Do Netflix Movies Have Longevity or Quickly Fade Into Obscurity?

One of the biggest myths about Netflix is that their movies just fade out of existence... We look into the stats to prove why...

Frédéric Durand What's on Netflix Avatar
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Red Notice

Picture: Netflix

There is a common myth amongst Netflix critics: Films released on Netflix sink to the depths of the catalog a week after their release, never to be heard of again—no one watches them!” Is that actually true? 

For the past two years, Netflix has been publishing its Engagement Reports every six months, detailing the viewership for over 18,000 titles each semester across the globe, 99% of everything watched globally on Netflix. This provides ample data to answer the question of a film’s long-tail viewership months and even years after its release on Netflix. 

As a reminder, you can browse through combined and individual Netflix Engagement Reports with ease using our search tool

For this report, we’re focused on US-produced films available on Netflix globally and released before December 31, 2021.

  • Why only American films? They are inherently the most well-known and are often at the center of these criticisms, especially when renowned filmmakers decide to make their next film with Netflix. Of course, these films also tend to be the most-watched, so keep in mind that the figures presented here are naturally higher than those for international films—but that makes sense. However, as you’ll see, we also go right to the bottom of the Engagement Reports with some films, so we have a pretty good overview of the whole range of viewership.
  • Why only globally available films? Because titles that are Netflix films in only certain countries have lower viewership numbers by default. Moreover, these films may arrive in some other countries long after their initial release elsewhere, artificially inflating their total viewership figures over time.
  • Why films released before December 31, 2021? Because this study aims to analyze the long-tail performance of Netflix films, waiting at least a year after a film’s release seems like a reasonable threshold for assessing long-term viewership.

Overview of Films

A total of 276 American Netflix Original films meet the criteria set for this study, providing a substantial sample for analysis. Let’s start with a general overview: these 276 American films released before 2022 accumulated approximately 3,842,300,000 complete viewings over two years—three billion, eight hundred forty-two million, three hundred thousand viewings in 729 days.

I say “approximately” because some of these films no longer appeared in the Engagement Reports, meaning they had fewer than 100,000 viewings per semester. Fewer than 100,000 does not mean zero, but this is negligible in the grand scheme of things. That still leaves 3.8 billion complete viewings, which breaks down to 5.27 million per day220,000 per hour, or 3,660 per minute, sustained over two years for these “old” American Netflix films.

It’s hard to grasp just how massive and significant this long-tail viewership is, but one thing is clear: no, Netflix’s older films are not hidden by the algorithm or buried deep in the catalog, never to be watched again. That said, it is still a long tail, meaning there is a natural decline. Of the 276 films analyzed, 143 experienced a steady decline in viewership across each semester of 2023 and 2024—an average drop of 33% per period. This steady decline eventually causes some films to disappear from the Engagement Reports altogether, as they fall below the 100,000 EVCs threshold per semester.

By the second half of 2024, 14 of the 276 films had dropped off the Engagement Report, representing 5.1% of the dataset.

Netflix Films That Fell Out Of The Engagement Reports

Among the 14 films from the 2015–2021 period that were absent from the Engagement Report in the second half of 2024, the most recent one was Mank, released in December 2020. David Fincher’s black-and-white biopic about a 1940s filmmaker was never the most commercially appealing title despite its prestigious director. Black-and-white films, in general, don’t perform well on Netflix, making Mank’s disappearance less surprising.

Only one US Netflix Original film released before 2022 never appeared in any of the four Engagement Reports from 2023 and 2024: Tigertail, directed by Alan Yang and released in April 2020. The film tells the story of a Taiwanese immigrant in the United States reflecting on his life. My suspicion is that Tigertail is viewed more as an Asian film than an American one, which may explain its lower visibility in the Engagement Reports. Internationally, a much larger number of films have fallen below the reporting threshold.


Most-Watched American Netflix Films Released Before 2022 in 2023 and 2024.

Rather than focusing on films that never made it into the Engagement Reports, let’s look at those that did—and did so impressively. Here’s the Top 40 ranking of the most-watched American Netflix films released before 2022 during 2023–2024.

