This week’s just-updated global Top 10 ranking from Netflix, revealing the streamer’s biggest TV shows around the world, suggests at least one pretty obvious thing to me: It’s that Netflix’s subscribers are in the mood for old favorites like The Lincoln Lawyer rather than new hits at the moment. Certainly, a ton of new shows and movies are constantly hitting the platform week in and week out, but just take a look at the ranking below, and you can’t help but notice — more than half of it is dominated by new seasons of existing Netflix franchises.
The other half? I’m not exactly holding my breath that we’ll see multiple seasons of, say, How to Become a Cult Leader anytime soon, but I guess you never know. That said, let’s take a closer look at the current winners.
Netflix Top 10 (July 31-August 6)
Starting with new episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer, here are the top 10 (English-language) Netflix series and shows in the world right now:
- The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 2 — 6.7 million views
- Heartstopper: Season 2 — 6.1 million views
- The Witcher: Season 3 — 5.4 million views
- Sweet Magnolias: Season 3 — 2.9 million views
- How to Become a Cult Leader: Season 1 — 2.3 million views
- The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 1 — 2.1 million views
- Fatal Seduction: Season 1 — 1.9 million views
- Too Hot to Handle: Season 5 — 1.9 million views
- Om Nom Stories: Season 1 — 1.7 million views
- CoComelon: Season 8 — 1.6 million views
I stressed “English language” above, by the way, because while you can see that The Lincoln Lawyer is in the top spot on the list above, it’s not actually the #1 Netflix show worldwide at the moment. For that, you have to also take into account Netflix’s Top 10 non-English TV shows, which reveals that on the basis of raw hours viewed, a new-ish K-drama called King the Land is outperforming everything you see on the Top 10 list above (with 66.4 million raw hours viewed this week, compared to 55 million for The Lincoln Lawyer).
Honestly, though, it’s probably not worth quibbling about, given that Netflix has stopped using raw hours viewed to rank its shows anymore. Instead, Netflix now divides that raw number by the season’s total runtime to get the new “total views” figure in order to determine chart placement. If that sounds like a strange way to rank shows to you, though, join the club.
#1: The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 2
Now, let’s take a closer look at the top two series dominating the streaming platform this week — The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2, still riding high after five weeks on the Top 10 chart, followed by the long-awaited second season of Heartstopper.
As we noted in a post over the weekend about the continued popularity on Netflix of Suits, legal dramas like that one, as well as The Lincoln Lawyer, are having something of a moment. The latter, however, is arguably the best of the genre that’s currently available to stream on Netflix.
Moreover, The Lincoln Lawyer is one of a slew of top-notch book adaptations that Netflix offers its subscribers — including everything from the award-winning movie All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the epic World War I novel, to the Bridgerton series, the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before movie franchise, and the upcoming 3 Body Problem from the Game of Thrones showrunners, to name just a few.
As for the legal drama that’s the #1 English-language show in the world on Netflix this week, it’s based on the Michael Connelly book series of the same name and stars Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller. He’s the attorney who runs his law practice out of the backseat of his titular Lincoln, and the second season of the hit Netflix show is based on the fourth book in Connelly’s series — The Fifth Witness.
Here’s how Netflix describes the character: “Born in Los Angeles and raised partially in Mexico by his mother, Mickey is just returning to work after a hiatus. He became dependent on prescription pain pills following an accident, but has now kicked the habit. He has two ex-wives (with whom he’s still very friendly) and relies on a client-turned-driver to chauffeur him around his hometown.
“Because he wins a major case at the end of Season 1, Mickey is inarguably the “hottest defense lawyer in LA” when we see him again in Season 2.”
The show, Season 2 of which has an 89% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, is currently a Top 10 Netflix series in 77 countries.
#2: Heartstopper: Season 2
As for the #2 Netflix series on the global Top 10 ranking this week, it’s the newest season of Heartstopper — the fan-favorite Netflix drama created by Alice Oseman and based on her graphic novel of the same name.
In the show’s first season, which debuted in April of last year, soft-spoken Charlie meets the more outgoing Nick at secondary school, and their friendship ultimately turns into romance. The show is then all about Charlie, Nick, and their friends navigating a journey of discovery, acceptance, and love.
The new season, of course, sees the return of Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) as well as their friends at Truham Grammar School. As Nick explains to his friend Elle (Yasmin Finney) in the trailer for the new season, “You don’t always have to understand your feelings completely. You don’t have to always have everything figured out. You can just feel.”
In Season 2, according to Netflix, “Nick and Charlie navigate their new relationship; Tara and Darcy face unforeseen challenges and Tao and Elle work out if they can ever be more than just friends. With exams on the horizon, a school trip to Paris, and a prom to plan, the gang has a lot to juggle as they journey through the next stages of life, love, and friendship.”
Hearstopper Season 2, which has a Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score of 96%, is also currently a Top 10 Netflix series in 63 countries. And if you’re in the mood for more dramas like it, we also recommend checking out the following titles on Netflix: