Netflix reveals top 10 most watched original TV and movies in its history
After almost nine years in the originals game, Netflix has released a lot of TV shows and movies. These are the most watched ever.
Netflix has been making original TV and movies going on nine years now, since House of Cards first premiered in early 2013.
And in that time, it’s had some veritable hits – TV and movie titles that have dominated social media and even physical buzz, for better or worse.
Notoriously secretive with the reams of data it has, Netflix has previously only sporadically lifted the veil on what its 200 million subscribers are watching, and even then, the unverified data is based on how many account holders started watching something, not whether they finished it.
When it first released any stats, it was based on how many viewers made it to the 70 per cent mark of a movie or the first episode of a series, and then that was changed to how many households watched two minutes or more.
The two-minutes mark is also used to calculate the top 10 by country rankings which is refreshed every 24 hours.
For the first time today, at the Vox Media’s Code Conference, Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos revealed the top 10 most watched original TV shows and movies in the history of the streaming service, by both the number of households who started and by the amount of hours spent watching in the first four weeks after its release.
Bridgerton was the most watched Netflix original series. Picture: Liam Daniel/Netflix
It’s an illuminating list – albeit it is completely weighted towards more recent releases given how Netflix has grown its subscriber base since it moved into original programming.
That could be partly why you won’t see its much-touted early originals such as Orange is the New Black, House of Cards or Bloodline on these lists given they were released at a time when Netflix had a third of the number of subscribers it does now.
The oldest title on all four TV or movie lists is 13 Reasons Why season one, which premiered in 2017.
Bridgerton is the most watched TV series by both number of accounts and hours spent, which is good news for the Shonda Rhimes-produced series ahead of its season two debut earlier next year.
And there are also two non-English language titles – Lupin and Money Heist – on the list while Sarandos flagged that Korean drama Squid Game is the biggest series on Netflix in the nine days since its release, suggesting that there’s “a very good chance it’s going to be our biggest show ever”.
Top 10 Netflix TV series – based on the number of households who have watched at least two minutes
1. Bridgerton S1 – 82 million
2. Lupin Pt1 – 76 million
3. The Witcher S1 – 76 million
4. Sex/Life S1 – 67 million
5. Stranger Things S3 – 67 million
6. Money Heist Pt4 – 65 million
7. Tiger King S1 – 64 million
8. The Queen’s Gambit – 62 million
9. Sweet Tooth S1 – 60 million
10. Emily in Paris S1 – 58 million
Top 10 Netflix TV shows – based on number of hours watched
1. Bridgerton S1 – 625 million hours
2. Money Heist Pt4 – 619 million hours
3. Stranger Things S3 – 582 million hours
4. The Witcher S1 – 541 million hours
5.13 Reasons Why S2 – 496 million hours
6.13 Reasons Why S1 – 476 million hours
7. You S2 – 457 million hours
8. Stranger Things S2 – 427 million hours
9. Money Heist Pt3 – 426 million hours
10. Ginny & Georgia S1 – 381 million hours
On the movie front, Chris Hemsworth action flick Extraction, currently in production on a sequel, tops the list in number of households and is second on the list of hours watched.
Unlike on the TV series side, the top film lists are almost entirely made up of original movies fronted by A-list box office stars, including Ryan Reynolds, Charlize Theron, Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg, Robert DeNiro, Sandra Bullock, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston.
The only exceptions are Enola Holmes, which is fronted by Stranger Things breakout Millie Bobby Brown, and the execrable teen movie The Kissing Booth 2, which certain audiences like for some baffling reason.
Top 10 Netflix movies – based on the number of households who have watched at least two minutes
1. Extraction – 99 million
2. Bird Box – 89 million
3. Spenser Confidential – 85 million
4.6 Underground – 83 million
5. Murder Mystery – 83 million
6. The Old Guard – 78 million
7. Enola Holmes – 77 million
8. Project Power – 75 million
9. Army of the Dead – 74 million
10. Fatherhood - 74 million
Top 10 Netflix movies – based on the number of hours watched
1. Bird Box – 282 million hours
2. Extraction – 231 million hours
3. The Irishman – 215 million hours
4. The Kissing Booth 2 – 209 million hours
5.6 Underground – 205 million hours
6. Spenser Confidential – 197 million hours
7. Enola Holmes – 190 million hours
8. Army of the Dead – 187 million hours
9. The Old Guard – 186 million hours
Squid Game may become Netflix's biggest show ever, Netflix co-CEO says
The Korean series is already set to be Netflix's top non-English show "for sure," co-CEO Ted Sarandos says -- but Squid Game also has a "very good chance" of being its most popular show, period.
Squid Game is a dystopian Korean series about a deadly competition pitting desperate people against each other in children's games. Netflix
Netflix's dystopian Korean thriller series Squid Game has "a very good chance" of becoming Netflix's most popular show yet, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said Monday.
"There's a show on Netflix right now that is the No. 1 in the world, like everywhere in the world. It's called Squid Game. Squid Game will definitely be our biggest non-English language show in the world, for sure," Sarandos, who is also the head of content at Netflix, said Monday at the Code conference in Los Angeles. But he added that there's "a very good chance it's going to be our biggest show ever."
