Most viewed English-language Netflix TV shows 2025
As of April 2025, the most popular English-language Netflix TV show of all time was the first season of the comedy horror TV show “Wednesday,” with over 252.1 million views in the show's first 91 days on the platform. The second most watched on the streaming platform was the fourth season of the American science-fiction series “Stranger Things,” counting around 140.7 million views. New to the top 10 is the British TV series “Adolescence,” which amassed over 114 million views in the first four weeks aired on the platform.
Is high content spending a guarantee for success?
The fourth season of “Stranger Things” belongs not only to the most popular Netflix titles, but was also by far the most expensive series for the company as of April 2024, with production costs of 30 million U.S. dollars per episode. In order to stay competitive in the crowded streaming environment, Netflix reported ever rising budgets to produce their own content. With amassing the most viewing minutes in the top 10 of the most watched original streaming series in 2023, it seems the video-on-demand provider has been successful with this strategy.
TV series are being canceled quickly
For years, the number of original scripted TV shows released in the U.S. has steadily been growing, peaking in 2022 at 600 broadcast, cable, and streaming series. However, in times of originals continuing to soar, streaming services have canceled several TV shows after just the first or second season. Even alleged popular Netflix series such as “1899” or “Warrior Nun” had to go with the story left incomplete, as they fell short of the company’s expectations.
