In September 2024, I published a loooong study aiming to answer the question: Do movies released in theaters really perform better on streaming than movies released directly on streaming? Eighteen months later, I wanted to revisit this question to see if the new viewership data I have gathered since then has changed the landscape, and also to propose other ways of highlighting the specificities of different types of films. I hope you’re ready to dig into some charts!

The methodology used here is very important! Please read it carefully to understand its advantages and limitations.

Like I did in September 2024, I decided to start by compiling the Top 100 most-watched streaming films based on their first 14 days of availability across all services analyzed by Nielsen from January 2021 to March 2026.

Why use the best-performing streaming films as the basis for this study? Because Nielsen only offers a glimpse of what works through its weekly Top 10. Anything below that waterline is invisible and therefore unusable. Moreover, the core question is whether theatrical films outperform direct-to-streaming films, so it makes sense to focus first on successes, or at least on films that managed to stay in the Top 10 for several weeks.

Here is this Top 100, with films initially released in theaters highlighted in gray:

What is interesting is that between July 2024 and March 2026, the number of films initially released in theaters within this Top 100 dropped from 36 to 34, while the threshold to make the list rose from 12.8 million CVEs to 15 million. This means that if we relied solely on this Top 100, the share of theatrical films that performed best on streaming fell from 36% in July 2024 to 34% in March 2026.

A few other small changes have occurred, starting with the top-ranked film, which has been Happy Gilmore 2 since summer 2025, taking the crown from Luca. Among theatrical releases, the film with the most views in its first 14 days has also changed: Red One on Prime Video now holds this title, ahead of Encanto, Moana 2, and Elemental, which is somewhat surprising. The combination of a very short window after its theatrical release and the Christmas period proved to be the perfect formula to catapult the film to the top of the rankings.

If we now compare the averages of the Top 5 to Top 100 most-watched films for direct-to-streaming films versus those initially released in theaters, here is what we obtain:

The gap is narrowest at the top, with direct-to-streaming films holding only a 19% lead. As we move down the Top 100 in both film categories, this gap widens to 25%. Eighteen months ago, this gap was approximately 10 percentage points higher, meaning theatrical films are currently catching up. However, as we will see later, this increase is not evenly distributed across all films.

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Let's start with live-action films, as this is the category I have the most data for in my dataset. Here, the gap between the performance of direct-to-streaming films and those initially released in theaters is the widest, ranging between 37% and 41%, always in favor of the direct-to-streaming releases. This gap narrows as we move down the rankings, but we can conclude that, on average, live-action films released directly on streaming generally achieve about one-third more viewership than live-action films first released in theaters.

That said, if we remove all sequels from both the streaming and theatrical sides, we observe a reversal. The gap narrows at the top (once blockbusters like Hocus Pocus 2, Happy Gilmore 2, and Knives Out 2 are removed) but widens again as we move down the list, indicating that theatrical sequels have a greater impact on the total viewership in the middle-to-lower range of the Top 50 in each category.

This does not change the fact that, on average, live-action films released directly on streaming consistently outperform live-action films first released in theaters.

Among animated films, the story is completely different: theatrical animated releases outperform direct-to-streaming animated films when looking at the averages from the Top 10 to the Top 25 in each category (though not in the Top 5, thanks notably to the performance of exclusive Pixar films for Disney+, such as Luca and Turning Red).

There is a major asterisk to this, however: if we remove sequels, original animated films released directly to streaming pull ahead of original films first released in theaters, from the Top 5 down to the Top 20. I cannot go any lower due to a lack of films in these categories.

All previous comparisons looked at all films released between January 2021 and March 2026, but the streaming landscape has not remained static over this period. I therefore decided to examine the evolution of average CVEs for the annual Top 10 from 2021 to 2025. We can see that the gap between the 10 most-watched theatrical films on streaming and the 10 most-watched direct-to-streaming films was narrowest in 2023, but has been widening ever since: direct-to-streaming films led by 19% in 2024 and by 26% in 2025.

However, when examining film types, a very interesting pattern emerges. The gap is widening in favor of streaming releases for live-action films, while the opposite is true for animated films: theatrical animated releases have gained the upper hand since 2023. The "culprit" is clearly Disney, which stopped releasing original films directly to streaming in favor of the traditional model, prioritizing theatrical releases first.

However, these traditional releases have impacted the streaming performance of these films, as none have managed to match the scores of Luca, Turning Red, and Encanto (which was a box-office flop but a streaming hit) ever since.

The final point I wanted to address in this article is the sustainability of viewership over time. As we have seen, direct-to-streaming films generally have a more explosive launch on average than theatrical releases, but what happens beyond the first 14 days? I therefore analyzed the evolution of viewership between the first 14 days and the following 14 days to see if there was a difference in behavior between the different types of films.

Obviously, these results are based on a much smaller sample of films, as they needed to remain in the Nielsen Top 10 for at least four weeks to allow for an estimate of the total over the first 28 days. Nevertheless, the findings remain interesting; judge for yourselves.

Thus, theatrical films saw their audience increase by an average factor of 1.35 between days 14 and 28 of availability, while direct-to-streaming releases only grew by a factor of 1.28. This is a very slight gap of barely 5%, observed only among live-action films.

Among animated films, the evolution is identical for both theatrical and streaming releases, and even favors streaming releases if we consider only original films (excluding sequels). I did not expect this at all when examining this data.

Looking at the specific titles with the best growth, we can identify several major trends that allow these films to maintain their momentum.

First, the 10 films with the best viewership growth are all children's movies. Kids tend to watch the same films on repeat, a pattern clearly visible in Nielsen's Top 10 data. If the film also features songs that go viral, as seen with KPop Demon Hunters and Encanto, then it is a guaranteed hit.

Another key factor for strong retention is the release timing. For A Boy Called Christmas, Candy Cane Lane, and Dashing Through The Snow, the common thread is that they are Christmas films released a few weeks before the holiday, in late November or early December. This allowed them to receive a later boost as Christmas approached, resulting in more favorable audience growth between days 14 and 28 compared to other titles.

Finally, this Top 10 contains an equal number of theatrical and direct-to-streaming releases, indicating that when a film becomes a hit with children, its origin matters less. Buzz outweighs the release model.

This is an impossible topic to pin down, and I am the first to admit it, given the numerous limitations. Comparing films released on different services with varying subscriber counts and different release windows is inherently flawed. Nevertheless, here are a few conclusions based on the observations in this article, which covers over 600 films: