For nearly as long as there have been American movies there have been foreign directors making them, in a symbiotic arrangement that gives the visitors freedom, cash or exposure and the domestic film industry cachet and infusions of creativity. In Hollywood’s early years Europeans classed up the joint, particularly those from the center of the continent: von Stroheim, Lubitsch, Lang, Zinnemann. More recent waves of talent have washed in from Australia, Hong Kong and Latin America.

This year a new group is arriving on American screens: the South Koreans, representing a celebrated national cinema that has not had much crossover with Hollywood before now. It hadn’t been for lack of trying: the directors Park Chan-wook, Kim Ji-woon and Bong Joon-ho had all been approached by American producers over the years. But through the vagaries of career paths and production schedules each one’s first English-language production has been or is scheduled to be released this year.

“I thought it was such a coincidence,” said Mr. Park, director of “Stoker,” a dark coming-of-age story starring Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman. “I tried to come up with an answer, but I haven’t really reached a satisfying one. If you want to twist my arm, it probably took around the same amount of time for the interest from the American industry to turn into confidence in these three directors to be able helm U.S. productions, and it would have probably taken an equal amount of time for all three directors to ponder such a proposition.”