opened the door for Hollywood to undergo a radical change and a different kind of advancement, as a skeptic worried that if "''Parasite'' won the Oscar for best international film, it probably wouldn't win any other major awards". "The academy gave best picture to the actual best picture", wrote Justin Chang of the ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', adding that the film awards body was "startled ... into recognizing that no country's cinema has a monopoly on greatness". In 2021, the Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the name of two American labor unions representing writers in film, television, radio, and online media:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) is headquartered in New York City and is affiliated wit ...
ranked ''Parasite''s screenplay the fourth-greatest of the 21st century so far. In the decennial critics' poll published by the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
's magazine '' Sight and Sound'' in 2022, ''Parasite'' was tied for the 90th greatest film of all time.
On 28 March 2023, Cannes Film Festival president Thierry Frémaux revealed that after '' Everything Everywhere All at Once'', a 2022 science fiction comedy-drama also featuring a predominantly Asian cast, won the Best Picture Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards, he began to question whether the Best Picture win for ''Parasite'' was worthy enough, saying "How can a non-American film win the Oscar for best film since it's a ceremony in honor of American cinema? ''Parasite'' won, it's great, but it's a Korean film."
In other media
Spin-off television series
A six-hour HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
limited series based on the film, with Bong and Adam McKay as executive producers, was announced to be in early development in January 2020. Bong has said that this will also be titled ''Parasite'', and will explore stories "that happen in between the sequences in the film". In February 2020, Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo (; born November 22, 1967) is an American actor. He began acting in the late 1980s and first gained recognition for his work in Kenneth Lonergan's play ''This Is Our Youth'' (1996) and drama film ''You Can Count on Me'' (2000) ...
was rumoured to star and Tilda Swinton was confirmed as being cast in a lead role. But in October 2022, Swinton announced she was no longer involved with the series. Bong confirmed in February 2025 that the series was still in development.
Plans for tourist set
A South Korean local authority (Goyang
Goyang (; ) is a city in Gyeonggi Province in the north of South Korea. It is part of the Seoul Metropolitan Area, making Goyang one of Seoul's Satellite city, satellite cities. It is one of the largest cities in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, w ...
) plans to restore the Goyang Aqua Special Shooting Studio set, where ''Parasite'' was produced, and use it as a ''Parasite'' film experience tourism facility. In addition, Goyang has announced that it will invest $150 million in the development of the Goyang Film Culture Complex by 2026 to accommodate film experience tourism facilities, additional indoor studios, outdoor set production facilities, inter-Korean video content centres, image research, and development companies. Criticism has been made about the commercialisation of areas known for poverty in South Korea as tourist destinations without concrete steps being taken to address the issues.
City tourism and food
The Seoul Tourism Organization (STO) has been criticised by South Korea's opposition party and residents of Seoul for introducing a tour route featuring filming locations and stories from the film. The Justice Party claims that it became famous due to the universal recognition of global inequality, but sees the development of a tourist attraction based on the film in Seoul as further exploitation of poverty. Residents of ''Parasite'''s filming locations have reportedly complained of a sense of embarrassment and discomfort due to an increase in tourists visiting their neighbourhoods and taking photos of their surroundings, making them feel like "monkeys in a zoo". In response, the local government of Seoul has announced that government funding will prioritise the estimated 1,500 low-income families living in the semi-basement type accommodations featured in the film.
People began posting videos on how to make jjapaguri (called "ram-don" in the film's English subtitles) on YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
after the film was distributed. Nongshim, the manufacturer of Chapagetti and Neoguri, also began distributing a singular "Chapaguri" product due to the combination's popularity from the film.
Bibliography
*
See also
* List of South Korean submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
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Explanatory notes
References
External links
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Script
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''Parasite: Notes from the Underground''
an essay by Inkoo Kang at the Criterion Collection
{{Authority control
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