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Twyla Plack
The company updates its weekly "Top 10 on Netflix" every Tuesday, based on hours viewed from Monday through Sunday the previous week for original and licensed titles. Netflix's rankings are broken down into top 10 charts for films in English, TV in English, films in non-English languages and TV in non-English languages.
A ranking of all-time most watched titles also lives on the site, detailing shows that have the most viewing hours in their first 28 days of release. Netflix also has these split into films in English, TV in English, films in non-English languages and TV in non-English languages -- but for our charts below, we don't differentiate between languages.
If a new season releases its episodes in two parts on different dates, Netflix counts the watch time of the first volume's episodes for their first 28 days, then it counts the watch time of the second volume's episodes for their first 28 days. These all-time rankings are also updated every Tuesday, whenever any programs make it into the charts during the week prior.
Shows and movies need sustained popularity in many countries to crack into the all-time most watched charts. That means you can see titles with "Top 10" badges in Netflix's app for days, but they still may not be generating enough hours of viewing to make the all-time rankings.
For example, the first half of You's fourth season came out Feb. 9. The show, a popular psychological thriller about a serial killer, generated 183.9 million hours of viewing since then. And each subsequent season of the show has grown in popularity. But because this season is being released in two parts and the second half of the fourth season won't be released March 9, the final tally for You's full viewership won't be clear until early April.
Meanwhile, teen mystery hit Outer Banks returned on Thursday with its third season and racked up 155 million watch hours in just four days. And true-crime limited series Murdaugh Murders and British horror-thriller film The Strays, both released Wednesday, have been building search interest on Google.
But TV shows need to eclipse half a billion hours to make it onto the all-time list, and films need more than 200 million. Even the most popular shows and movies need multiple weeks and enduring attention to accumulate enough.
The following are Netflix's most watched series, based on Netflix's own reporting of total hours viewed in the first 28 days of each title's release. Again, if a new season releases its episodes in two volumes on different dates, Netflix counts the watch time of the first volume's episodes for their first 28 days, then it counts the watch time of the second volume's episodes for their first 28 days.
Netflix appears to have never released a non-English-language film that generated enough viewing hours to make it into an overall top-watched ranking. But additional widely watched non-English language movies on Netflix have included:
Part of the joy has been watching its young stars grow, but the adults evolve marvelously too, particularly Winona Ryder and David Harbour, who bring gravitas to the proceedings. Season 4 is currently in production after last season expanded the scope beyond the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. It can't arrive fast enough.
Aziz Ansari's wry, ruminative, artistic tale of an Indian-American actor dating, eating and accessorising his way through New York City was a sensation upon its release in 2015, then it disappeared for five years following its Italian neorealism-inspired second season.
This year, it returned, with Ansari behind the camera instead of in front and focused on Lena Waithe's supporting character, Denise, as she hunkered down with her wife in the countryside. The narrative shift was jarring, but also a beautiful character study, proving that Ansari's gift for storytelling extends well beyond the semi-autobiographical.
Kimmy Schmidt will help fill that 30 Rock-sized hole in your DVR and leave you wishing you had Tina Fey as your therapist. Crafted by Fey and brought to life by the perfectly-cast Ellie Kemper, chipper Kimmy comments on modern society with the innocence of a child and the experiences of an adult (an adult locked in a bunker for most of her life, that is) to make you wonder just how we let some things in the world get so weird.
This Ava DuVernay miniseries about the 1989 Central Park jogger case was much anticipated and very well received, earning Jharrel Jerome, one of the many cast members, an Emmy for his work. The series tells the true story of the five suspects falsely accused of assaulting and raping a woman in Central Park. The show was accompanied by a special, Oprah Winfrey Presents When They See Us Now, that also drew a lot of attention.
Based on the eponymous 2014 film, the series centers on several African-American college students at Ivy League school Winchester. Each 30-minute episode zooms into a single character's story, poignantly touching upon race relations and issues. The fourth and final season of the show is set to premiere some time this year.
