2025 was the first year for which I had access to weekly Top 10 rankings from both Luminate and Nielsen, enabling a clear overview of the most successful streaming programs in the U.S. last year.

I’ll begin with a brief methodological reminder, as some may be surprised not to see KPop Demon Hunters, by far the most-watched film on U.S. streaming platforms in 2025, anywhere in the rankings. I chose to analyze only the first 14 days after release for this study, and KPop Demon Hunters exploded in viewership well beyond that window, so it doesn’t appear in the Top 10s under such a short timeframe. KPop Demon Hunters is truly an exceptional case, unprecedented in scale. While the first 14 or 28 days usually suffice to gauge a title’s success, exceptions exist, and this year, KPop Demon Hunters was the prime example.

Now that’s clarified, let’s begin with Nielsen!

This year, in the Top 10 of new films most watched on streaming during their first 14 days of release, there is a clear winner: Happy Gilmore 2, which had exceptionally high anticipation. It surpasses by quite a margin Moana 2 on Disney+ and Back in Action.

In the rest of the Top 10, two other films previously released in theaters appear: Despicable Me 4 (released on Netflix in its second window) and The Accountant 2 (released quickly on Prime Video after its theatrical run). The three theatrical films in the Top 10 are all sequels but other sequels also appear among direct-to-streaming releases, including Happy Gilmore 2, Madea’s Destination Wedding, and Wake Up, Dead Man.

Notably, at Nielsen, the so-called flop The Electric State isn’t entirely a flop, it still managed to enter the annual Top 10. The real surprise in this ranking is Straw, a Tyler Perry film starring Taraji P. Henson which truly came out of nowhere and managed to make a big splash in the US and globally too.

Overall, theatrical films performed less strongly on streaming this year: the average for the Top 10 new releases reached its lowest level since 2022, with just 16.3M EVCs for the 10 most-watched theatrical films.

Streaming-original films also saw a decline in impact—but to a lesser extent.

On the binge-released series side, Netflix achieves a clean sweep, capturing all 10 spots in the Top 10 for most-watched new binge series. Beyond this Top 10, you have to wait until 18th place to find the first three Amazon Prime Video series (two of which were later canceled).

According to Nielsen, Untamed starring Eric Bana was the most-watched binge series with 15.7M CVEs in its first 14 days, ahead of the British breakout hit Adolescence and the miniseries Zero Day starring Robert De Niro. Untamed was renewed, understandably, as were The Four Seasons and Running Point.

You have to go down to 11th and 12th place to find the two most-watched canceled series of the year: The Residence and The Waterfront, both on Netflix.

In the weekly-release series category, where Netflix does not compete (as it releases none of its U.S. series this way), the winner is The Pitt on HBO Max, ahead of Paradise on Hulu and IT: Welcome to Derry also on HBO Max.

To start, I remind you that theatrical films are not included in the weekly Top 10 from Luminate, so this ranking is 100% made up of original streaming films. As expected, Netflix again achieves a clean sweep, occupying all 10 spots in the Top 10, with Happy Gilmore 2 again leading the pack.

The Netflix Top 3 remains unchanged from Nielsen’s ranking, but the rest of the list sees shifts: The Electric State and Frankenstein drop out of the Top 10. The first non-Netflix film appears at 12th place: the rom-com You’re Cordially Invited, released on Prime Video.

On the binge-released series side, it’s again 100% Netflix, and the Top 10 is nearly identical at Luminate compared to Nielsen, with just one change: The Waterfront replaces Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

This ranking seems slightly high for The Waterfront, especially since Netflix canceled the series leading me to suspect Luminate may have overestimated its viewership. Nielsen’s ranking likely reflects audience reality more accurately.

As last year, the key difference between Luminate and Nielsen is most visible in weekly-released new series — particularly with MobLand on Paramount+, which Luminate rates at nearly double the viewership compared to Nielsen’s figures.

See you Wednesday for the analysis of Netflix’s latest viewership figures.

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