NetflixJennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery has been named the most popular release on Netflix in the US this year, proving that comedy is still king.
The movie, which sees a New York cop and his wife head to Europe in a bid to relight the fire of their relationship, where they end up being framed for the murder of an elderly billionaire, was streamed a whopping 30,869,863 times within three days of its release in summer.
And, it seems Murder Mystery has good company up at the top, as the third season of Stranger Things was the second most watched release overall, followed by 6 Underground and The Incredibles 2.
— Netflix US (@netflix) December 30, 2019
The Irishman came in at fourth place, which might leave some Netflix customers confused as to why it isn’t higher up. The eagerly anticipated film, starring Robert De Niro, was watched by more than 26 million accounts globally in its first week, Netflix has confirmed.
While Murder Mystery was the most viewed, the streaming giant’s methodology for compiling the list was a bit unusual. Netflix based the list off the number of subscribers who watched at least two minutes of a series, movie or special during its first 28 days on the streaming service.
Previously, Netflix used to measure it by customers who watched 70% of a movie or a single episode of a TV show. However, it has since decided that this measurement discriminated against longer form content, like The Irishman for example, which is three and a half hours long.
NetflixA spokesperson for Netflix told CNN: ‘We used this metric because this is a ranking, so we’re looking for relativity rather than finite numbers,’ adding that this makes the two minute measurement ‘a far more pure way to measure popularity’.
Over here in the UK, The Witcher was named the most-watched Netflix series of the year, with Ricky Gervais’ heartfelt comedy Afterlife coming in second place.
Meanwhile, Netflix is set to release a range of new films and series for us to get our teeth into in the new year, including To All The Boys: PS I Still Love You and Eurovision, a comedy about the Eurovision Song Contest, starring none of other than Will Ferrell.
Murder Mystery is currently available to stream on Netflix US and UK, but let’s face it, you’ve probably already seen it.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.