Netflix undoubtedly dominates the streaming world, producing a vast collection of original films and TV shows that dominate the platform, but surprisingly they haven’t fared too well when it comes to reviews.
Not every film is good enough to be up for an Academy Award, and oftentimes the highest-grossing movies are nowhere near the awards circuit, despite often picking up a decent to good reception from critics and audiences.
This isn’t always the case with Netflix‘s original movies though, as despite picking up hundreds of millions of hours watched within days of release, they’re typically not considered to be the greatest works of art.
We’ve all been there – Netflix has just dropped a new film starring some of the biggest names in the industry, yet by the end of its runtime you feel like you’ve just wasted two hours of your life.
There’s perhaps no better example of this than the title at the top of Netflix’s most popular movies list, as despite reaching staggering watch time totals, Red Notice has just 37% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Red Notice is Netflix’s most watched movie by far, but has comparatively poor reviews (Netflix)
In total, the film starring The Rock, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot has earned 230,900,000 views, which combined with it’s 1 hour and 58 minute runtime works out at around 454,200,000 hours watched.
This is just under 50 million more hours watched than the next highest on the list, making it undeniably the most popular movie on the streaming service.
It’s then surprising that it doesn’t exactly seem to have the best reputation, with critics largely slamming it’s poor quality overall.
“Watching Red Notice is like watching the feature-length version of a fake movie inside another movie,” remarks one review from Alternative Lens, whereas another from The Ringer illustrates that “there’s a cold, almost algorithmic quality to the film and its performances.” Doesn’t exactly sound like a great time!
Things aren’t exactly much better on the audience side of things either, as community reviews argue that the film is ‘idiotic’, ‘stupid’, and ‘forgettable’, among other choice words.
This sentiment has extended beyond the world of Rotten Tomatoes too, with users on the r/Netflix subreddit expressing their bewilderment at Red Notice’s popularity shortly after release.
“How was a movie with Ryan Reynolds and The Rock teaming up so bad?” asks one frustrated user, adding: “I don’t get it. I was so excited to watch it, but it was just so f***ing awful. Can’t believe I wasted my monthly movie night on it FML.”
Things aren’t all bad for Reynolds and co. though, as Red Notice does seem to have found an audience willing to overlook some of its more glaring flaws in search of some easy fun.
“If you haven’t watched it, please don’t look at the review because it’s going to ruin your experience (kinda),” remarks on surprised film fan on another Reddit thread.
They added: “I’ve seen the trailer and I love the action part. When I watched the whole movie, it was actually fun and enjoyable […] It’s a typucal movie but there’s no way it’s as bad as the reviews.”
This sentiment is then echoed in the comments, with one user arguing that Red Notice “was EXACTLY what it was ‘hyped’ to be. A sit back, turn your brain off and enjoy the cheesy-fun popcorn movie. Anyone expecting anything more was (somehow) misled by the trailer and the cast.”
Which camp you land in appears to be dependant on what you’re looking for, but considering the reported watch time from Netflix, the chances are you already know what you think!
Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Managing to bat off competition from Disney+, Amazon Prime, and more, the streaming giant has come a long way from when we used to get DVDs in the mail.
One of Netflix’s big wins is its roster of original programming that’s given us everything from The Witcher to Stranger Things, Squid Game to Bridgerton.
Despite Netflix slapping a ban on password sharing, it reportedly made $39 billion in revenue in 2024 and boasted a 15.7% increase from 2023.
There are all the usual grumbles about users vowing to cancel their subscription over more price hikes, whereas some are just getting on with it as usual.
Wednesday is a bargain compared to some of Netflix’s other shows (Netflix)
Netflix tries to keep us hooked with an impressive lineup of movies and shows, but when it comes to its biggest export, you might be surprised by the winner.
While we know it must be expensive to build the Upside Down for Stranger Things or bring a Hollywood A-lister like Liam Hemsworth on to replace Henry Cavill on The Witcher, Netflix’s ‘biggest’ show had a pretty tiny budget.
The Jenna Ortega-led Wednesday had us all clicking our fingers to The Addams Family theme tune, and with 252,100,000 views, Tudum reports that it’s by far and away the platform’s biggest English language show.
