Squid Game

Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk spent approximately ten years writing and pitching Squid Game before Netflix finally agreed to finance it; multiple studios rejected it as too dark, too strange, or too costly for its concept.

Squid Game became the most-watched Netflix series in history upon its September 2021 launch, reaching 111 million households within its first 28 days — a record that stood for years.

All six games featured in Season 1 (Red Light Green Light, Dalgona candy, tug of war, marbles, the glass bridge, and the Squid Game itself) are real traditional Korean children's games that Hwang played growing up in the 1970s and 80s.

The visual design was precisely calibrated for emotional contrast: players wear mint-green tracksuits evoking school gym uniforms from childhood, while masked guards in pink coveralls and geometric symbols represent the dehumanizing face of capitalism.

Netflix had modest marketing expectations for the show and was genuinely blindsided by its global explosion; initial viewership growth was driven almost entirely by viewer word-of-mouth, particularly outside South Korea.

Hwang Dong-hyuk has said the creative process was so stressful that he lost several teeth during production — an anecdote he shared candidly in interviews that itself became widely circulated news.

Squid Game Season 2 (December 2024) and Season 3 (June 2025) completed the trilogy, with the finale becoming one of Netflix's fastest-watched concluding seasons and cementing the series as one of streaming's defining cultural phenomena.