Most Watched Movies On Netflix Released Before 2023


Several significant categories emerge in this Top 40 ranking of the most-watched American Netflix films released before 2022 during the 2023–2024 period:

  • Animated films for children. There are eight in the Top 40, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, given how animation on streaming services has become the new babysitter. We see the same trend on Disney+ in the Nielsen rankings, so it makes sense that Netflix’s animated films also show strong long-term performance.
  • Live-action kids’ films. The same logic applies here, but it’s surprising to see We Can Be Heroes by Robert Rodriguez take the top spot as the most-watched American Netflix film from before 2022 in the 2023–2024 period, with nearly 120 million CVEs—an enormous number.
  • Romance (teen and adult). Netflix is often credited with reviving the genre, and this ranking confirms its ongoing strength. Eight romance films made the Top 40, including two from The Kissing Booth series and two from To All the Boys….
  • Action films starring major actors. Put Dwayne Johnson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Wahlberg, Ryan Reynolds, Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, or Jamie Foxx in an action movie, and you have a long-term hit.
  • Films that have been or are in Netflix’s all-time Top 10. One of the most interesting observations is that a strong debut often translates into long-term success. Red NoticeBird BoxWe Can Be Heroes, and Don’t Look Up all rank among Netflix’s all-time Top 10, meaning they had one of the biggest 91-day debuts ever. But they also continue to perform well years later, especially Red Notice, suggesting that audiences don’t necessarily grow tired of rewatching blockbuster hits. Given Netflix’s 300 million paying subscribers, there’s always a new audience discovering them. Red Notice had 230 million CVEs in its first three months (through early February 2022), then 61.9 million in 2023 and 55 million in 2024. In total, it has likely surpassed 400 million CVEs. Not bad for a film that critics widely panned.
  • Prestige films. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman continues to rack up views years after its release. The Harder They Fall is another unexpected prestige entry in the Top 40. But these are exceptions rather than the rule, as prestige films generally rank near the bottom.
  • Unclassifiable surprises. Who would have predicted that the comedy The Wrong Missy or Feel the Beat would rank so high? Certainly not me. The same goes for Army of Thieves having a better hold than Army of the Dead, the original film in that universe.

What factors reignite the viewership of a film released years ago?

The Christmas Chronicles, Extraction And Hillbilly Elegy

Pictures: Netflix

As mentioned, nearly half of the films in my dataset have experienced at least one semester of growth compared to the previous one, showing that for a number of films, this long tail can be “reactivated” through more or less clear factors.


Seasonality

Christmas movies perform much better in the year’s second half than in the first, which is completely normal. Take the particularly striking example of The Christmas Chronicles by Chris Columbus. Halloween also boosts horror films, such as the Fear Street trilogy, or films with Halloween in the title during the second half of the year, such as Hubie Halloween with Adam Sandler, which always gain viewership in the second semester compared to the first. The only holiday it doesn’t work quite as well with is Valentine’s Day with most romance and rom-coms not receiving big bumps in that first half of the year. 

The Christmas Chronicles Viewership Bump

Hubi Halloween Boosts Viewership


Releasing a Sequel

Releasing a sequel is still the best way to reignite the viewership of a film losing momentum. We have a few examples of this, such as Murder Mystery and Extraction. So, let’s play my favorite (and easy) game: in the following chart, can you spot when the release of the Extraction sequel was?

We can also categorize spin-offs in this context, taking as an example the impact of the release of the series XO, Kitty in the first half of 2023 on the viewership of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. However, I find it harder to explain the increase throughout 2024.


The Netflix Stars

Millie Bobby Brown is truly the perfect example of a Netflix star, and when her film Damsel performed well in March 2024, this success spilled over to her other films where she leads the cast, such as Enola Holmes, which almost doubled its viewership from one semester to the next. It’s fair to assume that the release last week of The Electric State will do just that as well for Enola Holmes and Damsel.

But Millie Bobby Brown is not the only one with that kind of pull. The same can be said for Adam Sandler and others on Netflix. Another example of this is Glen Powell, whose film with Sydney Sweeney, Anyone But You, had a small box office success in late 2023 and early 2024 before its release on Netflix in the U.S. in the first half of 2024. He had previously starred in Set It Up, another romantic comedy for Netflix years earlier, and boom, the film saw a resurgence in the first half of 2024.