This British dramedy is gearing up for its third season, and has likely been Netflix's most surprising win. Focusing on a socially awkward teenager and his sex therapist mother (a stellar Gillian Anderson), the series has been praised for its subtle sense of humor and extreme sex positivity both commercially and critically. Not often does British humor so effortlessly translate to American laughs, but Sex Education has managed to cross-over thanks to its warm heart, John Hughes-inspired high-school antics and anything-goes approach to the awkwardness of teen sexuality.
The Politician is considered by many to be a niche watch, just like almost all other shows created by Ryan Murphy. This is the prolific showrunner's first of many series under the Netflix banner, part of a historical deal that shook up the industry when announced back in 2018.
The show stars the wonderful Ben Platt as Payton Hobart, a high-achieving student at the fictional Saint Sebastian High School in Santa Barbara, California. The second season takes the character to New York, where he runs for a seat in the New York State Senate. Expect anything but high school drama from the show, which boasts the dramatic comedy that Murphy is renowned for and a stellar cast of characters.
Given constant Hollywood chatter about the difficulty that older actresses face when looking for suitable roles, Grace and Frankie is a truly refreshing show that makes full use of Jane Fonda's and Lily Tomlin's comedic chops. Add to that Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen as supporting actors and you've got yourself a sure success. Back in 2019, a seventh final season was announced, making this the longest-running Netflix original series in history. That would be 94 episodes in total.
13 Reasons Why was marred in controversy, and we understand why. The show was extremely graphic, at times even seemingly glorifying teen depression and suicide. The second season even includes a warning video at the beginning of each episode. That said, there was just something about the show that truly hit home, especially during the first season, which was intended as a limited series. The show eventually capped off at four seasons. Beware: this is a very sad story.
Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist) is an 18-year-old with autism spectrum disorder living in Connecticut. Atypical is his show. Although criticized in season one for its lack of autistic actors, the second and third seasons were well received by critics, an opinion matched by the show's rising popularity.
The antithesis of Amazon's gore-soaked superhero bro-down The Boys, Umbrella Academy is part X-Men, part Harry Potter and part Hellboy, yet somehow weirder than that recipe would have you believe. Elliot Page anchors a cast that also includes psychics, time travelers and one very smart monkey butler. It's wildly unpredictable, wholly original and further evidence that audiences are more than ready for superhero stories to get extra weird.
Things, alas, started to go sideways as the series ran on, transitioning from brilliant to ridiculous and overwrought long before revelations about Spacey led to his character getting the axe. The show's legacy will forever be tainted by Spacey's off-camera behavior, but the fact is that it was already in trouble before allegations came to light, steadily declining after the brilliant season 4.
Way before Marvel was all-in on time travel, this bleak German import spun a wild, self-contained tapestry about a small German community leaping back and forth in time to prevent an apocalyptic event. Season 1 is near perfect, 2 is deliciously weird and 3 flies off the rails, but that's kind of the fun: Perfectly cast, hilariously humorless, wildly overwrought in its melodrama and cold as a German winter, this is a feast for binge-watchers who relish in theorising what could come next.
This Henry Cavill-starring video-game adaptation answers a question nobody thought to ask: What if Game of Thrones didn't take itself so seriously? It's a bit campy, but the production design is great, and Cavill fully commits to everything, particularly taking baths and swinging a broadsword, both of which he does with reckless abandon.
Unorthodox is both hard and easy to watch. Heavy material depicted in digestible bits (4 episodes, each just under an hour), the story takes you inside the Hasidic community that calls Williamsburg, Brooklyn home. Loosely based on Deborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography (Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots), this is the first Netflix series almost exclusively shot in Yiddish.
As can be expected with TV dramas, this serial thriller lets you know right away that, obviously, nothing is as it seems. But this particular family and the particular secrets they protect are gripping and layered and will draw viewers in as they tear relationships and familial trust apart.
As any original fan of the series will likely agree, although season one was above-average good, the second and final one unfortunately fell short. Ben Mendelsohn's performance as the black sheep of the family still resonates, though.
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