50 Greatest Horror Movies Of The 21st Century

Plot: A monster wreaks havoc in Seoul, and a working-class family try to stop it and retrieve a young girl the creature has kidnapped.

Long before he unleashed his Best Picture-winning masterpiece Parasite on the world, Bong Joon-ho was already making stunning, idiosyncratic pieces of genre-blending cinema, and The Host is one of his very best works. Not to be confused with the terrible Stephanie Meyer adaptation of the same name, this flick combines thrills, scares, laughter, heart and potent social commentary into a dazzling, seamless whole.

This is arguably the greatest monster movie of the century, which is rather ironic since the film's actual monster is fairly forgettable. Yet, more ironically still, that's one of the movie's greatest strengths, as it benefits immeasurably from its firm focus on its human characters. Like many of the best monster movies, it's not really about the monster. The Host is about family, class, corruption and South Korea itself, and it makes for a startlingly rich piece of cinema.

It's great movies like this that confirm South Korean cinema might just be the best in the world right now.