External Factors That Boost Viewership

When Donald Trump chose JD Vance to be his running mate, the viewership of Hillbilly Elegy, the Netflix film adapted from his book, also skyrocketed, with a peak in the second half of 2024 during the U.S. presidential election. Certainly, it’s a very specific case, but it’s quite notable here.


The Unexplainable AKA Netflix’s Algorithim

And finally, there are increases that are hard to explain. In my weekly analyses of the Netflix Top 10, it’s not uncommon to see films that were released months or even years earlier pop up in the Top 10 (usually in January as if the algorithm switches to the greatest hits of the past year mode). Successes of films on the service lead to others through recommendations during the end credits, and some films thus have quite unusual trajectories. I can cite examples like How It Ends or The Highwaymen, which exploded in viewership during a semester without a clear reason, only to drop off just as quickly.


What does obscurity even look like on Netflix?

When we say that no one is watching a film anymore, that it has sunk, body and soul, into a catalog that makes it invisible, where do we draw the line? 10 viewings per day? 100? 1,000? 10,000? That’s the real question in the end. To try and answer it, we’ll look at all 276 films (full graphic here) used for the basis of this article and their total number of CVEs for the years 2023 and 2024.

Here’s the all the movies that got above 10M views for that period:

TitleH1‑2023H2‑2023H1‑2024H2‑2024Total
We Can Be Heroes31,400,00029,900,00029,100,00028,800,000119,200,000
Red Notice34,600,00027,300,00026,100,00028,900,000116,900,000
Murder Mystery53,800,00010,200,00010,700,0009,400,00084,100,000
Extraction43,800,00017,800,00011,400,00010,000,00083,000,000
Back to the Outback23,500,00019,600,00020,200,00019,100,00082,400,000
The Christmas Chronicles4,000,00029,500,0003,300,00032,200,00069,000,000
Wish Dragon20,600,00015,700,00016,400,00014,000,00066,700,000
The Mitchells vs. The Machines19,400,00015,500,00016,600,00014,400,00065,900,000
Spenser Confidential16,300,00012,700,00016,600,00015,700,00061,300,000
Yes Day19,600,00015,100,00013,500,00011,200,00059,400,000
The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two4,400,00022,300,0003,800,00025,200,00055,700,000
6 Underground18,000,00013,900,00010,000,0008,400,00050,300,000
Vivo16,500,00011,900,00012,200,0009,600,00050,200,000
Triple Frontier12,600,00017,000,00011,000,0008,700,00049,300,000
The Kissing Booth13,600,00010,800,00012,100,00010,500,00047,000,000
The Old Guard13,400,00012,100,00010,200,0008,200,00043,900,000
Feel the Beat13,300,00010,900,00010,200,0008,900,00043,300,000
Over the Moon13,100,00010,800,00011,000,0008,400,00043,300,000
Army of Thieves13,000,0009,600,00010,800,0008,600,00042,000,000
The Wrong Missy14,000,0008,300,0008,100,0006,800,00037,200,000
The Highwaymen7,500,0006,900,00014,400,0006,700,00035,500,000
How It Ends9,900,00012,900,0006,400,0006,100,00035,300,000
Fatherhood13,600,0007,700,0007,600,0005,800,00034,700,000
Hubie Halloween6,900,00013,000,0002,800,00010,700,00033,400,000
Army of the Dead11,100,0007,600,0007,400,0006,400,00032,500,000
Bird Box9,300,00010,900,0005,900,0005,900,00032,000,000
The Kissing Booth 29,100,0007,100,0007,800,0007,000,00031,000,000
Sweet Girl12,600,0007,300,0006,700,0004,200,00030,800,000
Don't Look Up10,600,0008,600,0006,200,0005,200,00030,600,000
The Willoughbys9,300,0007,700,0006,900,0006,000,00029,900,000
The Loud House Movie9,900,0007,300,0007,200,0005,200,00029,600,000
The Irishman8,300,0008,300,0006,300,0005,800,00028,700,000
Project Power11,000,0007,100,0006,000,0004,600,00028,700,000
Holidate3,600,00011,500,0002,600,00010,900,00028,600,000
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You9,100,0005,700,0006,800,0006,900,00028,500,000
He's All That9,800,0007,300,0005,900,0005,300,00028,300,000
My Little Pony: A New Generation10,200,0006,300,0006,300,0005,100,00027,900,000
The Harder They Fall10,100,0007,100,0005,800,0004,800,00027,800,000
The Princess Switch3,500,00010,100,0003,200,00010,600,00027,400,000
The Kissing Booth 38,300,0006,200,0006,600,0005,700,00026,800,000
The Unforgivable7,400,0006,400,0006,300,0005,400,00025,500,000
Enola Holmes8,100,0005,800,0006,400,0004,900,00025,200,000
Secret Obsession4,900,0003,900,0009,100,0006,900,00024,800,000
Kate9,500,0006,200,0005,000,0003,500,00024,200,000
The Guilty10,700,0005,000,0004,300,0004,200,00024,200,000
