Baeksang awards nominations: Netflix’s ‘When Life Gives You Tangerines’ leads pack with eight

The 61st Baeksang Arts Awards announced the lineup of nominees on Monday for this year’s event, set to take place on May 5.

As always, the Baeksang Arts Awards will give out awards in three main categories. However, this year sees the existing television category renamed to broadcasting, with the film and theater sections staying the same.

The change in name comes in tandem with the change in content consumption trends that now transcend simple cable or terrestrial TV channels but encompass a larger range of platforms including websites and mobile streaming services.

This year seems like yet another big one for Netflix, whose latest two-generation romance drama “When Life Gives You Tangerines” has been nominated for a whopping eight awards: Best Drama, Best Director, Best Script, Best Male Actor, Best Female Actor, Best Male Supporting Actor, Best Female Supporting Actor and Best New Female Actor.

Tied in the next-highest number of nominations are Netflix’s “The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call” and tvN’s “Lovely Runner” (2024), which were both nominated in five categories. Both were nominated for Best Drama, Best Director and Best Male Actor awards.

“The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call” was nominated in the Best Male Supporting Actor and Best New Female Actor categories, while “Lovely Runner” was nominated for the Best Female Actor and Best New Male Actor awards.

Competing for the Best Drama award in the broadcasting section are JTBC’s “The Tale of Lady Ok” (2024) and MBC’s “Doubt” (2024).

The Best Male Actor award category nominees are Park Bo-gum of “When Life Gives You Tangerines,” Byeon Woo-seok of “Lovely Runner,” Lee Jun-hyuk of Tving’s “Dongjae, the Good or the Bastard” (2024), Ju Ji-hoon of “The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call” and Han Seok-kyu of “Doubt.” The Best Female Actor award nominees are Go Min-si of Netflix’s “The Frog” (2024), Kim Tae-ri of tvN’s “Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born” (2024), Kim Hye-yoon of “Lovely Runner,” singer and actor IU of “When Life Gives You Tangerines” and Jang Na-ra of SBS’s “Good Partner” (2024).

For the Best Entertainment award, two TV programs — tvN’s “Iron Girls” (2024) and Mnet’s “Stage Fighter” (2024)— two YouTube channels — Choo Sung Hoon and Ddeun Ddeun — and “Culinary Class Wars” (2024) on Netflix were nominated. The art director of “Culinary Class Wars” was also nominated for the Best Art award, along with the director of photography of “Doubt,” music director of “Jeongnyeon,” martial arts director of tvN’s “Study Group” and the visual effects team of Netflix’s “Hellbound” (2024) season two.

The Best Education Program section once again spanned informative programs and documentaries with diverse messages. Nominees are EBS’s “Docuprime – Where is my last home” (translated, 2024), Wavve’s “Just Family” (2024), Wonju MBC’s “As wind, once again with you” (translated, 2024), SBS’s “Special – Hakchon and Kim Min-gi” (translated, 2024) and Tving’s “Shaman: Whispers from the Dead” (2024).

The film category sees fierce competition among various works rather than one dominating champion, in accordance with a cinema industry that has been seeing a declining number of box office hits in recent years.

Four films — “Love in the Big City” (2024), “Revolver” (2024), Netflix’s “Uprising” (2024) and “Harbin” (2024) — have been nominated in five categories each, including the Best Film award. Film “House of the Seasons” (2024) was also nominated for the Best Film award, as well as three others.

For the Best Male Actor category, actors Yoon Ju-sang of “The Land of Morning Calm” (2024), Lee Byung-hun of “The Match,” Lee Hee-jun of “Handsome Guys” (2024), Cho Jung-seok of “Pilot” (2024) and Hyun Bin of “Harbin” have been nominated. For the Best Female Actor award, nominees are Kim Go-eun of “Love in the Big City,” Kim Kum-soon of “Jeong-sun,” Song Hye-kyo of “The Priests 2: Dark Nuns,” Jeon Do-yeon of “Revolver” and Cho Yeo-jeong of “Hidden Face” (2024).

The Gucci Impact Award, presented by this year’s sponsor luxury house Gucci, will go to a film that sheds light on the darker corners of the world and sends a deeper message that resonates with society as a whole. Nominees are “Blesser” (2024), “Love in the Big City,” “Voices of the Silenced” (2024), “The Land of the Morning Calm” and “Jeong-sun.”

For the theater category, three awards will be given out: The Baeksang Theater award, the Young Theater award and the Best Actor award.

The 61st Baeksang Arts Awards will take place at Coex in southern Seoul on May 8 at 8 p.m. and will be broadcast live on cable channels JTBC, JTBC2 and JTBC4.

Works released in Korea between April 1, 2024, and March 31 of this year were reviewed by a panel of 60 experts from the arts and entertainment field, according to the organizing committee.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]