Sarandos didn't specify the metric used to gauge Squid Game's popularity. Traditionally, Netflix ranks the popularity of its originals by counting how many people watch a title for at least two minutes in the first 28 days of release.
If Sarandos is using this standard metric, Squid Game would be overtaking Bridgerton -- a racy Regency-era drama released late in 2020 -- as Netflix's most popular series. It would also overtake Lupin, a French heist series that is Netflix's most-watched non-English language series yet, and No. 2 most-watched series generally after Bridgerton.
Earlier Monday, Netflix released top-10 rankings of its original shows and movies, which are calculated after a title has been released for 28 days. Squid Game was released Sept 17, giving it only about 11 days of viewership by the time Sarandos spoke.
For years, Netflix was notoriously tight-lipped about viewership. The creator of House of Cards, which put Netflix's original content efforts on the map, once said the company wouldn't even share viewership metrics with him. But within the last two years, Netflix has grown much chattier about the popularity of its shows and movies, to help recruit talent and stoke buzz. Netflix also added a top-trending ranking to its service, so people can see what the most popular titles streaming on Netflix in their country are on any given day.
But Netflix's audience stats have exasperated parts of the TV industry for being unverified, unsupported and disclosed without much accountability.
"We're trying to be more transparent with the market, with the talent, with everybody," Sarandos said Monday.
Netflix sets up shop in Brooklyn neighborhood with massive new production studio
NEW YORK — First came the hipsters. Now it’s the moviemakers.
Bushwick’s revival took another step forward this month, when Netflix set up shop in the Brooklyn neighborhood.
The streaming service opened a 170,000-square-foot studio in Bushwick, a long-term lease that will provide “a state-of-the-art production experience for filmmakers,” a spokesman told the Daily News.
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The massive facility, stretching across almost two avenue blocks just off the L line, includes six soundstages, a mill, flexible support space, offices and meeting rooms.
Two productions have already started preparation at the facility, with filming expected to begin this month, but Netflix declined to reveal which shows. But signage at the production lot indicates the miniseries “The Watcher,” starring Naomi Watts, is being filmed there.
“From day one, they were excellent partners in trying to understand the landscape and community they were moving into,” Anne del Castillo, the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, told the Daily News.
“We reached out to them once they made the commitment and really got down to business to really try to understand what they were planning, help them understand what the community was in the area and connecting them to all the folks they really needed to engage to make the project mutually beneficial for both them and New York City.”
The Bushwick studio isn’t the first of its kind, certainly — Silvercup Studios has been running out of Long Island City, Queens, since 1983 and has been the home to shows from “Sex and the City” to political drama “Madam Secretary.” Steiner Studios sits at about three times the size in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Robert De Niro’s Wildflower Studios recently got approval from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and the community board to move forward with construction in Astoria.
But for Netflix, this is a permanent home after years of drifting around the five boroughs to film such shows as the comedy-drama series “Russian Doll,” the Ellie Kemper sitcom “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and a host of Marvel series such as “Jessica Jones.”
“When you’ve got this physical presence, there is that visible brick-and-mortar commitment that they’re going to keep that real estate active,” Robert Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, told The News. “That infrastructure does give a certain feel of stability.”
In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic wrecked the 2020 TV season, the industry accounted for about 185,000 jobs, $18.1 billion in wages and $81.6 billion in total economic output, according to a report from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment released in August.
Over the past 15 years, New York City jobs directly tied to the television and film industry have increased at 3% annually, compared with the city’s overall rate of 2%.
The direct ties, del Castillo explained, are supplies and services: lumber, laundry, electrical work. The indirect is everyone else in the community.
“There’s this induced impact where the workers on the productions then go spend money in the communities,” she told The News. “Maybe they’re going to meet up for drinks after work or they’re going to have dinner somewhere. That’s where we see some of the benefits of the production, too.”
That’s what popular ramen restaurant Ichiran, which faces the Bushwick studio, is hoping for. “We’re really looking forward to increased business with the opening of the Netflix studios,” Anson Ma, general manager at the Brooklyn location, told The News.
The new studio sits on land that was previously a steel factory and is surrounded by wholesalers and a granite supplier. Known for its gritty industrial history, Bushwick has in recent years recently seen a revival, with trendy pubs and buzzy restaurants like the New York outpost of San Francisco Sichuan eatery Mission Chinese setting up shop down the road from Netflix. Brooklyn pizza mainstay Roberta’s is also within driving distance.
Before COVID hit, the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment report bragged “the industry was at an all-time high,” with 80 series shot in New York City during the 2018-19 season. By the end of August, 34 projects were already back filming. Thompson thinks the number will keep growing.
“Once upon a time, New York City was the center of television production. When television first started in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, a vast percentage of network television originated live out of New York. You had a few shows that came out of Chicago and places like that, but when one thinks of the first hits on TV, they were live from New York,” he told The News.
“Now, with this Netflix [studio], it seems to be one more step in New York reclaiming its capital status for the television industry.”
