There's One Clear Reason Why Kpop Demon Hunters Was The Defining Movie Of 2025

Now that 2025 is coming to an end we're looking back at the movie year. This was the year when Warner Bros. delivered a string of very successful movies, the year when Superman came back to our screens and anime dominated the box office. Audiences this year were clearly hungry for something new, and they got it in what is clearly the defining movie of 2025: "KPop Demon Hunters."

Sony Pictures Animation's animated musical fantasy movie was distributed by Netflix and directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans. "KPop Demon Hunters" has a simple premise: For generations, humanity has been kept safe from hordes of demons by the combined powers of trios of female hunters, who use their singing voices to create a magical barrier that keeps the demons at bay. In the present, the latest demon-hunting trio is a K-pop girl group named HUNTR/X, who face their biggest challenge yet in a rival boy band made entirely of demons. 

This is the movie that took the world by storm. It topped the Netflix charts for weeks on end, quickly becoming the all-time most viewed movie ever on the platform regardless of medium. The soundtrack broke every record imaginable and turned its fake K-pop groups into bona fide Billboard superstars. The movie even became a box office hit despite an extremely limited theatrical release from Netflix — and that is after it was already available to watch at home. 

But what made this movie the massive success it became? What is it about "KPop Demon Hunters" that captured the attention of the entire world? Let's take a look.

It's easy to point to the catchy songs for the film's success, but that doesn't make "KPop Demon Hunters" any different to a Disney movie. It could be the animation style and how it builds on texture 3D animation popularized with "Into the Spider-Verse," but that's only part of it.

Instead, arguably the biggest reason "KPop Demon Hunters" is such a resounding phenomenon is right there in the title — K-pop. This is one of the most popular music genres worldwide, one that has exploded in popularity the past decade or so, but which is quite underserved in American pop culture. K-pop doesn't just inform the soundtrack, but the whole movie. There's the dynamic between the main trio, who are friends, but also cogs in a massive media machine of superstardom. The rabid fanbase for HUNTR/X, and their rivalry with other K-pop groups like Saja Boys and how that takes over the entire country (and our reality, too), makes for a story that feels fresh in the context of Western animation.

The movie also brings with it a cultural specificity that gives the movie universal appeal. Much like how "Ne Zha 2," "Moana" and "Coco" became massive hits by showing audiences new stories and worlds that are steeped in specific cultures, so too does "KPop Demon Hunters" succeed by presenting relatable and recognizable characters in a familiar world that is nevertheless culturally specific. From the food, to the use of Korean language, cultural references to other music groups and K-dramas, and even the voice cast, every single aspect of the movie engrosses you in Korean culture and serves a section of the audience that has not been represented this way before in Western animation.

The success of "KPop Demon Hunters" has been quite astonishing to see, and the extent of it, very hard to predict. If there is any doubt of this being the movie event of 2025, just look at how rapidly Netflix moved to capitalize on it. Sure, there's the obvious move like announcing a sequel, but also the rare move by Netflix to produce merchandise for the film, something it tries hard to avoid.

It is the fact that this is a Netflix movie, yet achieved the kind of success a theatrically released movie does, is its biggest feat. "KPop Demon Hunters" had audiences around the world singing along to its songs and catapulting fake music groups to mainstream stardome, but most importantly, it forced Netflix to start embracing the theatrical experience (if only a little bit).

First it was the one-off sing-along special event during the early fall, an event that only took place across two days in just 1,700 screens in the US. Then came the news that Netflix would re-release the film across the U.S. and Europe. This happened months after the initial release of "KPop Demon Hunters" on Netflix, when virtually everyone who was going to see the movie already had, yet audiences nevertheless flocked to movie theaters to experience it on the big screen. Perhaps the biggest achievement for this animated movie is that it coincided (or perhaps incited) with Netflix bridging a conflict with AMC and finally making a deal to put one of its movies in theaters. This year was the year of HUNTR/X, the year that an animated musical about a K-pop girl group got the biggest streamers to concede that theaters aren't obsolete, and it is only the beginning.