What We Watched the First Half of 2026

Today, we’re sharing what our members watched on Netflix from January to June 2026.

Engagement for Netflix is about winning the most valuable moments of truth — that moment when people pick up their remote or phone, decide to press play on something they’ve discovered on Netflix and stay to watch. 

We measure engagement not only by the quantity of hours watched, but also the quality of that experience for our audiences. To be successful, we also need to have a variety of programming that appeals to different tastes and moods.  

Since 2021, we’ve made it easier for audiences to see the viewing numbers behind what’s popular on Netflix, starting with our weekly Top 10 and Most Popular Lists. We built on these efforts with our What We Watched reports to better capture the quantity of all hours viewed on Netflix over a six-month period. Starting in Q1 2027, we will move from a six-month to a yearly snapshot. 

For this report, our audiences watched more than 97B hours on Netflix — our highest view hours to date for a half — across a variety of genres and languages. Here’s what we found: 

Our audiences love to discover and watch new series

• Five of the top 10 most-watched shows premiered in the first half of this year, with I Will Find You (64M) and Teach You a Lesson (48M) from South Korea both reaching the top 10 less than a month after their releases. 

• We saw big audiences for new stories such as His & Hers (104M) — the #1 most watched show in the half — along with Run Away (50M) and Nemesis Season 1 (33M), which was recently renewed for a second season.  

New seasons consistently drive discovery and viewing of past seasons of a series

• The return of Bridgerton Season 4 (100M) nearly tripled viewing of every earlier season of the beloved franchise (including Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story), when compared to the second half of 2025. Together, the entire Bridgerton franchise brought 180M views in the first half of this year. 

• We also saw a boost in viewership for past seasons of series including ONE PIECE (69M views across seasons), The Night Agent (63M views across seasons), Virgin River (54M views across seasons) and The Lincoln Lawyer (59M views across seasons). 

Netflix original films continue to draw in huge audiences across genres 

• Our action film slate performed particularly well this half, with The Rip (136M), Apex (129M) and Thrash (100M) among our most-watched. War Machine was our biggest title in the half with 147M views. 

• Animated films are becoming hits. Swapped came in at 131M views in the half and is on track to become our second most-watched original animated film ever, behind KPop Demon Hunters (130M) — which came in at #4 despite premiering over a year ago.

• We’re seeing real fandom for our book-to-screen adaptations, with successful films including People We Meet on Vacation (78M) and Remarkably Bright Creatures (51M). 

• Rom-coms like Office Romance (58M) and Voicemails for Isabelle (53M) also moved audiences.  

Non-English titles represent more than a third of all viewing on Netflix, with titles from South Korea, Japan and Spain among the most-watched

• South Korea continues to deliver a strong slate of titles including Teach You a Lesson (48M), Can This Love Be Translated? (29M), The Art of Sarah (26M), My Royal Nemesis (16M) and the Season 2 return of the hit series Bloodhounds (24M).

• Japan continues to drive viewing with original stories like Straight to Hell Season 1 (10M) and Sins of Kujo Season 1 (9M).

• Spain released several popular titles this half including Firebreak (34M), The Marked Woman (26M), Oasis Season 1 (10M), and from the creators of Money Heist — Berlín and the Lady with an Ermine (28M).

• India had its highest viewing for a half yet with hits like Dhurandhar (37M) — our most-watched non-English film in this report — Accused (19M), Made in Korea (18M) and Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Season 1 (16M).

• South Africa broke through with global successes like 180 (37M) for film and The Polygamist Season 1 (17M) for series. 

• We continue to deliver even more original stories that resonate locally and travel globally including Colors of Evil: Black (23M) from Poland, Radioactive Emergency Season 1 (22M) from Brazil, A Father’s Miracle (21M) from Mexico, Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole Season 1 (22M) from Norway, My Dearest Assassin (18M) from Thailand, The Big Fake (17M) from Italy and The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek (11M) from Denmark.

Our members enjoy a variety of different programming 

• Must-watch live events brought audiences together in the first half for everything from Kevin Hart’s comedy spectacle with The Roast of Kevin Hart (21M) to Alex Honnold’s thrill-seeking climb with Skyscraper Live (13M) and BTS’ monumental comeback with BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG (21M) that thrilled fans around the world.

• More than half of our members today have watched at least one anime title, where we saw breakouts with new stories like BAKI-DOU: The Invincible Samurai Season 1 (8M), STEEL BALL RUN: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (8M) and Cosmic Princess Kaguya! (8M). 

• Documentaries of all kinds captivated viewers — from true crime stories like The Crash (65M), to pop culture sensations like Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model Season 1 (22M) and epic prehistoric tales like The Dinosaurs Season 1 (32M). 

• Kids & family continues to perform well, with creators like Ms. Rachel, our most-watched kids title at 69M views across two seasons, plus Mark Rober's CrunchLabs (36M across four seasons) and newcomers Salish & Jordan Matter (29M across both seasons) and Danny Go! Season 1 (26M).

Here were our top 10 most-watched movies and shows from this report: 

Download our full report for the first half of 2026 here.