STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Jamie Campbell Bower as Peter Ballard and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in … [+]
Netflix has released a new breakdown of what its most popular shows and movies were for 2022, with a few surprises here, and a couple of offerings that had to claw their way to renewal despite hundreds of millions of hours viewed, given how hard Netflix can be to please.
There are actually four lists in total, but I’m going to combine them into two, because I think it’s kind of stupid to break things up by English-language and non-English, the way they do, and it feels like a way to discount the non-English series, many of which are top performers. No Squid Game this year, but other strong entries exist all the same. So here they are:
The Sandman
TV Shows
So, the “stories” in here include Wednesday being a breakout debut hit unlike anything Netflix has ever seen, this side of Squid Game. It has not been renewed for season 2 yet, but will clearly be a staple series for years to come. Dahmer performed nearly as well despite controversy given the subject matter, and it’s only encouraged Netflix to invest further in serial killer dramas. We should not discount the great performances of All of Us Are Dead and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, two exceptional Korean series that show how Netflix continues to cultivate that region. The Sandman barely scraped its way into a season 2 renewal, despite so many hours, presumably because of its high cost.
The Gray Man
Movies
You will notice one thing missing here that may otherwise top this list, Glass Onion, as that only debuted last week, and those numbers are still rolling in. Otherwise, Netflix has two of its big blockbusters on top, The Gray Man, which has spawned a “Gray Man Universe” according to Netflix as they try to craft their own John Wick/Mission Impossible-type franchise, and The Adam Project, where Ryan Reynolds delivered another hit similar to how he did with Red Notice. Purple Hearts may have appeared to be indistinguishable from a bunch of other forgettable romance movies to hit the surface, but it vastly outperformed them all. Enola Holmes 2 may have been looking for better numbers, given its star power and how well the first movie did. Troll rounds up the end of the list as the only foreign movie on the combined top 10.
So, how many of these have you seen?
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