Netflix Reveals What We Watched Most Over 2025’s Second Half, as Stranger Things 5 Almost Beat Wednesday Season 2
Netflix has revealed its most-watched TV shows and movies for the second half of 2025 — with the final season of Stranger Things beaten only by Wednesday.
From July to December 2025, Netflix subscribers watched a total of 96 billion hours of content via the service. Overall, the most successful title on Netflix — by quite some margin — was KPop Demon Hunters, which had a staggering 482 million views (Netflix defines views as total hours watched divided by runtime).
Stranger Things’ fifth and final season (94 million views) ended up in second place on the streamer’s chart of most-watched series, behind Wednesday’s second season (124 million views). It’s a great result for Stranger Things considering its launch late in the year, and the fact its finale actually dropped on New Year’s Day 2026 — so will not have been counted here.
Overall, all five seasons of Stranger Things factored into Netflix’s top 15 most-watched TV seasons over the past six months, with a combined 275 million views. With the show originally debuting in 2016, this suggests that plenty of subscribers decided to rewatch the series ahead of its final episodes’ arrival.
Eric Bana’s Untamed, a crime drama set in Yosemite National Park, sat just slightly behind Stranger Things with 93 million views. Squid Game’s third and possibly-final season ended up with 79 million views, while Stranger Things’ first season charted with 57 million views.
On the movie side, KPop Demon Hunters’ haul of 482 million views eclipsed anything else in Netflix’s chart, with Happy Gilmore 2 in second place earning 135 million views for the Adam Sandler sequel. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein stitched together 98 million views, ahead of romantic comedy My Oxford Year and superhero sequel The Old Guard 2.
Successful comedies included Madea’s Destination Wedding (60 million views), and Mr. Bean actor Rowan Atkinson’s Man vs. Baby (44 million). Nuclear war drama A House of Dynamite earned 76 million views, while cosy crime caper The Thursday Murder Club notched up 69 million views.
Finally, for younger viewers, Gabby’s Dollhouse earned 108 million views, Ms. Rachel earned 73 million views, while the beloved Peppa Pig earned 90 million views.
Netflix announced last night that it had attracted 23 million new subscribers in 2025, for a total subscriber base of 325 million. As part of its full-year earnings report, Netflix said it had earned $45.2 billion in revenue for the full year (up 16% year-over-year), while viewing hours were up 2% year-over-year. The company also confirmed it was implementing plans to ramp up its AI usage, with plans to expand its tools for subtitle localization and advertisement creation in 2026.
For more on Netflix, you can check out our explainer on all of its available prices and plans. You can also see how its plan to purchase Warner Bros. could impact movie theaters in the future.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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