Robert De Niro's New Netflix Thriller Dominates Streaming With 23.2M Viewership Debut

Published Sep 1, 2026, 3:24 PM EDT Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more. Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics." Robert De Niro's The Whisper Man shouts to streaming success. De Niro's career has seen the powerhouse actor traverse many genres, but the one he keeps going back to time and again, nearly always finding enormous success, is the crime thriller genre. In movies like Heat, Taxi Driver, The Godfather Part II, Goodfellas, and many more, De Niro worked with genre favorites that include names like directors Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Michael Mann, as well as actors like Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Leonardo DiCaprio, and so on. The star has consolidated himself as one of the genre's biggest names. That has made De Niro uniquely suited to serve as one of the biggest players on Netflix's library of movies. After all, the streaming service continues to thrive with the release of new crime series and films. In 2026 alone, two new crime thriller series, His & Hers and I Will Find You, have traded seats on Netflix's all-time TV show Top 10. Before this year, De Niro had already teamed up with Scorsese and other genre talents for Netflix's The Irishman. Now, Netflix has officially revealed that The Whisper Man debuted with 23.2 million views as the streaming service's 2nd most-watched movie. The Whisper Man Debuts With 23.3M Views David Lee/Netflix According to Netflix, The Whisper Man only lost to Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look. The latter built on the anticipation created by the 13 years of waiting for a new GTA game from Rockstar. With 31.1M views and reaching #1 on Netflix's charts in 87 of the 93 countries tracked by the streaming service, Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look is in a league of its own. The Whisper Man, De Niro's latest crime thriller movie, having been released on the streaming service on Friday, August 28, amassed solid viewership over its first weekend on Netflix. Besides De Niro, Netflix's The Whisper Man found global success with plenty of stars. De Niro is joined by Severance's Adam Scott, The White Lotus' Michelle Monaghan, Batman: Caped Crusader's Hamish Linklater, Batman franchise star Michael Keaton, and more. That solid cast, the fact that crime thrillers tend to do well on Netflix, and the movie's dark story about a widower whose son is abducted in a case that could be connected to a serial killer his father helped arrest have helped The Whisper Man to streaming success. However, not everything is just right for the Netflix crime thriller. Despite Strong Viewership, The Whisper Man Polarizes Critics & Audiences The Whisper Man might be one of Netflix's biggest hits in terms of viewership right now, currently ranked #1 in the United States, but it has been met with negative reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Whisper Man sits at a disappointing 48% critics' score based on 58 reviews. Its audience score is even worse, as De Niro's new Netflix crime thriller currently holds a low 42% score with viewers. While the movie's polarizing reception might not have hurt its viewership on The Whisper Man's opening weekend on Netflix, it could have a negative impact on how the crime thriller performs in the long run. Release Date August 28, 2026 Runtime 106 minutes Director James Ashcroft Cast Writers Ben Jacoby, Chase Palmer, Alex North Producers Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Michael Disco, Angela Russo-Otstot, Mike LaRocca