She gained international recognition for her role in Minari (2020). Her critically acclaimed portrayal of Soon-ja in the film made her the first Korean actress to win a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Independent Spirit Award, a British Academy Film Award, and an Academy Award, as well as the first to be nominated for a Critics' Choice Movie Award, all in the Best Supporting Actress category.
By the late 1960s, Youn was a rising star in South Korea and won several awards for her role in Woman of Fire (1971). She retired from the spotlight for several years before returning to acting in the late 1980s. Besides Woman of Fire and Minari, Youn is known for her work in the South Korean films The Housemaid (2010), The Taste of Money (2012), The Bacchus Lady (2016), and Canola (2016). She is also known for her matriarch roles in the South Korean family drama series Men of the Bath House (1995), Be Strong Geum Soon (2005), Daughters-in-Law (2007), My Husband Got a Family (2012), and Dear My Friends (2016). In 2022, she appeared in the television series Pachinko on Apple TV+.
Youn Yuh jung was born on June 19, 1947 in Kaesong (today in North Korea), Gyeonggi Province, and grew up in Seoul. Her father died when she was young. She has two sisters. Her sister Youn Yeo-soon is a former executive at LG Group. She attended high school at Ewha Girls' High School, and enrolled at Hanyang University majoring in Korean Language and Literature, when she passed the open auditions held by TBC in 1966.

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