Streaming the World: Popularity of Non-English Language Stories on Netflix Surges

• Following All Quiet On The Western Front's win for Best Film at the BAFTAs, Netflix reveals the growing popularity of non-English language stories. 

• Data shows in the UK, viewing of non-English language stories on Netflix has increased by 90% over the last three years.

Last month German Language World War I film All Quiet On The Western Front picked up a record-breaking seven wins at the BAFTA Film Awards, including Best Film — the most of any film not in the English language in BAFTA’s’ history.  Netflix is the only UK distributor to have two non-English language films win the BAFTA Award for Best Film in the last thirty-plus years. The film is also nominated for nine Academy Awards (the ceremony will take place this Sunday), including Best Picture, and is the second most nominated non-English language in Oscar history. 

Netflix has today shared data that reveals the rising popularity of non-English language stories.  In the UK, viewing of non-English language stories on Netflix has increased by 90% over the last three years. All Quiet on the Western Front is now Netflix’s fourth most popular non-English language film ever, with over 150 million hours viewed since its release on October 14, 2022. It has been on Netflix’s global Top 10 Non-English Film list for 14 weeks and has reached the Top 10 Films in 91 countries, including Germany,  UK, US, Australia, France, Mexico and South Korea. Viewing figures for the film tripled after the BAFTA and Oscar nominations. For the week of February 20 to February 26, the film was in the No. 2 spot for non-English films, accumulating 5,470,000 hours viewed alone.

But non-English language content has been growing in popularity for some time. In 2022, more than 70% of global viewing came from members watching a title from a country other than their own.

Seven of Netflix’s Top 10 most popular non-English films of all time premiered in 2022: Troll (Norway), All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany), Black Crab (Sweden), Through My Window (Spain), The Takedown (France), Loving Adults (Denmark) and My Name is Vendetta (Italy).

Over the past year, the top ten most popular non-English language titles in the UK:

1. All Quiet on the Western Front 

2. The Forgotten Battle 

3. Troll 

4. Blood Red Sky 

5. Through My Window 

6. Black Crab 

7. My Name is Vendetta 

8. Gangubai Kathiawadi 

9. RRR (Hindi)

10. Sooryavanshi