A short drama is a scripted series broken into episodes of roughly one to three minutes, filmed in portrait so it fills a phone screen. The stories are built for speed: a hook in the first seconds, a twist at the end of nearly every episode, and a payoff long before you would expect one on television.
How many episodes is that?
Counting the 31,413 English short dramas on DramaSpot today, the middle value is 55 episodes, so half of them run shorter and half run longer. The table shows how they spread out.
| Episodes | Dramas | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 | 2,339 | 7% |
| 20 to 39 | 6,189 | 20% |
| 40 to 59 | 8,565 | 27% |
| 60 to 79 | 9,716 | 31% |
| 80 to 99 | 3,795 | 12% |
| 100 or more | 809 | 3% |
What happens in them?
Set-ups you can grasp in a sentence: a secret heir, a marriage of convenience, a betrayal paid back. The labels the apps use most often on the shows we list are Romance, Modern, Revenge, Fantasy and Hidden Identity. Our glossary of plot types explains the vocabulary.
Where the format comes from
Short dramas started in China, where they are known as duanju, and spread to English-speaking audiences through apps such as ReelShort and DramaBox from around 2022.
How the apps charge
Most official apps open with a handful of free episodes, then ask for coins, ad views or a subscription. Prices shift by app and by country, so we do not quote any here.
Trying one
Open the complete list, choose a title and press Play. Episodes follow each other automatically, and there is no account to create.