To put it into context, Stranger Things season 4 is in second with 140,700,000 views. It’s true that Stranger Things has more hours watched with 1,838,000,000 compared to Wednesday‘s 1,718,800,000, but the kooky series still comes out on top.
Elsewhere, the top five is rounded out by Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Bridgerton season 1, and The Queen’s Gambit.
Quartz lists the most expensive Netflix shows ever made, with Stranger Things coming in at a jaw-dropping $30 million per episode. In contrast, it’s estimated that Wednesday season 2 will only cost between $5 million to $7 million per episode to make.
Whether that takes into account the added cost of casting Lady Gaga is unknown, but either way, it costs relative pennies compared to some of the others.
Even though Wednesday only debuted in November 2022, it was quickly renewed for a second season in January 2023. Hyping the next run of episodes, Ortega has promised Variety that it will “lean into the horror aspect” and will be “ditching any romantic love interest for Wednesday.”
Boasting an all-star cast of Luis Guzmán, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and even a role for Christina Ricci after she played Wednesday in the ’90s Addams Family movies. With Gaga sure to give us a musical interlude on par with season 1’s viral dance scene, we’re confident that Wednesday season 2 will soon be topping the charts again.
Back in 2017 this animated movie premiered to scathing reviews, seven years later and it’s broken into the top 10 on Netflix.
2017 was a huge year for emojis. Among the 69 new ones released that year were icons like the ‘being sick’ face, two types of fairy and the ‘mind blown’ emoji.
But still, we couldn’t get enough of the emoji.
That same year, Sony Pictures Animation and Columbia Pictures produced the infamous Emoji Movie to scathing reviews.
The Emoji Movie was released in 2017 to scathing reviews (@EmojiMovie/X)
The animation currently sits at a dismal 6% on Rotten Tomatoes ‘tomatometer’ and has an equally deflated audience score of 36%.
One review from 2018 is reminiscent of a lot of criticism at the time, savagely reading: “One wishes that this movie could be erased from existence – but for now, let’s hope that the burning wreckage acts as a warning to never, ever do this again.”
And many of us had forgotten about the existence of this fever dream of a movie, until it was added to Netflix earlier this month.
On Monday 12th August The Emoji Movie was sitting comfortably at the number one spot on US Netflix movie rankings, topping Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
It beat other animated movies including Nickolodeon’s Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie.
Comedy fans might be particularly horrified to know that The Emoji Movie also beat White Chicks on Monday, which came in at number eight.
From the week of August 5 – August 11, The Emoji Movie landed at number 10 on Netflix’s top 10 movies in the US, trailing behind Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and new horror movie Tarot.
James Corden was among the cast of the infamous movie (Jason LaVeris / Contributor via Getty)
You might be wondering how and why The Emoji Movie has ended up in the top 10 if the reviews were so poor.
Well, while there was a hell of a lot of criticism, the movie didn’t perform too badly in theatres. Plus, it had a pretty star-studded cast with the likes of James Corden, Anna Faris and Sofia Vergara on the list.
On its release in 2017 it earned a whopping $217.8 million against its $50 million budget, outgrossing its competitors like Pitch Perfect 3, John Wick: Chapter 2, and even Best Picture winner A Shape of Water.
One viewer even took to Reddit to confess his love for the movie with a post titled ‘The emoji movie is probably my favourite movie of all time’.
The Reddit user continued: It was really funny and upbeat, i rewatch It from time to time because i like It that much (and this Is coming from someone who hates to Watch any kind of movies), you can’t imagine my reaction when i discovered that no one liked it because i thought that it was one of the best animation movies ever. Am i Just completely insane?”
Replying to the controversial post, one user simply wrote: “you should watch more movies’.
Sci-fi fans can rejoice as a critically acclaimed movie is making its way to Netflix this week.
The film has 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and a star-studded cast that offers up a futuristic world run by an alien race – what more could you want?
The movie received rave reviews despite not breaking the box office, which some claim was due to the flick’s ‘respect for the standards’ of science fiction.
Edge of Tomorrow is coming to Netflix this week (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Edge of Tomorrow follows two characters played by Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt after an alien civilization lands in Germany and conquers most of continental Europe.
As a war begins, aliens use time loops to assist themselves in battles until William Cage (played by Cruise) begins to use the time loops himself to try to win the war for the humans.
