Five of the Top 10 most popular English language series of all time premiered this year: Stranger Things 4, Wednesday and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (all of which crossed the 1 billion hours viewed mark), Bridgerton S2, and Inventing Anna.
Three of the Top 10 most popular English language films of all time premiered this year: The Adam Project, The Gray Man, and Purple Hearts. Netflix also released their most successful animated kids’ film, The Sea Beast, and their most successful documentary feature, The Tinder Swindler.
Seven of the Top 10 most popular non-English films of all time premiered this year: Troll (Norway), All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany), Black Crab (Sweden), Through My Window (Spain), The Takedown (France) Loving Adults (Denmark) and My Name is Vendetta (Italy).
Fan favorites returned: Members spent more time watching Netflix returning seasons and sequels in 2022 than ever before including Stranger Things 4, Elite S6, The Crown S5, Bridgerton S2, The Umbrella Academy S3, Young Royals S2, Big Mouth S6, Cobra Kai S5, Ozark S4, Sintonia S3, Selling Sunset S5, Love is Blind S3 and sequels Enola Holmes 2, Lost Bullet 2 and two 365 Days sequels.
The K-Wave is bigger than ever! 60% of Netflix members watched a Korean title and Netflix had 6 of the Top 10 most searched K-Dramas in Korea with Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Narco Saints, All of Us Are Dead, Twenty Five Twenty One, Business Proposal, and Our Blues. Extraordinary Attorney Woo and All Of Us Are Dead became two of our most-popular non-English shows ever.
The Netflix effect pushed songs from the ’80s to the top of the charts. “Running Up That Hill” was the #6 most searched song, Kate Bush was the #7 most searched artist, and the #10 trending song on TikTok in 2022. Wednesday created not one, but two resurgent hits with “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps and “Bloody Mary” from Lady Gaga.
Red berets were all the rage: Fans of Emily in Paris, the kids in Matilda, and even Thing.
Netflix members watched an average of six different genres a month – from historical drama with The Empress to sports drama with Adam Sandler in Hustle and romantic drama in Virgin River S4 and the dark thriller The Marked Heart.
And to round out the year, here are the Top 10 English films, English series, Non-English films, and Non-English series that have premiered between January 1, 2022 and December 18, 2022:
‘Alice in Borderland‘ Season 2 Lands #1 Spot on Global Non-English TV List in Premiere Weekend With 61.2 Million Viewing Hours
The return season of Japanese survival thriller Alice in Borderland took the #1 spot on the Global Non-English TV list with 61.2 million viewing hours over its premiere weekend.
Alice in Borderland Season 2 sets a record for the most hours viewed in a week for a Japanese series. In addition, total viewing hours for Alice in Borderland Seasons 1 and 2 were approximately 80 million during the premiere weekend for Season 2.
Alice in Borderland Season 2 hit the Top 10 Series list in 90 countries in its first week, including Japan, US, Canada, Brazil, France, Taiwan, and more. The new season also took the #1 Series spot in 9 countries during the same period.
The first season of Alice in Borderland rose back into the Global Non-English TV Top 10 in the #2 spot and was in the Top 10 Series list in 31 countries, including Japan.