The Most Famous K-Drama Stars in the World
Top 85 of 85 ranked · August 2026 · See today's live standing →
First issue under methodology v5.62. Movement begins with the next issue frozen under the same version.
Ji Changwook leads a K-drama table with no legacy names and no gaps
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · 1 min read
Eighty South Korean actors fill a sector where every measured name is alive and the fifteenth place sits barely one point behind the fourth.
Ji Changwook is the most famous face of Korean television drama for August 2026. The actor, known for action roles in Healer and The K2 and for his romantic leads, posts a score of 13.4, nearly a full point ahead of Jisoo at 12.5, the BLACKPINK singer whose acting work has carried her into this sector. Lee Min-ho, the actor and model who became one of the most recognisable faces of the Hallyu wave, is third at 11.3.
Then the table flattens. Park Seo-joon, fourth at 10.9, and Son Ye-jin, fifteenth at 9.9, are separated by exactly one point, and between them sit Kim Soo-hyun, Lee Jong-suk, Hyun Bin, Ma Dong-seok, Gong Yoo and Lee Byung-hun, all scoring between 10 and 10.8. Few sectors measured by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings are this compressed. The world's attention to K-drama is not fixed on one or two stars; it is spread across a whole generation of leading men.
The women arrive lower than their careers would suggest. Song Hye-kyo, a defining face of the Korean Wave for two decades, is the first at tenth with 10.1, followed by Park Min-young, Park Shin-hye and Son Ye-jin. Ma Dong-seok, the South Korean-American actor whose fame comes mainly from cinema, is the only name in the top fifteen whose reputation was not built on serial television.
Eighty-five names were measured and all 85 are living, so there is no dead name to hold a high place here. Eighty are South Korean; Turkey and China supply two each and Pakistan one. The ranking measures worldwide fame, not quality, and this month that attention runs almost entirely through Seoul.
| Rank | Name | Score | Live |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ji Changwook | 13.4 | iFANN → |
| 2 | ![]() Jisoo | 12.5 | iFANN → |
| 3 | ![]() Lee Min-ho | 11.3 | iFANN → |
| 4 | Park Seo-joon | 10.9 | iFANN → |
| 5 | Kim Soo-hyun | 10.8 | iFANN → |
| 6 | Lee Jong-suk | 10.7 | iFANN → |
| 7 | Hyun Bin | 10.6 | iFANN → |
| 8 | Ma Dong-seok | 10.2 | iFANN → |
| 9 | Gong Yoo | 10.2 | iFANN → |
| 10 | Song Hye-kyo | 10.1 | iFANN → |
| 11 | Song Joong-ki | 10.1 | iFANN → |
| 12 | Lee Byung-hun | 10.0 | iFANN → |
| 13 | Park Min-young | 10.0 | iFANN → |
| 14 | Park Shin-hye | 9.9 | iFANN → |
| 15 | Son Ye-jin | 9.9 | iFANN → |
| 16 | Kim Go-eun | 9.7 | iFANN → |
| 17 | Park Bo-gum | 9.5 | iFANN → |
| 18 | Jun Ji-hyun | 9.2 | iFANN → |
| 19 | Song Kang | 9.2 | iFANN → |
| 20 | Jung Haein | 8.8 | iFANN → |
| 21 | Byeon Woo-seok | 8.8 | iFANN → |
| 22 | Go Youn-jung | 8.8 | iFANN → |
| 23 | Kim Woo-bin | 8.6 | iFANN → |
| 24 | Lee Jung-jae | 8.6 | iFANN → |
| 25 | Kim Ji-won | 8.4 | iFANN → |
| 26 | Kim Seon-ho | 8.4 | iFANN → |
| 27 | Kim You-jung | 8.3 | iFANN → |
| 28 | Han So-hee | 8.2 | iFANN → |
| 29 | Jung So-min | 8.2 | iFANN → |
| 30 | Nam Joo-hyuk | 8.1 | iFANN → |
| 31 | Shin Min-a | 8.1 | iFANN → |
| 32 | Jung Ho-yeon | 7.9 | iFANN → |
| 33 | Moon Ga-young | 7.9 | iFANN → |
| 34 | So Ji-sub | 7.7 | iFANN → |
| 35 | Ha Ji-won | 7.7 | iFANN → |
| 36 | Kim So-hyun | 7.7 | iFANN → |
| 37 | Cho Yeo-jeong | 7.5 | iFANN → |
| 38 | Moon Geun-young | 7.5 | iFANN → |
| 39 | Ha Seok-jin | 7.4 | iFANN → |
| 40 | Jo Jung-suk | 7.4 | iFANN → |
| 41 | Park Bo-young | 7.3 | iFANN → |
| 42 | Ahn Bo-hyun | 7.2 | iFANN → |
| 43 | Han Hyo-joo | 7.2 | iFANN → |
| 44 | Ryu Jun-yeol | 7.2 | iFANN → |
| 45 | Lee Young-ae | 7.1 | iFANN → |
| 46 | Kim Bum | 7.1 | iFANN → |
| 47 | Yoo Ah-in | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 48 | Yoo Seung-ho | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 49 | Claudia Kim | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 50 | Park So-dam | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 51 | Choi Woo-shik | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 52 | Gong Hyo-jin | 6.9 | iFANN → |
