Netflix's #1 Crime Thriller Officially Breaks 2026 Record, Bucking Streaming Trend

Published Nov 4, 2026, 5:50 PM EST Cooper Hood is the Associate Editor for all new movie releases, in theaters and on streaming. In addition to writing articles about these titles and upcoming releases, he also oversees content planning for each, ensuring that ScreenRant continues to cover major releases for months after their release. He has written various reviews for ScreenRant that appear on Rotten Tomatoes, coordinated Oscars and San Diego Comic-Con coverage, appeared on CNN to talk about Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, and done select interviews with talent over the years. A star-studded crime thriller movie has been dominating Netflix for weeks, allowing it to break a 2026 record by performing better than the majority of Netflix Originals. Making movies with Hollywood's biggest names and directors, and pairing them with reliably successful genres, has been the primary focus of Netflix's movie model over the years. Action, rom-coms, and animation have proven to be valuable avenues for the streamer to pursue, but so too are crime thrillers. In recent years, they've seen this with Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman's Carry-On, Aaron Pierre's Rebel Ridge, and Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's The Rip all finding huge audiences around the globe. The latter is one of Netflix's most-watched 2026 movies across all genres. Subscribers also turned out for Robert De Niro's crime thriller, The Whisper Man, and they've done so again for Animals, an R-rated 108-minute entry in the genre starring Affleck. The movie hit Netflix in October to instant success, posting high viewership figures. It's now claimed a 2026 record by becoming the first movie to sit atop Netflix's global Top 10 charts for English movies for four consecutive weeks. The Rip previously held the record at three weeks. Animals' four-week run as the #1 movie on Netflix is more impressive when you dive into the history of Netflix Original movies topping the charts. Netflix Original Movies Typically Have A Shorter Peak In Popularity With the frequent output of new Netflix Original movies, it is common for one of the exclusive streaming titles to be the most-watched movie every week. So far in 2026, there have been 24 different Netflix Originals to be the #1 movie on the streamer's weekly charts; only Jurassic World Rebirth and Anaconda have broken through to the top spot. While that gives Netflix lots of opportunities to tout the success of its original movies, they don't often stay in that spot for long. 14 of the 24 films in 2026 have stayed #1 for two weeks, but only two (The Rip and Animals) have done it longer. There are also even more Netflix Originals released this year that never topped the charts. Subscribers have shown a tendency to move on to another title after two weeks for years, too. Netflix has been publishing these weekly charts since June 2021, giving us 279 weeks of data, and the results show that most Netflix movies have a peak popularity of two weeks or fewer. 164 different movies have been #1 on the English movie charts since June 2021. However, only 85 have done so for at least two weeks, 84 of which have been Netflix Originals. That number drops to just 19 films that have been #1 in the world for three straight weeks or longer. To put that into perspective, Netflix has released well over 500 English-language original movies, documentaries, and specials since these charts have been public. Less than 20% stay #1 for two weeks, and we're down to under 5% if we go to three weeks. Four weeks, like Animals, is incredibly rare (less than 1%). It is quite common for these movies to stay in the top 10 for weeks after, but they never regain the #1 spot, unless they're KPop Demon Hunters (which has spent a record nine weeks at the top of the charts, but never for longer than three weeks straight). It's highly unusual for a Netflix movie to have as much staying power as Animals. Animals Now Joins An Elite Group Of Netflix Original Movies Netflix To date, only four other movies have had runs at the top of Netflix's charts for as long as Animals. Ryan Reynolds' The Adam Project was the first to do so in March-April 2022. Jennifer Lopez's The Mother did it next in May-June 2023, followed by Carry-On from December 2024-January 2025 and The Life List from March-April 2025, both featuring Sofia Carson. In these previous instances, the four weeks atop Netflix's charts propelled the movies to incredible viewership figures. Carry-On and The Adam Project are still in the top 5 of Netflix's most-watched movies ever, boasting 172.1 and 157.6 million views apiece (during their first 91 days of release). The Mother was a top 10 finisher at the time with 117 million views, while The Life List logged over 90 million views over the same time. Animals being in the four-week chart-topping club with these other films is impressive by any metric and a clear indication of how much interest it has drawn from subscribers. But the record arguably should come with an asterisk. Animals Is Lucky To Have This Netflix 2026 Record Image credit: Warrick Page/© Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection To be clear, Animals has done solid numbers for Netflix, sitting at 70 million views after its first month on the streamer. But its fourth week wasn't really worthy of breaking this record, as it won the week with only 4.7 million views after experiencing a 56% drop in viewers from the week before. That's the lowest ever for a week's #1 movie. While these charts began in June 2021, it wasn't until June 2023 that Netflix started sharing viewership figures on top of hours viewed. There have been 177 weeks since then, and Animals' 4.7 million views rank 177th across. It finished 900,000 views below the previous worst #1 finish: Jurassic World Rebirth's 5.6 million views earlier this year. The Adam Project and The Mother's runs predated Netflix's official viewership stats, but we can calculate based on hours viewed that they came in around 10 million and 8.3 million, respectively. Carry-On had a massive 17.4 million views, while The Life List had 7.5 million. That puts Animals well behind the pace of the elite performers its joined. Animals' ability to still be #1 on Netflix in its fourth week is more so a result of how weak programming has been for the streamer lately. Audiences have not had a new, major movie come out that could take attention away. Animals has been the default viewing option as a result. Upcoming Netflix Original Movies That Could Match Animals' Record Performance It probably will be some time before another Netflix movie can match Animals' four-week run as the #1 movie in the world. It's never occurred twice in the same year, but if one of Netflix's remaining 2026 originals is going to do it, The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth holds the best chance. Beyond that, it is most tempting to look at upcoming Netflix IP plays given their built-in fanbases. Narnia: The Magician's Nephew will have every expectation to obliterate viewership numbers for the streamer when it arrives in April 2027. Extraction 3, Grown Ups 3, and War Machines could do it thanks to proven streaming stars. A good bet is KPop Demon Hunters 2 when it comes out in 2029. However, sequels often don't match the popularity of their predecessors on streaming, unlike how audiences typically treat them at the box office. The most likely outcome is that it will be another movie like Animals that matches this record performance, something with a globally recognized star and a popular genre that is standalone, allowing the maximum number of Netflix subscribers to check it out as they please. Release Date October 9, 2026 Runtime 106 minutes Director Ben Affleck