Sizing up the 10 most popular things on Netflix right now

Welcome to our guide of the most popular new releases on Netflix, a full breakdown of the biggest shows, based on who’s watching what.

Squid Game, the Korean survival drama from writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk, has continued to reign supreme at the number one spot of Netflix’s top 10 most popular movies and shows since the series was released three weeks ago. There’s probably some comparison to make between the show’s longevity and the characters fighting their way through a gruesome set of games, but we wouldn’t want to be gauche.

In addition to Squid Game’s continued popularity, Mike Flanagan’s limited horror series Midnight Mass continues to hold strong at number four on the Netflix’s top 10. There’s tons of other shows new to Netflix showing up on this week’s most popular movies and television, including the hit sitcom Seinfeld (which the company reportedly paid over $500 million to acquire the streaming rightsfor), the 2015 teen comedy The Duff starring Mae Whitman, James Cameron’s epic romance disaster drama Titanic, and much more!

To help you navigate the vast swath of Netflix offerings, we’ve gathered our reviews, features, and quick takes on the shows and films that have cracked the top 10 list for the United States, and put them in one easy-to-read place. Read on to find out what people are watching, and see our coverage to help you choose which of Netflix’s most popular hits meet your needs or personal tastes.

Polygon updates the Netflix top 10 each Tuesday. The actual top 10 is subject to change between updates.

Netflix’s biggest new releases

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10. Titanic

Image: Paramount Pictures

James Cameron’s 1997 epic romance disaster film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as star-crossed lovers from radically separate social classes who met aboard the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Filled with intense drama, heart-wrenching romance, and dramatic practical special effects which pushed the film’s final production budge to over $200 billion, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release, Titanic sits as the undisputed crown jewel of James Cameron’s entire career; a high for which the director has been doggedly chasing ever since then. The film was added to Netflix’s service this past Friday, which explains why it’s on this week’s top 10 list.

9. My Little Pony: A New Generation

Image: Hasbro

Look, I’m not gonna pretend I’m a big My Little Pony fan, but it’s enough of a cultural phenomenon that I’d be remiss as a professional culture writer to not at least be curious about it. My Little Pony: A New Generation marks the fifth incarnation of the My Little Pony franchise — see, I didn’t even know there were “incarnations” of My Little Pony, let alone five of them — set many years after the events of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series and following a new group of pony friends who embark on an epic quest to restore magic to the land of Equestria and reunite the tribes of ponykind as a whole. It’s got Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), Kimiko Glenn (Orange Is the New Black), and James Marsden (Westworld) in it. The new show was released on Netflix last Friday rather than in theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which explains why it’s on this week’s Netflix top 10.

8. Cocomelon

Image: Moonbug Entertainment

Nothing will ever defeat Cocomelon. The sun will go supernova before Cocomelon is done. Bow to Cocomelon.

If your kid has to watch something (or possibly you’re tuning in yourself? No judgment here!), the animated-nursery-rhymes-and-songs-YouTube-channel-turned-Netflix-animated-series is one of the most popular children’s shows on the service this week. It’s amazing — it’s been on the list since last fall and only fell off once, and shows no signs of going away … ever!

7. Seinfeld

Image: Photofest

What’s the deal with Seinfeld? No really, I don’t know: I was a child in the ’90s during the show’s cultural apex and my taste in television back then skewed closer to the animated adventures of Spider-Man. Maybe it’s finally time for me to suck it up and behold the sitcom shenanigans of a fictitious comedian Jerry Seinfeld (played by the actual comedian Jerry Seinfeld) and his kooky group of adult friends. Netflix paid over $500 million dollars for the exclusive worldwide streaming rights to the series, so maybe I’ll finally get around to watching a full episode of the series now that I’m an adult. The series was added to Netflix last Friday, which explains why it’s on this week’s top 10 list.

6. The Duff

Mae Whitman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) stars in Ari Sandel’s 2015 teen comedy The Duff as Bianca, a benign high school whose sense of self esteem is radically upended when she learns that the student body knows her as the “Designated Ugly Fat Friend,” or “Duff” of the popular girls. Enlisting the help of her charming jock classmate Wesley (Robbie Amell), Bianca reinvents herself in a bid to challenge the school’s reigning mean girl Madison (Bella Thorne) and assert her own worth. The film was just added to Netflix this past Friday, which is why it’s on this week’s top 10.

