For The First Time, Netflix Reveals Its ‘Top Ten’ Movies And Shows By Hours Watched. What Made The List?

For the first time, on Monday, streaming service Netflix released its “Top Ten” rankings for its most popular content by number of total hours viewed during their first month of release.

“We’re trying to be more transparent with the market, with the talent, with everybody,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said Monday at the Code Conference in Los Angeles, where Netflix unveiled the new rankings. 

Netflix’s top-performing series by total view hours in the first 28 days are ranked as follows:

1. Bridgerton, Season 1 — 625 million hours
2. Money Heist, Part 4 — 619 million hours
3. Stranger Things 3 — 582 million hours
4. The Witcher, Season 1 — 541 million hours
5. 13 Reasons Why, Season 2 — 496 million hours
6. 13 Reasons Why, Season 1 — 476 million hours
7. You, Season 2 — 457 million hours
8. Stranger Things 2 — 427 million hours
9. Money Heist, Part 3 — 426 million hours
10. Ginny & Georgia, Season 1 — 381 million hours

Netflix’s top-performing movies by total view hours in the first 28 days are ranked as follows:

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
10. Murder Mystery — 170 million hours

As CNET explained, “For the last couple of years, Netflix has been more aggressive in publicizing its most popular titles, but typically its viewership stats were based on the number of accounts that viewed at least two minutes of a program — a metric sometimes criticized for not really showing how many people watched a title, just how many sampled it.”

When we consider this form of ranking, the top-performing shows and movies do change.

Netflix’s top-performing series by number of accounts that sampled at least two minutes in the first 28 days are ranked as follows:

1. Bridgerton, Season 1 — 82 million
2. Lupin, Part 1 — 76 million
3. The Witcher, Season 1 — 67 million
4. Sex/Life, Season 1 — 67 million
5. Stranger Things 3 — 67 million 
6. Money Heist, Part 4 — 65 million
7. Tiger King, Season 1 — 64 million
8. The Queen’s Gambit — 62 million
9. Sweet Tooth, Season 1 — 60 million
10. Emily in Paris, Season 1 — 58 million

Most notably, while “Lupin” was ranked in second place — sampled by 76 million accounts, it didn’t even make the “Top Ten” in terms of hours viewed. “The Queen’s Gambit” was sampled by 62 million accounts and is also missing from the “Top Ten” ranking by hours viewed.

Netflix’s top-performing movies by number of accounts that sampled at least two minutes in the first 28 days are ranked as follows:

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 — 75 million
10. Fatherhood — 74 million

It should be noted that the “hours watched” metric does have drawbacks, such as the fact that it favors series and movies with longer runtimes. As CNET noted, “Three-and-a-half-hour long ‘The Irishman’ suddenly appears up high in Netflix’s film top-10 list by hours watched, even though it falls far short of a top-10 ranking if you count how many accounts sampled it.”