For a moment, I debated whether or not to go forward with this particular countdown this year. Yes, K-pop music videos are generally great, but to be honest I just don’t watch them as intently as I used to. I’m much more familiar with the music than the visuals, which threatens to turn this list into a countdown of my favorite artists whose videos I actually watched intently rather than a somewhat objective look at visual achievements. What you end up with here is a bit of both, which means I’d be very curious to hear your own lists!
Honorable Mentions:
NTX – Over N Over
Close Your Eyes – All My Poetry
ILLIT – Little Monster
&TEAM – Back To Life
ILLIT – Do The Dance
ARTMS – Icarus
Tempest – In The Dark
BABYMONSTER – We Go Up
AHOF – Pinocchio
10. NOUERA – N (NUMBER OF CASES)
I love sci-fi themed music videos and NouerA delivered with both of their title tracks. I give N (Number Of Cases) the slight edge because its variety of set pieces are very visually striking.
9. NMIXX – BLUE VALENTINE
Blue Valentine uses surreal imagery to enhance the song’s emotional wallop, delivering memorable visuals that feel ripped from a dream (or nightmare?).
8. ILLIT – JELLYOUS
ILLIT were music video MVPs this year and it was hard to choose a favorite. When it comes down to it, I found Jellyous‘s quirky stop/start staging to be most visually compelling.
7. AHOF – RENDEZVOUS
This has the feeling of “bringing the Avengers of K-pop together” and perfectly compliments the song’s gradual build. I love the contrast between light and dark.
6. TWS – HEAD SHOULDERS KNEES TOES
My favorite TWS music video of the year is the least TWS-coded. There are some visuals here (the dancing in the elevators, the slow motion bullet) that instantly replay in my head whenever I hear the song. That’s the sign of a video that works.
5. LE SSERAFIM – SPAGHETTI (FT. J-HOPE)
The song calls for a crazy, campy, colorful video and LE SSERAFIM delivered. It knows its kitschy theme and plays it for all it’s worth.
4. CRAVITY – SET NET G0?!
I love the colors, tone and fashion in this video. It has a nostalgic, found-footage feeling that compliments the quirky twists of the song.
3. AESPA – DIRTY WORK
I may not be totally convinced by the song, but the grimy, mud-soaked video is a real highlight. SM threw the budget at them and it shows.
2. RIIZE – ODYSSEY (Visual Album)
I’m not sure this quite held together in the way I’d hope from a visual album (and I’m still irked that Ember To Solar didn’t get a full mv), but I feel like they need to be high on the list for their ambition alone. Having visuals for so many of the tracks on this fantastic album is a real treat.
1. CLOSE YOUR EYES – SNOWY SUMMER
Close Your Eyes’s music is quite idiosyncratic and deserves visuals that echo that style. Snowy Summer‘s silly story of ghosts and pizza and snow in summer offers a feast of fun, world-building imagery that elevated the song from a simple ditty to a cinematic highlight.
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Key’s HUNTER has an amazing music video
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My favorite MVs of the year were (in no particular order) –
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Big same on maybe not giving MVs their due this year. Even for my favourite songs I don’t really remember what their music videos were in 2025.
I think ILLIT’S Little Monster would be my top MV for the year, elevates an alright song with imagery that vibes really well with the music and has an overall creative look to it.
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Every year I watch less and less MVs so I also don’t have a long list, but I loved the MVs for XG – Gala and NMIXX – Blue Valentine! The visuals for those videos are so striking I instantly think of them when I hear those songs.
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RIIZE’s music videos were my favorite of the year for sure. Bag Bad Back, Fly Up, and Fame all had exceptional music videos!
I remember also enjoying +82 Pressin’ by Mark and Haechan, and J-hope’s Killin’ it Girl was also a good one.
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Wanna add Joy’s Love Splash on the list. It’s simple but I love the visuals
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Eh most of these are fine music videos, some of them great even, but they didn’t necessarily move the needle for me. Here are the ones that did:
ARTMS – Icarus (also on Nick’s honourable mentions): Perhaps the most ambitious music video project I’ve ever seen come out of K-pop, this is a moody 15-minute affair with a full plot, haunting imagery and plenty of extras that wouldn’t feel out of place in a short film festival. And while the song’s extended choreography scene feels like the puzzle piece that fits the least, it’s hard to complain when that whole sequence is such an artistic achievement in itself. More than just a business partnership, at this point the continued collaboration between Modhaus and Digipedi feels like a mutual desire to keep pushing the envelope.
Young Posse feat. 10CM – Cold: If Icarus has a song embedded into a film, Cold instead has a fully-realized story embedded within the strict confines of the song itself. Starring the members plus a few actors, shot on location in Taiwan and presented out of sequence, it’s a punch in the gut that amplifies the emotional impact of the song ten-, hundredfold.
tripleS – Are You Alive: Speaking of gut punches, this is much more conventional music video material that nevertheless deals in themes of struggle and despair but also hope, unlike the cloyingly sweet, relentlessly optimistic fare of a lot of their contemporaries. It also benefits from set pieces that only tripleS can pull off due to the sheer scale of the group, with the scene where they’re all dancing around a big bonfire being a particular highlight.
G-Dragon – Drama: Scale is great but sometimes extreme minimalism can be great too, especially with (a) such a slow-burner of a song and (b) such a charismatic performer as G-Dragon. Usually I prefer videos which involve non-studio locations or other people or ideally both; while here it’s just the artist with a masked ballerina in a sparse room where everything is white, and this sets just the right mood that befits the song.
Jennie – Zen: Did I say mood? It was neck-and-neck for me whether I’d pick this or XG’s Gala, both by Cho Gi-seok, but the latter prioritizes quirkiness while the former beauty and I suppose I’m more drawn to that. The director builds his signature dreamy landscape while Jennie uses her body as a canvas to showcase the work of a number of Korean designers, and the result feels both otherworldly but also perfectly grounded in the industry that produced it.
Low-budget honourable mention:
KiiiKiii – BTG: “Going hard amongst the produce in the greenhouse” is not a music video recipe I would have expected to get behind, but I think what makes this work is the combination of mostly committing to the bit in full earnestness while also giving little winks and nods of the absurdity of it all in the B-roll. And while yes, as evidenced by the above list I tend to be drawn towards darker material, this one brings a smile to my face every single time.
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