Pictures: Netflix
The first quarter of 2025 is coming to an end so it’s time to have a look and assess the year’s biggest winners so far. What movies and series have had the best launches this year, and what’s picked up the most weeks and views in the weekly top 10s?
As a reminder, we’ve got many top 10 tools that go beyond the offering that the official Netflix top 10 site gives you. Our simple search tool allows you to search for individual titles and (easily) go back through prior weeks of top 10s with comparisons of how much a title jumped or dropped in any given week. We’ve also got a country search and our Netflix Engagement Reports search tool.
Note: For this list, we’re going to be looking at the first two weeks of launching for each title. Once the Engagement Reports drop for the year’s first half, we’ll also incorporate those. Titles in tables marked with an asterisk indicate they’re a Netflix Original.
English Language Movie Hits of 2025 So Far
Picture: Netflix
So far in 2025, Netflix has released eight Original English-language movies, which is about on par with 2020, although down from peak years 2018 and 2022, when 15 English-language movies were released in the first three months of the year. The biggest winner so far is Back in Action, which has already reserved a place in Netflix’s all-time most-watched list with The Electric State coming in a distant second, almost certainly disappointing Netflix given the amount of investment that went into this film.
Notes:
- The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl only appeared in the charts for one week before dropping out. They scored 4.8M views and 4.6M views, respectively, although in the case of Wallace & Gromit, the movie was not made available in the United Kingdom.
- As of the time of publishing, The Life List has yet to be released, so there is no data yet. Once available, it’ll auto-populate in the bar graph above.
- Carry-On continued to pull in good numbers in the first quarter but we’re only including launches in the above graph.
How about licensed movies? Things naturally get more complicated here, given that many are licensed on and off of Netflix in different regions around the world at other times. Still, if we group up the movies that have picked up the most views and weeks so far in 2025, it tells us the story that we already know: animated movies from Universal, particularly those from Illumination, dominate. The Sony Marvel movies, which drop in select regions as part of a first window deal, including the US, also perform well. With the exception of Uncharted, which dropped in international territories after leaving Netflix US, all the other movies that aren’t animated titles are driven by US viewership.
In total, 65 individual movies (both licensed and Original) featured in the Films (English) charts, here’s the top 20:
| Title | Views | Weeks in Top 10 in 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Back in Action* | 131,000,000 | 6 |
| The Electric State* | 47,700,000 | 2 |
| The Secret Life of Pets 2 | 43,900,000 | 6 |
| Kinda Pregnant | 43,100,000 | 3 |
| La Dolce Villa* | 38,400,000 | 3 |
| Plankton: The Movie* | 33,200,000 | 3 |
| Carry-On* | 33,000,000 | 5 |
| Despicable Me 4 | 29,900,000 | 4 |
| Despicable Me 2 | 21,500,000 | 5 |
| Despicable Me 3 | 19,100,000 | 3 |
| The Secret Life of Pets | 18,900,000 | 4 |
| Venom: The Last Dance | 17,800,000 | 2 |
| The Twister: Caught in the Storm* | 17,000,000 | 1 |
| Minions | 16,100,000 | 3 |
| Uncharted | 15,700,000 | 2 |
| The Six Triple Eight* | 14,800,000 | 2 |
| Shrek | 14,300,000 | 2 |
| Kraven the Hunter | 13,100,000 | 2 |
| Shrek 2 | 11,600,000 | 2 |
| Trap | 11,200,000 | 2 |
Non-English Language Movie Hits of 2025 So Far
Picture: Netflix
The global charts for non-English movies have seen 58 individual movies featured so far, and there have been significantly more international movie releases, making this far more interesting. Already hitting the all-time top 10, Netflix France is having another good year in the movie department (their smash hit Under Paris was one of the biggest movies of the year leading to a sequel order) with Ad Vitam which spent 5 weeks in the top 10s pulling in more views than Counterattack, the Mexican military drama.
Unlike the English movie list, Netflix Originals absolutely dominate this category, taking all but one spot on the top 20 list. Once again, then, here’s the top 20 performing movies in the first half of 2025, how many views they picked up in that period, and the number of weeks they’ve spent in the top 10 during this period too:
| Title | Views | Weeks in Top 10 in 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Ad Vitam (FR)* | 55,900,000 | 5 |
| Counterattack (MX)* | 53,500,000 | 4 |
| Honeymoon Crasher (FR)* | 25,000,000 | 3 |
| Demon City (JP)* | 24,900,000 | 4 |
| Lucca’s World (BR)* | 23,100,000 | 4 |
| Squad 36 (FR)* | 21,300,000 | 3 |
| Delicious (DE)* | 19,200,000 | 3 |
| Number 24 (NO)* | 18,600,000 | 4 |
| Bogotá: City of the Lost (KR)* | 17,800,000 | 3 |
| The Love Scam (IT)* | 13,800,000 | 3 |
| Dhoom Dhaam (IN)* | 12,400,000 | 3 |
| A Copenhagen Love Story (DK)* | 11,500,000 | 3 |
| The Sand Castle (LB)* | 9,700,000 | 2 |
| Pushpa 2: The Rule (Reloaded Version) (IN) | 9,400,000 | 2 |
| Love Forever (SE)* | 8,400,000 | 2 |
| Nadaaniyan (IN)* | 8,200,000 | 2 |
| The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (ID)* | 8,200,000 | 3 |
| Death Before the Wedding (PL)* | 6,600,000 | 2 |
| Under Paris (FR)* | 5,900,000 | 6 |
| The Children’s Train (IT)* | 5,800,000 | 4 |
English Language Series Hits of 2025 So Far
Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024
Undoubtedly, the winner of 2025 so far has been Adolescence, and it’s not even close. The docu-series American Murder, focusing on Gabby Petito, was incredibly strong out of the gate, leading to the second biggest launch of the year so far just ahead of two limited series: Zero Day and Missing You with the latter not quite living up to the same heights as its predecessor in 2024, Fool Me Once.