5. Midnight Mass

Photo: Eike Schroter/Netflix

Midnight Mass, Mike Flanagan’s long-gestating follow-up to 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House and 2020’s The Haunting of Bly House, is a supernatural mystery-thriller that centers on the denizens of Crockett Island, an isolated fishing town on the brink of collapse whose long-simmering animosities are exposed and inflamed by the mysterious arrival of a charismatic priest with a dark secret. From our review:

Midnight Mass feels like Flanagan’s most challenging work so far, both for him and for his audience. The show has been in the works for a decade, and it’s an intensely personal story for Flanagan. That’s hardly new for him — Hill House and Doctor Sleep deftly explored addiction and recovery through the lens of horror. And Flanagan has spoken about his journey with sobriety and how it shaped Midnight Mass extensively. That vibrantly personal exploration — Flanagan worked on the scripts for all seven episodes, including the four co-written with his brother James — is what makes the show so feel so potent and alive, but also what presents some of its hardest-to-parse moments.

4. The Guilty

Image: Netflix

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Antoine Fuqua’s The Guilty as Joe Baylor, a LAPD officer-turned-emergency call operator trying desperately to a save the life of a caller as the city is wracked by a deadly forest fire. Not everything is as it seems however, as Joe must turn to unconventional means in order to come to his caller’s aid and uncover the truth behind their encounter. Gyllenhaal’s role is far cry from the unhinged derangement of his performance in 2014’s Nightcrawler, but the tone of trailer feels remarkable similar in its implicit insidiousness. Written by True Detective writer-creator Nic Pizzolatto, The Guilty looks as engrossing and exciting as anything Fuqua and Gyllenhaal have done in the past. From our review:

Though Fuqua’s films haven’t shied away from the misdeeds of law enforcement — recall the showy, malevolent character that won Washington his Training Day Oscar — they’re usually juxtaposed with innocent, honest police. The Guilty only really has one “real” cop on screen at all; the rest are voices on the other end of the phone, or officers who aren’t irritated about their full-time work at the call center. The phone-only cast is impressive: Peter Sarsgaard, Riley Keough, Ethan Hawke, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Paul Dano all call in, as if this were a supersized episode of Frasier.

3. Maid

Image: Richardo Hubbs/Netflix

Inspired by Stephanie Land’s New York Times best-selling memoir, Molly Smith Metzler’s streaming miniseries Maid stars Margaret Qualley (The Leftovers) as Alex Russell, a young single mother who becomes a housecleaner and maid in order to escape her abusive home life and provide a better life for her daughter Maddy. The series was released on Netflix last Friday and has already garnered positive reviews, including Vulture critic Jen Chaney who describes the relationship between Alex and her mother Paula (Andie MacDowell) in her review as, “one of the most enriching experiences of the fall TV season.”

2. On My Block

Image: Netflix

The fourth and final season of On My Block, the coming of age teen comedy-drama from Awkward showrunner Lauren Iungerich, was released on Netflix earlier this week, which explains why it’s at the number two spot of the top 10 list this week. Starring an ensemble cast include Sierra Capri (American Skin), Jason Genao (Logan), Brett Gray (When They See Us), Diego Tinoco (Teen Wolf), Jessica Marie Garcia (How to Get Away with Murder) and more, the series follows a teenage group of lifelong friends navigating the challenges of growing up in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Freeridge. This season sees the friends finally set to graduate high school and figuring out the question of their respective future together and apart.

1. Squid Game

Photo: Youngkyu Park/Netflix

The South Korean survival drama Squid Game soared to the top spot of the Netflix top 10 this week following its premiere earlier this month, and it’s easy to understand why. The show’s premise resembles a nightmarish Technicolor mashup of Battle Royale and Big Brother, following the stories of seven people who, along with 449 other perfect strangers, are abducted and subjected to a strange series of challenges that resemble schoolyard games like Red Light, Green Light and tug of war in a contest to win $38.5 million. You can probably guess the catch off the top of your head: If any of the participants lose any of the challenges, they’re swiftly executed. The series is as bizarre and hyperviolent as it sounds, and Netflix says it’s currently on track to become the service’s most watched series of all time.

Sizing up the 10 most popular things on Netflix right now
Source: Stay Strong Philippines