Netflix, over the course of its history, has been incredibly secretive when it comes to statistics. This has caught the film and TV industry off guard, as people grew accustomed to box office and ratings data for projects. But since Netflix controls all of the data, it picks and chooses what is public and what isn’t. This makes the most recent data dump by Netflix the most interesting yet, as it finally breaks down the service’s most popular TV series and films of all time.
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Typically, as mentioned, Netflix will only release data when it serves a purpose—when a project breaks some sort of record or for marketing purposes to let people know how popular something is. And while the platform isn’t going to give us data about the biggest flops of all time, at least the most recent data (via Variety) does break down the top 10 films and TV series in a way that is seemingly without speculation (Netflix loves to speculate how many people are probably going to watch over the first four weeks).
The two metrics are simple—most popular TV series and films that households “sampled” over the first 28 days and most popular TV series and films in total viewing time (in hours) over the first 28 days. (While “sampling” isn’t defined, it’s assumed that means a household watched at least 5 minutes of a project.)
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Leading the way on the TV side of things is “Bridgerton” Season 1. The Shonda Rhimes-produced series dominated both charts, with 82 million accounts sampling it and 625 million viewing hours being watched. Those are absolutely bonkers numbers, which shows just why the streamer was so quick to get another season in production. But the #2 series are the ones that will probably shock folks the most. The second-most sampled series in the first four weeks of release is actually “Lupin” Season 1 with 76 million accounts, tying it with “The Witcher” Season 1. And the second-most-watched series based on viewing is “Money Heist” Part 4, with 619 million hours. For context, “Money Heist” Part 4 is #2 by a large margin over “Stranger Things 3,” which had 582 million viewing hours over the first 28 days.
On the film side of things, “Bird Box” and “Extraction,” both titles that Netflix has touted for months now, lead the way. “Bird Box” has the most viewing hours with 282 million, while “Extraction” has the most sampling accounts with 99 million. The two films flip-flopped respectively for #2 on both lists with “Bird Box” being viewed by 89 million accounts, while “Extraction” earned 231 million viewing hours.
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Both lists are available at Variety and are really interesting if you’re a stats nerd like myself. Ultimately, the big lesson learned is that viewing habits don’t necessarily equate to social media “buzz.” Sure, “Tiger King” Season 1 ranked #7 on the sampling list but it didn’t even make the top 10 when it came to hours viewed. But the trashy soap, “Sex/Life” beat it on sampling, and “Ginny and Georgia” Season 1 ranked in the top 10 on most hours viewed. Headscratchers, folks.
