This week’s just-updated global Top 10 ranking from Netflix, revealing the streamer’s biggest shows around the world, suggests that Netflix’s subscribers are in the mood for old favorites rather than new hits at the moment. That’s because, while a ton of new shows and movies are constantly hitting the platform week in and week out, just take a look at the ranking below: 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 Hack My Home or Survival of the Thickest anytime soon, but I guess you never know.
Netflix Top 10 (July 10-July 16)
Starting with new episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer, meanwhile, here are the top 10 Netflix series and shows in the world right now:
- The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 2 — 8.3 million views
- The Witcher: Season 3 — 6.7 million views
- Fatal Seduction: Season 1 — 6.6 million views
- Survival of the Thickest: Season 1 — 3.7 million views
- The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 1 — 3.4 million views
- Quarterback: Season 1 — 3.3 million views
- Too Hot to Handle: Season 5 — 2.8 million views
- Is It Cake, Too? — 2.6 million views
- Hack My Home: Season 1 — 2.6 million views
- Sonic Prime: Season 2 — 2.4 million views
Moving right along, we’ll next take a closer look at the top two series dominating the streaming platform this week — The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2, followed by the highly anticipated third season of Netflix’s fantasy series The Witcher.
#1: The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 2
As you can see from the ranking above, the Netflix series dominating the global Top 10 chart this week is the new season of The Lincoln Lawyer — the legal drama based on the Michael Connelly book series about a lawyer who works out of the backseat of his Lincoln.
The Lincoln Lawyer stars Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as the idealistic Mickey Haller, and the cases he takes on run the gamut from the big fish to the small fry of Los Angeles.
The second season of the hit Netflix series is based on the fourth book in Connelly’s series, titled The Fifth Witness, and 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 is one of several popular book adaptations from Netflix, which also includes the award-winning movie All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the epic World War I novel; 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.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 2, which has a Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score of 83%, is currently a Top 10 Netflix series in 77 countries. Meanwhile, if you’re in the mood for more dramas like it, we also recommend checking out the following titles on Netflix:
#2: The Witcher: Season 3
As for the #2 Netflix series on the global Top 10 ranking this week: Enjoy it for the time being, Witcher fans, because it’s all downhill from here.
As pretty much everyone knows by now, the arrival of The Witcher Season 3 heralds one of the streamer’s most controversial casting moves in history — the imminent departure of fan-favorite Henry Cavill.
The eight episodes of The Witcher’s third season will mark the end of Cavill’s run as the title character, with Liam Hemsworth set to take up the mantle of the white-haired Geralt of Rivia starting with Seasons 4 and 5. It’s a turn of events that’s unpleasant enough for much of The Witcher fandom — given how fully Cavill has embodied the role while also reportedly clashing with the show’s creative team — that the hit series, for all practical purposes, will end when Cavill’s time with it does.
Thus, it’s no surprise at all to see the latest season of the show dominating Netflix’s updated global Top 10 list, racking up almost 14 million views this week (according to Netflix’s rejiggered ranking methodology). Time, of course, will tell what the ultimate impact of Cavill’s departure will be — I’ve certainly talked to fans from across the spectrum, including those who think it marks the death knell for the series as well as with those who love the franchise enough that they intend to keep watching in spite of the switcheroo.
The Witcher Season 3, which currently has a terrible 24% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, is a Top 10 Netflix series in 92 countries this week. Also, one more important note about both of these series — they each have second halves that are coming in short order to Netflix.
- July 27: The Witcher: Season 3, Part 2
- August 3: The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 2, Part 2