Is My Mister worth watching? Yes, if you don’t need a fast plot or a bright premise: it shares the top score in our own Netflix K-drama ratings table at 9.0, tied with two other shows, and it gets there on the smallest vote count of the three. There’s no Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic page to point you to here, so the case for it rests on what Korean television itself gave it, not on an aggregator score. This review pulls together what’s confirmed on the record — the award, the ratings, the measured runtimes — rather than a scene-by-scene account of a rewatch.
📌 Key Takeaways
- It ties for No. 1 in our Netflix K-drama ratings table at 9.0 — on the fewest votes of the three shows tied there.
- There’s no Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic page for it; the case for “acclaimed” rests on winning Best Drama at the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards.
- Measured runtimes for the first ten episodes average 78 minutes, and it’s a slow, domestic drama, not a plot-driven thriller.
This article is for: anyone deciding whether to start a slow, quiet 16-episode drama with no marquee action, based on what critics and award juries actually said about it.
A 9.0 With the Smallest Crowd
In our Netflix K-drama ratings table, My Mister sits at No. 1, tied at 9.0 with Reply 1988 and When Life Gives You Tangerines — but its vote count is the smallest pile of the three by a wide margin. That’s not a knock on the score. It’s a smaller, older show that never chased a global audience the way a Netflix original does, so fewer voters have logged in and rated it. What that vote count tells you is who this show reaches: people who found it, sat through sixteen unhurried episodes, and came out ready to rate it a 9.
What “Acclaimed” Means Without a Rotten Tomatoes Page
My Mister has no presence on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, the two aggregators most reviews in this genre lean on. So the acclaim case here isn’t built from critic quotes. It’s built from what Korean television itself handed the show: at the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards on May 1, 2019, My Mister won Best Drama (the TV category’s top prize) and Best Screenplay for writer Park Hae-young. That’s not the ceremony’s overall grand prize, the Daesang, which went to a different actor that year, but Best Drama and Best Screenplay together is a strong showing for a single series. IU, who plays lead Lee Ji-an, also won the Popularity Award that night, drawing 53.2% of the audience vote. The male lead, Park Dong-hoon, was played by the late Lee Sun-kyun.
How Long Each Episode Actually Runs
My Mister isn’t a quick watch. Netflix’s US title page lists runtimes for the first ten episodes, and they run from 1h 12m to 1h 27m, averaging 78 minutes. Netflix’s public page shows ten episodes at a time, so episodes 11 through 16 aren’t part of that count — treat any total beyond the first ten as an estimate, not a measurement. At roughly 78 minutes an episode, this plays closer to a string of short films than a normal TV hour, which matters for how you plan to watch it.
The Story, Kept Spoiler-Light
The show follows Park Dong-hoon, a middle-aged engineer worn down by a stalled career and a difficult family, and Lee Ji-an, a younger woman who ends up wiretapping him for reasons that unfold slowly. What starts as surveillance turns into something closer to a quiet, unlikely friendship between two people who are both barely holding on. It’s not a romance in the conventional K-drama sense, and it doesn’t move fast. The show aired on tvN from March 21 to May 17, 2018, in a Wednesday-Thursday slot, written by Park Hae-young and directed by Kim Won-suk. On its home turf, it drew a paid-platform average of 7.4% for the finale, with a self-best peak of 8.8% — solid for a cable slot, not a blockbuster number, which fits a show that built its reputation slowly rather than through a splashy finale.
Who Should Start It (And Who Should Skip It)
Start it if you want a slow, character-driven drama that trusts silence and small gestures over plot twists, and if you’re fine with an unglamorous, working-class setting instead of the wealth and gloss a lot of K-dramas lean on. Skip it, or at least wait, if you need forward momentum every episode or you’re looking for a lighter watch — this is a heavy, patient show, and the runtime asks for real attention rather than background viewing.
Where It’s Streaming Right Now
My Mister is available on Netflix in the US, and it also turns up on Viki, Roku, and Tubi. Streaming availability shifts, so that lineup reflects what’s live as of August 14, 2026 rather than a permanent guarantee.
Sources
- Wikipedia — My Mister
- Soompi — Winners of the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards
- Forbes — Korea’s 55th Baeksang Award winners
- AsianWiki — My Mister
- Newsis — My Mister finale ratings
- JustWatch — My Mister streaming availability
More guides on StreamDecoded: