Debut
Debuts as a catalog model
Entered show business as a catalog model.
Source 01 · Xports News (Korean) · Filmography rundown · opens in a new tab The debut year follows the article. The month could not be confirmed.The year she turned 19, she entered show business as a catalog model.
The breakthrough yearThe year she turned 20, she appeared in the KBS drama School, and Xports News writes that she became a star overnight through it.
The year she turned 21, she played her first lead role in Bong Joon-ho’s Barking Dogs Never Bite, and that year won Best New Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards and the Popularity Award at the KBS Drama Awards. In 2001, Take Care of My Cat opened. In 2002, she appeared in Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. In 2003, she returned to drama after two and a half years in Country Princess.
In 2004, she appeared in the play Sunday Seoul. In 2006, she worked with Bong Joon-ho again in The Host. In 2009, the Japanese film Air Doll opened in Japan, and late that year came news of her Japan Academy Film Prize for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In 2010, Air Doll opened in Korea.
In 2012, she played the North Korean table tennis player Ri Bun-hui in As One and appeared in the Hollywood film Cloud Atlas. In 2014, A Girl at My Door was invited to Un Certain Regard at Cannes. In 2015, Jupiter Ascending opened and Netflix released Sense8. In 2016, she appeared in Tunnel.
In 2017, she returned to Korean drama after six years with Stranger. In 2018, she appeared in Matrimonial Chaos. In 2019, she took on a period drama for the first time in Netflix’s Kingdom. In 2020, she appeared again in Stranger 2. In 2021, Netflix released The Silent Sea.
In 2022, she appeared in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker. In 2023, she received the Yu Hyun-mok Film Arts Award at the Buil Film Awards, and Netflix released Rebel Moon – Part One. In 2024, Rebel Moon – Part Two was released.
In 2025, the film Virus opened, and she won Best Actress at the Director’s Cut Awards for Family Matters. In 2026, she was named to the Berlin International Film Festival competition jury.
Bae Doona (born Oct 11, 1979) entered show business as a catalog model in 1998, the year she turned 19, and became known through the KBS drama School, which began airing in Feb 1999, the year she turned 20. Her first lead film was Barking Dogs Never Bite in 2000, the year she turned 21.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.