#Hamilton, Mulan & More – /Film

Netflix has won another battle in the streaming wars.

According to a new report, the service holds 13 out of the top 30 most-watched streaming movies of 2020, including Extraction, Rebecca, Spenser Confidential, and The Old Guard, to name a few. But it’s worth noting that the top three most-watched entries are not on Netflix. Check out the list below.

Variety obtained new data from an organization called ScreenEngine/ASI, which “surveyed 1,200 U.S. video viewers aged 13-64 weekly on which titles they’ve watched in 7 days following their release.” Wait a second: doesn’t that instead mean that this is a list of streaming films which have been watched quickly by the most people? That “watched within seven days” statistic seems pretty important to this conversation if you ask me – but I’m not a statistician, so let’s not think critically about this at all and just blindly consume the information we’re presented!
According to this data, Disney+ version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton holds the number one spot, followed by Amazon Prime Video’s Borat 2: Subsequent MovieFilm and then, surprisingly, by the Dave Bautista family comedy My Spy. Take a look at the full list.

The 30 Most-Watched Streaming Movies of 2020

1. Hamilton – Disney+
2. Borat 2: Subsequent MovieFilm – Amazon Prime Video
3. My Spy – Amazon Prime Video
4. Extraction – Netflix
5. Phineas & Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe – Disney+
6. Mulan – Disney+
7. The Old Guard – Netflix
8. The Trial of the Chicago 7 – Netflix
9. Roald Dahl’s The Witches (2020) – HBO Max
10. The Lovebirds – Netflix
11. Rebecca – Netflix
12. Project Power – Netflix
13. Enola Holmes – Netflix
14. Black is King – Disney+
15. Madea’s Farewell Play – Amazon Prime Video
16. Da 5 Bloods – Netflix
17. Bad Hair – Hulu
18. Artemis Fowl – Disney+
19. Lost Girls – Netflix
20. An American Pickle – HBO Max
21. Spenser Confidential – Netflix
22. The Devil All the Time – Netflix
23. Stargirl – Disney+
24. Greyhound – AppleTV+
25. Holidate – Netflix
26. Palm Springs – Hulu
27. The One and Only Ivan – Disney+
28. Clouds – Disney+
29. Blow the Man Down – Amazon Prime Video
30. The Sleepover – Netflix

It’s worth pointing out that Mulan required a $30 payment on top of a Disney+ subscription in order to watch it (at least at first), so its position near the top of these rankings is even more impressive than it appears.

I have a few quick takeaways from this list. Firstly, Netflix has 13 titles, while the next-highest streamer, Disney+, only has eight. If anyone needed a status update about who is winning the overall Streaming War, there it is. Secondly, the high placement of those Amazon titles proves once again that people like the concept of high quality Hollywood content being dropped on a service they already subscribe to – and it strikes me that Amazon can afford to do a little more of this type of thing moving forward. (Don’t forget that Coming 2 America is hitting Amazon Prime Video later this year.) I’m also surprised that Palm Springs isn’t a bit higher on this list, which is yet another example of the idea that just because a movie lights up cinephile circles, that does not always mean it connects in a huge way outside of that. I’ll let more data-driven journalists dig into this for additional analyzation, but this is a fascinating, cross-platform look at America’s viewing habits in the age of the coronavirus.

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