Intrusion7,500,0006,300,0004,400,0005,400,00023,600,000
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie7,700,0005,500,0005,000,0005,300,00023,500,000
Love Hard4,100,0008,700,0002,400,0007,900,00023,100,000
In The Shadow of the Moon6,500,0009,300,0004,100,0002,900,00022,800,000
Set It Up5,400,0003,800,0009,000,0004,000,00022,200,000
Fractured7,500,0004,600,0004,700,0005,000,00021,800,000
To All The Boys: Always And Forever7,500,0004,200,0004,900,0004,800,00021,400,000
Outside the Wire7,400,0005,500,0004,900,0003,300,00021,100,000
Falling Inn Love6,100,0004,600,0005,300,0005,100,00021,100,000
Bright7,100,0005,400,0004,800,0003,600,00020,900,000
Awake8,800,0006,200,0003,600,0002,200,00020,800,000
Holiday in the Wild3,700,0005,200,0004,200,0007,000,00020,100,000
Hillbilly Elegy2,800,0001,600,0002,200,00013,100,00019,700,000
Tall Girl6,100,0005,100,0004,400,0003,600,00019,200,000
The Do-Over6,300,0004,700,0004,500,0003,500,00019,000,000
A Christmas Prince2,000,0008,600,0001,700,0006,400,00018,700,000
Finding ‘Ohana6,600,0004,500,0004,800,0002,800,00018,700,000
The Perfect Date7,100,0004,400,0004,200,0002,400,00018,100,000
The Babysitter: Killer Queen7,100,0004,600,0002,900,0003,500,00018,100,000
The Princess Switch: Switched Again2,500,0006,800,0002,100,0006,600,00018,000,000
The Ridiculous 66,100,0004,300,0004,400,0003,200,00018,000,000
The King5,500,0004,300,0004,900,0003,200,00017,900,000
Work It6,600,0004,500,0003,800,0002,900,00017,800,000
Fear Street Part 1: 19944,400,0005,200,0003,900,0004,200,00017,700,000
Lost Girls5,600,0004,100,0004,700,0003,200,00017,600,000
A Fall From Grace4,700,0003,700,0004,700,0004,500,00017,600,000
Sextuplets5,800,0004,400,0003,700,0003,500,00017,400,000
Thunder Force5,800,0003,900,0004,300,0003,300,00017,300,000
Resort to Love4,900,0003,000,0004,300,0004,000,00016,200,000
Rim of the World6,200,0003,900,0003,900,0002,200,00016,200,000
The Babysitter5,300,0004,500,0003,100,0003,200,00016,100,000
The Sleepover5,600,0004,000,0004,000,0002,300,00015,900,000
Outlaw King4,100,0002,900,0005,300,0003,000,00015,300,000
Extinction5,000,0003,800,0004,200,0002,300,00015,300,000
No One Gets out Alive5,600,0004,300,0002,900,0002,400,00015,200,000
Spectral4,100,0004,100,0004,100,0002,700,00015,000,000
Point Blank4,300,0002,200,0007,300,0001,000,00014,800,000
Sand Castle4,500,0003,800,0003,500,0003,000,00014,800,000
The Week Of6,400,0004,100,0002,700,0001,400,00014,600,000
Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans4,900,0003,500,0003,300,0002,800,00014,500,000
Dangerous Lies4,300,0003,300,0004,100,0002,700,00014,400,000
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding1,700,0006,100,0001,400,0005,000,00014,200,000
Like Father4,700,0002,400,0005,000,0002,000,00014,100,000
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby1,800,0006,100,0001,500,0004,700,00014,100,000
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs4,600,0003,900,0003,200,0001,900,00013,600,000
Otherhood4,800,0002,000,0005,200,0001,500,00013,500,000
In The Tall Grass4,500,0003,800,0002,600,0002,500,00013,400,000
Fear Street Part 2: 19783,500,0003,800,0003,000,0003,100,00013,400,000
Christmas Inheritance1,000,0005,700,000900,0005,700,00013,300,000
The Main Event4,500,0003,400,0003,100,0002,300,00013,300,000
The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star2,000,0005,000,0001,600,0004,600,00013,200,000
Beckett3,300,0002,600,0004,800,0002,300,00013,000,000
A Castle for Christmas1,500,0005,900,0001,200,0004,400,00013,000,000
Fatal Affair4,800,0003,000,0002,900,0002,200,00012,900,000
Night Teeth4,700,0003,300,0002,800,0002,000,00012,800,000
The Dirt3,900,0002,800,0003,100,0002,800,00012,600,000
19225,100,0003,300,0002,100,0001,700,00012,200,000
The Outsider3,300,0003,800,0003,200,0001,500,00011,800,000
Benji3,900,0002,600,0002,900,0002,000,00011,400,000
There's Someone Inside Your House4,000,0003,400,0001,900,0001,800,00011,100,000
The Knight Before Christmas1,100,0004,800,000800,0004,200,00010,900,000
Father of the Year4,200,0002,500,0002,500,0001,500,00010,700,000
Malibu Rescue: The Next Wave3,600,0002,500,0002,300,0001,900,00010,300,000
Death Note3,700,0002,700,0002,000,0001,900,00010,300,000
The Last Days of American Crime4,800,0003,400,0001,500,000600,00010,300,000
Hypnotic4,300,0002,700,0001,700,0001,500,00010,200,000
The Midnight Sky4,200,0003,000,0001,900,000900,00010,000,000
Afterlife of the Party4,200,0002,300,0002,400,0001,000,0009,900,000
The Woman in the Window3,800,0002,400,0002,100,0001,600,0009,900,000

