Judging by the Nielsen streaming rankings, Americans spent a lot of time watching movies in the final week of 2022.
Netflix’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery recorded the biggest single week in the two-plus year history of Nielsen’s weekly rankings, and four other films also had at least 500 million minutes of viewing time. Jack Ryan repeated as the top original series, and Yellowstone had its biggest streaming week to date on Peacock.
Glass Onion had 2.89 billion minutes of viewing time for the week of Dec. 26-Jan. 1, up from 2.23 billion for its debut weekend. That’s equivlent to 20.76 million full showings of the 139-minute film and the highest viewing time ever for a feature film in the Nielsen rankings. (Hocus Pocus 2 on Disney+ was the previous record holder with 2.73 billion minutes for its opening week.)
The other movies to top the 500 million-minute mark were Netflix’s Matilda: The Musical (839 million), The Invitation (664 million) and Trolls (501 million) and Disney+’s Strange World (753 million).
On the series side, Jack Ryan spent a second week at No. 1 among originals, with Prime Video users watching 1.67 billion minutes of the spy thriller — a slim 11 percent decline from the previous week. Wednesday (1.66 billion minutes) was a close second, and Emily in Paris (1.35 billion minutes) moved ahead of the recently renewed The Recruit (953 million) for third place. The Witcher: Blood Origin had a solid opening — though not at the levels of its parent show — with 912 million minutes.
Yellowstone jumped 84 percent week to week on Peacock as the show recorded 1.04 billion minutes of viewing. The NBCUniversal streamer has the first four seasons of the show in its library, while the midseason finale for season five aired Jan. 1 on Paramount Network.
Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings only measure U.S. audiences, not those in other countries. The top streaming titles for Dec. 26-Jan. 1 are below.
Overall
1. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix), 2.89 billion minutes viewed
2. Jack Ryan (Prime Video), 1.67 billion
3. Wednesday (Netflix), 1.66 billion
4. Emily in Paris (Netflix), 1.35 billion
5. Yellowstone (Peacock), 1.04 billion
6. The Recruit (Netflix), 953 million
7. Cocomelon (Netflix), 932 million
8. The Witcher: Blood Origin (Netflix), 912 million
9. Matilda: The Musical (Netflix), 839 million
10. Treason (Netflix), 790 million
Original Series
1. Jack Ryan, 1.67 billion minutes
2. Wednesday, 1.66 billion
3. Emily in Paris, 1.35 billion
4. The Recruit, 953 million
5. The Witcher: Blood Origin, 912 million
6. Treason, 790 million
7. The Best Man: The Final Chapters (Peacock), 735 million
8. Alice in Borderland (Netflix), 458 million
9. I Am a Killer (Netflix), 456 million
10. The Crown (Netflix), 413 million
Acquired Series
1. Yellowstone, 1.04 billion minutes
2. Cocomelon, 932 million
3. NCIS (Netflix), 753 million
4. Bluey (Disney+), 741 million
5. The Big Bang Theory (HBO Max), 656 million
6. Friends (HBO Max), 651 million
7. Gilmore Girls (Netflix), 650 million
8. Grey’s Anatomy (Netflix), 649 million
9. Criminal Minds (Hulu/Paramount+), 629 million
10. The White Lotus (HBO Max), 573 million
Source: Hollywood