As we’ve discussed, Adolescence is already tracking for a spot in the top 3 of Netflix’s all-time most watched list at its current pace, with it even picking up more views than DAHMER in its first two weeks. Also, to put its performance into perspective, as demonstrated below, in two weeks it picked up the same amount of views as The Night Agent S2 did in eight weeks. Off the line then, here’s which titles had the best first two-week launches of 2025 so far:
Note: The Residence has only featured for a single week and Survival of the Thickest S2 has yet to launch as of the time of publishing. Cobra Kai is not featured in the above chart as Netflix doesn’t separate individual part viewing.
In total, 48 individual English language shows have been featured in Netflix’s top 10 shows so far in 2025. One title we should mention is WWE Raw, which we’re getting a weekly number for and has featured in the top 10s every week since it began broadcasting live on Netflix in early 2025. We’ve done a bit more analysis on the WWE numbers on Netflix here.
| Title | Views | Weeks in Top 10 in 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Adolescence* | 66,300,000 | 2 |
| The Night Agent -S2* | 62,600,000 | 8 |
| Zero Day* | 51,900,000 | 5 |
| American Murder: Gabby Petito* | 49,000,000 | 4 |
| Missing You* | 45,700,000 | 4 |
| Raw* | 36,000,000 | 11 |
| American Primeval* | 35,100,000 | 4 |
| XO Kitty – S2* | 34,000,000 | 3 |
| Running Point* | 31,000,000 | 4 |
| The Recruit – S2* | 23,400,000 | 4 |
| Ms. Rachel | 16,800,000 | 6 |
| Apple Cider Vinegar* | 12,200,000 | 3 |
| Love Is Blind – S8* | 12,200,000 | 3 |
| Toxic Town* | 11,300,000 | 3 |
| Departure | 11,200,000 | 2 |
| Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action* | 11,200,000 | 2 |
| American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson* | 10,000,000 | 2 |
| Cobra Kai – S6* | 9,500,000 | 2 |
| The Search For Instagram’s Worst Con Artist | 9,300,000 | 2 |
| Sweet Magnolias – S4* | 8,500,000 | 2 |
Non-English Language Series Hits of 2025 So Far
Picture: Netflix
A few more asterisks with this chart, given that some of the Korean and anime shows that would’ve featured either don’t or are more spread out, given that they release weekly. That said, the year’s biggest launch is the Swedish crime drama series The Åre Murders, with the biggest two-week launch of any international series.
47 individual non-English series featured in the Netflix global weekly top 10s, and the clear winner overall is Squid Game, which was released over the Christmas break and keeps on picking up views in the weekly global charts. It finally dropped out after 10 straight weeks, however. As with the above charts, here is the top 20 in terms of cumulative views picked up in the weekly top 10 charts so far in 2025:
| Title | Views | Weeks in Top 10 |
|---|---|---|
| Squid Game (KR)* | 153,200,000 | 9 |
| SAKAMOTO DAYS (JP)* | 36,300,000 | 10 |
| Cassandra (DE)* | 32,700,000 | 6 |
| The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call (KR)* | 26,600,000 | 5 |
| The Åre Murders (SE)* | 25,800,000 | 4 |
| The Breakthrough (SE)* | 22,600,000 | 4 |
| Fake Profile (CO)* | 19,100,000 | 4 |
| Medusa (CO)* | 15,600,000 | 3 |
| When Life Gives You Tangerines (KR)* | 15,100,000 | 3 |
| La Palma (NO)* | 11,900,000 | 2 |
| Just One Look (PL)* | 10,100,000 | 3 |
| Single’s Inferno (KR)* | 9,900,000 | 3 |
| Prison Cell 211 (MX)* | 8,900,000 | 2 |
| Wrong Side of the Tracks – S4 (ES)* | 8,200,000 | 3 |
| Dog Days Out (KR)* | 8,000,000 | 3 |
| When the Phone Rings (KR)* | 7,500,000 | 2 |
| Sintonia – S4 (AR)* | 6,700,000 | 2 |
| Subteran (RO)* | 6,200,000 | 2 |
| The Leopard (IT)* | 6,200,000 | 2 |
| Dabba Cartel (IN)* | 5,900,000 | 3 |
What’s been your favorite new release of 2025 so far? Let us know in the comments down below.
Rating: TV-MA
