Any movie would be proud to appear in the #1 spot on the Netflix Top 10. How about staying on top for weeks on end? Undoubtedly, that would be a greater point of pride for the filmmaker. With over 17.000 titles available on the world’s most popular paid streaming service, showing up in the Netflix Top 10 (let alone at its apex) would be a massive honor. Surprisingly, one film has held the #1 spot for weeks. What’s the movie, and why does it continue to show up at the top of the list week after week?

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Netflix Top 10 Films for January 2nd – January 8th, 2023

  • Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022): 3 weeks in the Top 10The Pale Blue Eye (2022): 1 week in the Top 10White Noise (2022): 2 weeks in the Top 10Trolls (2016): 3 weeks in the Top 10Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical (2022): 2 weeks in the Top 10No Escape (2015): 1 week in the Top 10Life (1999): 2 weeks in the Top 10King Kong (2005): 1 week in the Top 10Sing 2 (2021): 21 weeks in the Top 10The Longest Yard (2005): 3 weeks in the Top 10

Glass Onion Remains #1 on the Netflix Top 10

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) was released on Netflix on December 23rd, 2022. In the weeks since then, the film quickly ascended the Netflix Top 10 charts and rooted itself at the very top. However, this wasn’t the first taste audiences got of the new chart-topping crime comedy. Its chart-topping dominance didn’t come out of anywhere. Several factors surrounding this #1 film are driving its success. The most notable of the bunch? The fact that it’s a standalone sequel to one of the biggest films of 2019: Knives Out.

Serving as writer-director Rian Johnson’s first film following Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017), Knives Out took critics and audiences by storm in the fall of 2019. Even up against the biggest Oscar-worthy films of that year, Johnson’s unique blend of comedy, crime, and good old-fashioned murder-mystery won the love of many… including Netflix, who quickly brought Johnson in for a meeting concerning his future projects. Glass Onion is the first product of that production deal the streaming service and filmmaker announced in March of 2021.

Glass Onion is less a direct sequel and more of a standalone. That’s just how Johnson intended this series to go, though: an iconic detective at the heart of a different mystery each time. (Just like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and so on.) This new film follows Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the famous Knives Out detective with the Southern drawl, as he heads to Greece on a mysterious invitation. Alas, this seemingly perfect getaway alongside the world’s wealthiest quickly becomes a whodunnit only Blanc can solve. It continues to stay at #1 weeks after release.

The Future of Glass Onion‘s Benoit Blanc

Given the success of Glass Onion thus far, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Netflix and Rian Johnson have more Benoit Blanc mysteries in store. This was the plan from the beginning: Back in March of 2021, Netflix paid nearly half a billion dollars for the exclusive rights to produce and distribute the next two Knives Out mysteries. Glass Onion is the first part of that deal, and — in a couple of years — we’ll be treated to the second. In typical fashion for Johnson, details are locked down tight. However, we do know that writing has already begun.

Another thing we can safely assume about the future of Glass Onion and Knives Out detective Benoit Blanc? His next appearance in a Rian Johnson crime comedy is sure to be just as star-studded as his first two. The first film introduced audiences to a family as dysfunctional as they are wealthy, played by the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, and Ana De Armas. Glass Onion continued the trend with a cast comprised of Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., and Janelle Monáe (alongside plenty of cameos, too).

Nobody knows what the third Knives Out mystery will entail (or who will be at the center of it alongside Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc). Nevertheless, there have been plenty of funny fan castings over the past few weeks as Glass Onion remains atop the Top 10. The greatest name(s) of the bunch? Probably The Muppets. Other names fans want to see in the threequel-in-progress include Jennifer Coolidge, Nicolas Cage, Keke Palmer, Adam Driver, Florence Pugh, Dev Patel, Michelle Yeoh, and other top talents of the moment.

How Netflix Top 10 Ranks Titles

Netflix breaks things up into four categories: Top 10 Films (English), Top 10 Films (Non-English), Top 10 TV (English), and Top 10 TV (Non-English). Being an English-language film, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery can only top but one of these lists. Beyond this, they rank their titles not by views but by the total number of hours watched.

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Netflix puts out the latest Top 10 viewing data on Tuesdays. Because they arrange their lists by hours watched, they only count hours from between the previous week’s dates of Monday to Sunday. (In other words, viewing data from the day before the Top 10 lists are released is saved for the following week’s Top 10.) For this reason, you might not see the numbers from a movie’s first week on Netflix until nearly two weeks later. Additionally, Netflix rounds its figures to the nearest 10,000 to make up for any internet connectivity or viewing issues globally.

Recent figures show Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery show has clocked 253,720,000 hours since its December 23rd release date. That’s the #5 most-watched English language Netflix film in the streaming service’s history, arriving only after the following:

  • The Gray Man (2022): 253,870,000 hours watchedBird Box (2018): 282,020,000 hours watchedDon’t Look Up (2021): 359,790,000 hours watchedRed Notice (2021): 364,020,000 hours watched

Did Glass Onion Break a Netflix Top 10 Record?

Whether or not Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery broke a Netflix Top 10 record depends on who you ask (or what metric you judge it by). Thankfully, given the success of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out follow-up, it’s not hard to find a metric that Glass Onion has shattered. It’s already the #5 most-watched English-language film on the streaming service based on hours alone. Moreover, it’s already at #10 on the list of the films with the longest Top 10 streaks. Better yet, it has nowhere to go but up.

The film is just 150,000 hours short of surpassing The Gray Man on the most-watched list, and Bird Box isn’t far off, either. Before long, don’t be surprised to see Glass Onion as the #3 most-watched film on Netflix by hours alone. The same goes for the days its spent atop the Top 10. Just three more days, and it’ll jump to the #3 spot on the list of the movies with the longest Netflix Top 10 streaks. All in all, it’s one win after another for Rian Johnson’s first film under Netflix. Goodness knows the kind of records the upcoming third installment will break.

Movies with the Longest Netflix Top 10 Streaks (as of 1/16/22)

  • 365 Days (2020): 31 days at #1 on the Top 10Red Notice (2021): 26 days at #1 on the Top 10The Tinder Swindler (2021): 17 days at #1 on the Top 10Extraction (2020): 16 days at #1 on the Top 10The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020): 16 days at #1 on the Top 10Don’t Look Up (2021): 15 days at #1 on the Top 10Fatherhood (2021): 15 days at #1 on the Top 10Army of the Dead (2021): 14 days at #1 on the Top 10The Guilty (2021): 14 days at #1 on the Top 10Knives Out: A Glass Onion Mystery (2022): 14 days at #1 on the Top 10