| 53 | Park Hae-soo | 6.9 | iFANN → |
| 54 | Song Ji-hyo | 6.9 | iFANN → |
| 55 | Halit Ergenç | 6.8 | iFANN → |
| 56 | Kim Tae-hee | 6.7 | iFANN → |
| 57 | Wi Ha-joon | 6.7 | iFANN → |
| 58 | Seo Yea-ji | 6.6 | iFANN → |
| 59 | Jung Il-woo | 6.5 | iFANN → |
| 60 | Kerem Bürsin | 6.4 | iFANN → |
| 61 | Youn Yuh-jung | 6.4 | iFANN → |
| 62 | Go Ara | 6.4 | iFANN → |
| 63 | Zhao Liying | 6.3 | iFANN → |
| 64 | Kim Hee-sun | 6.2 | iFANN → |
| 65 | Mahira Khan | 6.1 | iFANN → |
| 66 | Ahn Jae-hyun | 6.1 | iFANN → |
| 67 | Kim Da-mi | 6.1 | iFANN → |
| 68 | Chae Soo-bin | 6.0 | iFANN → |
| 69 | Bae Doona | 6.0 | iFANN → |
| 70 | Jang Keun-suk | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 71 | Park Hyung-sik | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 72 | Han Ji-min | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 73 | Esther Yu | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 74 | Cha Tae-hyun | 5.9 | iFANN → |
| 75 | Jo Bo-ah | 5.8 | iFANN → |
| 76 | Yunjin Kim | 5.8 | iFANN → |
| 77 | Lee Ji-ah | 5.7 | iFANN → |
| 78 | Yeo Jin-goo | 5.6 | iFANN → |
| 79 | Lee Yoo-mi | 5.6 | iFANN → |
| 80 | Jang Dong-gun | 5.5 | iFANN → |
| 81 | Choi Ji-woo | 5.5 | iFANN → |
| 82 | Han Hye-jin | 5.5 | iFANN → |
| 83 | Han Ga-in | 5.4 | iFANN → |
| 84 | Park Ji-hu | 5.4 | iFANN → |
| 85 | Son Na-eun | 5.4 | iFANN → |
About this list
This list ranks the most famous k-drama stars in the world as of August 2026, by overall global fame rather than one month's attention. It is the top 85 of 85 names the rankings measured in this sector, frozen as the permanent record of that edition. This is the standard reading: everyone, living or dead, on one scale. 85 of the 85 listed are living; the Alive reading restricts the same ranking to living people.
Ji Changwook is No. 1 on this list for August 2026. Behind Ji Changwook come Jisoo and Lee Min-ho.
What famous means here
Fame, in iFAMOUS, is how widely the world knows a name: how recognisable a person's name, face or work is, and how well people know who they are. It is assessed from extensive historical and current public data, some of it reaching back more than twenty years, and it is not merit, talent, importance or popularity on iFANN. The rankings model real-world global fame, not internet fame; the data is the instrument, not the subject. Activity on iFANN itself is excluded.
The month in the title is the date of this edition, not the period measured. The list is a snapshot of overall fame as it stood when the issue was frozen: a name does not lose its place because one month was quiet, and a trending moment alone does not put a name here. Trending attention is published separately on ifann.net.
How the list was ranked
The iFANN Global Fame Rankings combine worldwide Wikipedia readership across languages, worldwide news coverage and search interest anchored against stable reference names, with search history reaching back to 2004. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped, so the list reflects durable recognition rather than one week of headlines. Rankings are computed daily on ifann.net and frozen on the second day of the following month as that month's issue; a published issue never changes.
About K-Drama
K-Drama is one of the sectors the journal ranks every month, alongside every country, origin and region list in this issue. Sector lists use the same rankings and the same scale as The 100, so a name can be compared across sectors and against the world. Korean television drama, romance, thrillers and breakout actors.
Powered by iFANN
iFAMOUS is published by iFANN and powered by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings v5.62. Today's live standing for this list is on ifann.net; the journal freezes it once a month so it can be cited permanently.
Related searches: most famous k-drama stars in the world 2026, top k-drama stars August 2026, k-drama stars fame ranking, most famous k-drama stars alive.
"Ji Changwook, No. 1 on The Most Famous K-Drama Stars in the World", iFAMOUS No. 1 (August 2026), ifamous.org