He trains with Rita Vrataski (played by Blunt) and ends up dying a thousand deaths, going back to the past each time to try to save himself – and some of the deaths are pretty funny.
The film earned a high rating on Rotten Tomatoes and critics have made some glowing reviews.
One critic wrote: “Edge of Tomorrow is a rousing adventure filled with pulse-pounding thrills and surprising dashes of character-driven humor, the film a breathless two hours of fun worth celebrating.”
Another said: “This is the kind of thoughtfully constructed movie that other summertime blockbusters should aspire to be more like, clever and cool and never giving you that ho-hum sense that you’ve seen it all before.”
The film stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt (D Dipasupil/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
And a third added: “Edge of Tomorrow is acceptable escapist entertainment whose unexpected plot developments give it much-needed originality. The action scenes are handled with expected skill, the heroes are intrepid and the creatures are suitable nasty and vicious.”
The audience have also been left impressed with film, leaving their own reviews.
One said: “One of my all-time favorites. Intelligent script, well-acted, appropriately paced. Never feels repetitive despite the premise.”
And another added: “The only reason this movie didn’t make it in the box office was its hard-core respect for the standards of intelligent science fiction. This movie is well-written, brilliantly edited, excellently directed, perfectly performed…. and overlooked. Its visual effects are from the Marvel universe, but that’s where the comparison stops, because it makes its viewers responsible for staying on top of it. I’m certainly not a huge Tom Cruise fan, but he did it here, and so did Emily Blunt and the rest of a fine cast.”
Google has revealed the most searched for TV show of 2024, and it’s not what you’d expect.
It’s that time of year again when our timelines are full of people’s Spotify Wrapped and unofficial Netflix Wrapped recaps, revealing what they’ve wasted hours listening to or streaming in 2024. More and more companies are getting in on the trend, and for those who are interested in seeing what we’ve all been Googling in 2024, Google has released its own ‘wrapped’ to show off what’s grabbed our attention this year.
From blockbuster movies to celebrity duos, delicious dishes to chart-topping musicians, it’s been a wild year of Hawk Tuah Girl, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, P. Diddy’s arrest, learning the routine to “Hot to Go!”, and holding space with Wicked.
Not everyone was a massive fan of Netflix’s Griselda (Netflix)
When it comes to the world of television, it’s easy to forget it’s been a massive year that’s included everything from House of the Dragon to Agatha All Along, The Penguin to Baby Reindeer. According to Google’s Year in Search, none of these made the cut, with the most searched-for TV series in 2024 being Netflix‘s Griselda.
Starring Modern Family‘s Sofía Vergara, Griselda is an American biographical crime drama charting the rise and fall of the real-life Griselda Blanco.
Blanco was a Colombian drug lord who rose to power on the Miami drug scene in the 1970s, with Andrés Baiz directing the series and Vergara serving as a producer.
While we love Netflix crime dramas like Monster and Mindhunter, not everyone was blown away by Griselda. Although it has an impressive critic rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences were less impressed and only gave it 68%.
Other popular TV searches in 2024 included Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. The five-part documentary series focused on Dan Schneider’s tenure as a producer and showrunner at Nickelodeon.
Coming in third is another Netflix sensation, with the viral Baby Reindeer. Fourth is Amazon’s Fallout which brings Bethesda’s apocalyptic video game series to life in live-action for the first time. Rounding out the Top 5 is The Perfect Couple – largely remembered for Nicole Kidman’s dancing more than the show itself.
Stranger Things’ final season is expected to dominate the conversation in 2025 (Netflix)
In terms of movies, 2024 wasn’t as dominated by Netflix. Disney’s Inside Out 2 took the top spot, and with it being the highest-grossing film of 2024, it’s no surprise we were all looking at Riley’s return to the big screen.
There’s a whiff of nostalgia as the long-awaited Beetlejuice Beetlejuice came next, followed by the controversial It Ends with Us that was led by Blake Lively. There’s murder on the dancefloor in fourth with Saltburn, while it’s back to Arrakis as Dune: Part Two rounds out the Top 5.
We’re not psychic, but with the final season of Stranger Things finally arriving in 2025, we don’t see any other TV series topping Google searches. Then again, with a packed Netflix schedule that includes Black Mirror season 7 and Wednesday season 2, the streaming giant is doing its best to prove its subscription is worth it.
