Still can't get over All Of Us Are Dead? Watch these 5 K-dramas next and you wouldn't regret it at all

Despite all the blood, betrayal, and heartbreak, All Of Us Are Dead still leaves one hanging. With its chaotic mix of high school rumors, moral conundrums, and a zombie apocalypse that nobody remembered, the series provided a mix of horror and critique that isn't quite so easy to abandon. The show set the stage not only for gore and violence but also for teen psychology in crisis states.

No surprise, then, that folks continue to discuss it years following the final episode's airing. The upside? Korean dramas don't lose steam of the same oomph--emotional, psychological, and thematic storytelling. Whether they are beasts to fight to live, failures of the system to be discovered, or struggle against authority to be visited within a confined space, the majority of K-dramas are stealing the same ideas that proved successful for All of Us Are Dead.

Watch these 5 K-dramas after All Of Us Are Dead, and you won't regret it at all

1. Happiness (2021)

Happiness is the very first show that comes to mind when people ask for something like All of Us Are Dead. It takes place in future Seoul, and there's a new complex of skyscraper buildings where an unidentified virus begins spreading. When individuals get infected, they're bestowed with zombie-like traits—violent, blood-crazed, and nigh on unsolvable to riddle out. The government seals off the building, and the residents have to fight not only the infected, but also themselves.

What makes Happiness is that it combines the physical danger of the virus with the psychological danger of distrust and survival. Similar to All of Us Are Dead, there are conflicts of betrayal, leadership issues, and tough moral choices. The series examines how social class, misinformation, and fear are manipulated in a sealed setting.

And every episode asks what makes a monster—is it an illness, or the decisions they make when they're given a scenario?

2. Kingdom (2019–2021)

Unlike many contemporary dramas, Kingdom takes us back to the Joseon dynasty, though inexplicably, the horror is reminiscent. The show traces Crown Prince Lee Chang as he hunts a serial killer disease that brings back the dead. As the illness decimates the dynasty, political maneuvers and actual apocalypse become indistinguishable.

Sword-wielding, bow-wielding, and politically motivated characters have to fight the living dead and cold-blooded noble clans. While All of Us Are Dead had its pandemic in a high school and was more focused on teen survival, Kingdom's world is larger. It touches on issues such as class disparity, corruption, and crisis leadership, just in a different timeline.

What the two series have in common is the way they handle human desperation amid mass death. The setting and cinematography of the series offer a new visual spin on the zombie genre, yet the emotional resonance beneath it is all too uncomfortably familiar.

3. Sweet Home (2020)

Based on the webtoon of the same title, Sweet Home takes the notion of monstrous transformation and extrapolates. In this, the apocalypse is not caused by zombies but by humans becoming monstrous, ugly, personal creatures that are their own worst nightmares and greatest fantasies. When shy high school student Cha Hyun-soo is assigned a mission to a rundown apartment complex, he is trapped there when its inhabitants begin to turn monstrous before his own eyes.

With his couple of other fellow roommates, he must fight to survive from the humans that have been mutated living in the building and question whether or not he is human anymore. Similar to All of Us Are Dead, the drama places its characters within a confined environment where terror is around every corner. But Sweet Home does better psychological horror. All the monsters are metaphorical, and they all have something to do with some kind of past trauma or guilt.

The heroes are far from perfect, and the link is weak. As the characters battle external and internal villains, the series questions identity, redemption, and the darker truth of losing oneself, literally and psychologically.

4. Extracurricular (2020)

No flesh creatures or zombies in evidence—but the horror is all too real. Oh Ji-soo is a shy high school student who operates an underground protection racket to cover school expenses. His secret life gets out of hand when one of his classmates uncovers his double life, pulling the two of them into a world of extortion and crime.

If what drew you into All of Us Are Dead was teens driven into adult choices through crisis, then Extracurricular serves the same, but more authentic, purpose. It satirizes morality decline, class poverty, and peer pressure on students who seem to lead ordinary lives. The awards aren't zombies, but the desperation of their doing, the seriousness of the act, are not disparate.

The show isn't beating about the bush as it narrates what quality one will descend to when the system oppresses them.

5. D.P. (Deserter Pursuit) (2021–2023)

D.P. is another survival mode—the psychological fatigue of being in the South Korean military. The series is inspired by An Jun-ho's case, a young enlistee who works for the military police corps, whose duty is to pursue deserting soldiers. Pursuing deserters, Jun-ho discovers degrees of abuse, harassment, and mental problems tarnishing the system. Though not strictly a horror or thriller, D.P. reuses the same institutional disintegration and individual trauma hooks that proved to be so effective for All of Us Are Dead.

It shows the ferocity of pitiless systems and the atrocities that human beings break down under pressure. The unflinching manner the drama explores authority, rebellion, and conscience is an emotional exploration of the human condition on the edge, on the same level as All of Us Are Dead, but in a darker, more apocalyptic universe.

All these K-dramas are innovative uses of survival, horror, and the price of survival would be if the world were destroyed. They're not all rip-offs of All Of Us Are Dead, but every single one of them possesses the social commentary, emotional maturity, and psychological subtlety of the series.