Netflix has been making original TV and movies going on nine years now. Photo / 123RF
Netflix has been making original TV and movies going on nine years now. Photo / 123RF
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.
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.
Bridgerton was the most watched Netflix original series. Photo / Netflix
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
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.
Chris Hemsworth stars in the Netflix action thriller Extraction. Photo / Netflix
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.
