What viewers watched most on Netflix in the second half of 2024
What viewers watched most on Netflix in the second half of 2024
Live sporting events on Netflix drew strong audience numbers, but ‘Squid Game’ was the star of the show for the streamer in the last six months of the year.
Netflix is giving analysts and subscribers alike another look into what audiences watched on the streamer in 2024. The latest “What We Watched” report includes viewership data for all shows and movies in the Netflix library over the second half of 2024, and it includes some fascinating insights about the streamer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, “Squid Game” — which released its second season late in December — was the most watched show in the second half of they year, while Taron Egerton airplane thriller “Carry-On” was the most viewed film on the service.
Key Details:
- “Squid Game” Season 2 was the most-viewed show in the second half of 2024, despite only six days of availability.
- Netflix’s three marquee sporting events in November and December all cracked the top 100.
- The data also gives some insight into how Netflix decides to cancel a series.
The new Netflix data dump shows that the streamer was watched for a total of more than 94 billion hours over the last six months of 2024. Despite being released on Dec. 26, Season 2 of “Squid Game” was the most-viewed title on the streamer, with more than 86 million views. Despite the dominance of “Squid Game,” Netflix reports that it only accounted for 0.7% of viewing on the platform, meaning that no single title reached 1% of all Netflix views.
“It’s why we invest in a wide variety of quality shows and films and why we need to make them great,” the streaming giant said, “so that every time a member comes to Netflix they press play and stay.”
Rounding out the top 5 series for Netflix in H2 2024 were Season 1 of “The Perfect Couple” (75M views), “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” (70M), “Emily in Paris” Season 4 (58M), and “Nobody Wants This” Season 1 (57M). The leader board is packed with Netflix originals, a testament to the brand’s ongoing ability to identify the perfect blend of stars, creators, and stories to keep audiences engaged.
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While the streamer’s numbers paint a clear picture as to which titles were the most popular last year, how Netflix arrives at those numbers is a little bit more complicated. These are internal numbers, without verification from an unbiased source like Nielsen, but the math does get a bit fuzzy for the streaming giant. Netflix says that it counts views by taking the total hours that a title was viewed and then dividing it by its runtime. So, if one person watches a two-hour movie, that would count he same as 120 people watching one minute of the same film. While Netflix claims that it “highly correlates to completers,” the world’s largest streamer does not provide data as to how many people finished individual episodes, seasons, or movies.
On the film side of Netflix’s library, “Carry-On” led the way with 137 million views. It was followed closely by Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg spy comedy “The Union” (131M) and action thriller “Rebel Ridge” (129M). Eddie Murphy’s return to Beverly Hills in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” was fourth with 97 million views, and Lindsay Lohan holiday rom-com “Our Little Secret” was fifth with 81 million.
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The second half of 2024 saw Netflix offer some marquee live sporting events, and the results were good for the streamer. The Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson live boxing match garnered 48 million individual views — which is a different metric than the streamer used when it originally reported that 60 million people watched the fight. Similarly, each of the streamer’s Christmas Day NFL games attracted more than 14 million views apiece, contributing significantly to the largest day in streaming history. Those numbers should help to convince Netflix brass that more sporting events would draw strong audiences to the service in the future.
The data also gave additional insight into the thought processes behind the cancellation of Netflix shows. “Kaos,” the Greek mythology comedy that debuted on Netflix in late August, was the most popular show from the second half of 2024 to be canceled by the streamer. Despite attracting 20 million views, the show was apparently not able to show enough of a following to justify a second season.
While a vast majority of Netflix’s viewing came from English-language shows, movies, and events, almost one-third was from non-English titles. The most popular international titles were Norway’s “La Palma” (52M), Mexico’s “The Accident” (41M), and France’s “Family Pack” (41M).
Likely aided by the holidays and time off from school, 10 of the top 25 movies viewed on Netflix during the back half of the year were animated. “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” led the way with 67 million views before the title exited the streamer on Jan. 1, 2025. It was followed closely in the top five by “Trolls Band Together” (61M), “That Christmas” (60M), “Sing” (58M), and “Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie” (56M).
Netflix’s willingness to share this viewership data makes it unique among major streaming services. You can browse the full report for more information here, but the takeaway that Netflix originals and live sporting events ruled the second half of 2024 is readily apparent.
Netflix
Netflix is a leading subscription-based video streaming service that offers on-demand access to an extensive library of over 3,000 movies, 2,000+ TV shows, and a growing collection of acclaimed Netflix originals. Renowned for producing groundbreaking content, Netflix has become a cultural powerhouse with hit originals like “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday,” “Squid Game,” “The Crown,” “Tiger King,” “Bridgerton,” “The Witcher,” and “Black Mirror.”