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Netflix’s Biggest Hit Ever? KPop Demon Hunters Smashes Records, Tops Second-Half 2025 Viewing

The Streaming Wars Staff
January 21, 2026
in Insights, Business, Entertainment, Finance, Industry, News, Programming, Streaming
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
Netflix’s Biggest Hit Ever? KPop Demon Hunters Smashes Records, Tops Second-Half 2025 Viewing

If there was any doubt about KPop Demon Hunters‘ global dominance, Netflix just put it to rest. According to the streamer’s latest What We Watched engagement report, the animated musical racked up a staggering 482 million views between July and December 2025. That makes it the most-watched Netflix title of all time over a six-month period.

That total doesn’t even include the film’s first 10 days post-premiere on June 20. Add another 32 million views for the official lyric videos, and KPop Demon Hunters looks less like a surprise hit and more like a franchise in the making. The movie also won multiple Golden Globes and is widely seen as a major Oscar contender.

For context, Happy Gilmore 2, which premiered a month later on July 25, pulled in 135.1 million views during the same period. That’s impressive on its own, especially given its record-breaking U.S. opening weekend, but it was still dwarfed by KPop Demon Hunters.

On the series side, Wednesday Season 2 led the pack with 123.9 million views after its August 6 debut. Stranger Things 5, despite only being available for a few hours before the end of the year, landed at 93.5 million views, ranking second. The Stranger Things back catalog also held strong, with Season 1 pulling 57 million views to land at number five and Season 2 hitting 45 million views for the number ten spot.

Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story brought in 56 million views, while Sean Combs: The Reckoning, released just weeks before the year’s end, still reached 50.8 million views.

These numbers only reflect the back half of 2025. Netflix confirmed an overall platform lift, with 96 billion hours watched, up 1 billion hours from the first half of the year. With Stranger Things 5 and other big titles only partially accounted for in this report, the first half of 2026 is likely to show even more dramatic results.

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Tags: Happy Gilmore 2kpop demon huntersMonster Ed GeinnetflixNetflix animationNetflix EarningsNetflix original filmsNetflix viewershipSean Combs The ReckoningStranger Thingsstreaming metricsWednesdayWhat We Watched
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