Netflix has taken a new approach to reporting the popularity of its top shows and movies. With a striking amount of transparency, the once secretive streamer has now revealed exactly how many hours the world has spent watching its top performers in the first half of 2023.
As it is done by time watched not the amount of view, the list is dominated by TV shows, but there are some movies in there too. Chief among them is the Jennifer Lopez starring The Mother which audiences spent 249,900,000 hours combined watching. That's despite its Rotten Tomatoes score of just 43%. But that's not the most surprising discovery on the list.
Also in the top 10 movies is AKA a French language crime thriller which stars former Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona in a major role. Yes, you read that correctly. King Eric, as he is known to the red half of Manchester, plays the head of a crime syndicate with links to a Sudanese warlord. Because of course.
In fairness, the movie has actually been well-received. Since its April release, it has been viewed for 120,000,000 hours. Aside from its obvious popularity, it proved a hit with critics and boasts an 82% Rotten Tomatoes score as well as a 75% rating with audiences (some Manchester City fans probably brought it down).
Eric has been acting now for some time in truth, starring in the drama Ulysses and Mona, the comedy You and the Night and even played the lead in the Ken Loach-directed Looking For Eric. It's hard to imagine Wayne Rooney or other former United players performing similar exploits.
To be honest, many of the other top 10 movies in the list are likely to trouble the best Netflix movies (save for Knives Out 2), while the top TV show of the first half of the year has been The Night Agent, although we expect that Squid Game: The Challenge might have something to say about that for the second part of 2023.
