The year she turned 19, she was chosen for TBC’s third class of open-recruitment TV actors and began her broadcast career. In 1967, she appeared in the TBC drama Mister Gom. In 1969, she moved to MBC.
The breakthrough yearThe year she turned 24, she made her film debut in Kim Ki-young’s Woman of Fire and won best actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards and best new actor at the Grand Bell Awards. That year she also took the lead in MBC’s Jang Hui-bin.
In 1972, she appeared in Kim Ki-young’s The Insect Woman. At the end of 1973, she went to the U.S. In 1974, she married the singer Jo Young-nam and took a break from acting. In 1976, she appeared in Girl’s High School Days and then stopped working.
In 1984, she returned to Korea and resumed acting in an MBC one-episode drama. In 1985, she came back to film in Mother. In 1987, she divorced, and that year she appeared in MBC’s Love and Ambition. In 1990, she was in MBC’s Betrayal of the Rose.
In 1997, she appeared in MBC’s The Reason I Live. In 2001, she appeared in MBC’s Hotelier. In 2003, she won best supporting actress at the Korean Film Awards for Im Sang-soo’s A Good Lawyer’s Wife.
In 2006, she appeared in Maundy Thursday. In 2010, she won best supporting actress at the Grand Bell Awards and the Korean Film Awards for Im Sang-soo’s The Housemaid. In 2012, The Taste of Money was in the Cannes competition. In 2016, she played So-young in The Bacchus Lady. In 2017, she began tvN’s Youn’s Kitchen.
In 2020, Minari won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2021, the year she turned 74, she won best supporting actress at the 93rd Academy Awards, the first Korean actor to do so. In 2022, she played the older Sunja in Apple TV+’s Pachinko.
In 2024, Dog Days opened and Pachinko season 2 was released. In 2025, The Wedding Banquet opened in Korea. In 2026, she was nominated for an Emmy for supporting actress for Netflix’s Beef season 2.
Youn Yuh-jung (born Jun 19, 1947) debuted in 1966, the year she turned 19, in TBC’s third class of open-recruitment TV actors, and became known in 1971, the year she turned 24, when she won best actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for Kim Ki-young’s film Woman of Fire. On Apr 25, 2021, the year she turned 74, she won the Oscar for best supporting actress for Minari.
Ages are by calendar year (the year minus the birth year), birthdays aside.