Of that list of 276 titles, over 115 (46%) scored over 10 million views over those two years which equates to about 13,698 views every single day. The first film on the list, We Can Be Heroes, was watched on average the equivalent of 163,511 times per day for the last two full years. The last film on the list to have been present in the Engagement Reports for the last four semesters, always on the brink of being excluded and becoming part of the 1% of the least-watched programs on Netflix, XOXO released in 2016, was watched on average the equivalent of 447 times per day for the last two full years. That’s the equivalent of 18 viewings per hour every day for two years straight, more than 7 years after its release.

Is that a lot, especially for a film released several years ago? The problem is that we cannot compare it to anything else. How many times is a particular film rented on VOD, bought on DVD, or watched on TV each day on average over a given period worldwide? No idea. The Engagement Reports give us this insight, but like many of the numbers provided by Netflix, we don’t have comparison points that would allow us to put them into perspective outside of Netflix. So, it’s a subjective line that we need to draw.

If a film I had released years earlier was still being watched nearly 500 times a day on average over the past two years, I think I’d be happy with that, but you’re free to disagree.


When we talk about a streaming catalog, especially on Netflix, the image that always comes up is that of an ocean of programs with unfathomable depth, where films sink as soon as they are launched. But this isn’t entirely true, as we’ve seen here.

Each film release creates a wave of viewings that continues over time, more or less strongly depending on its initial impact. Several factors, some predictable and others more mysterious, can reactivate this wave. But if there is a decline, it is not systematic and certainly not immediate. Like a wave, it gradually diminishes—not to sink but to become part of the ocean itself, waiting for a ripple that will make it bigger again.


A version of this post first appeared on the Netflix n Chiffres Substack

Do you think Netflix movies have longevity? Share your thoughts in the comments.

 PosterRating: PG-13
Language: English
Genre: Adventure, Crime, Drama, Mystery
Director: Harry Bradbeer
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Helena Bonham Carter
Added to Netflix: September 23rd, 2020

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