Netflix Releases Massive Trove Of Viewing Data And The Most-Watched Animated Series And Films Are A Big Surprise

Netflix has released a first-of-its-kind report that includes hours viewed data for more than 18,000 titles between January and June 2023. Netflix says it continue to release this trove of data twice per year in the future.

The report includes every film, series, and special that was watched for more than 50,000 hours in the first six months of the year, although it does not distinguish between the types of content.

So, we went through the document and put together a few animation-specific lists. The data isn’t entirely cut-and-dry, as some titles have been available for years, while others were relatively new when this data started being tracked, but it is certainly valuable when observing larger trends at the steamer. Netflix’s full report can be found here. (The Excel document with show data can be downloaded here).

Netflix’s report lists individual seasons of shows separately. Using that metric, the 10 most-viewed animated series were:

1. PAW Patrol: Season 6 – 149.3 million
2. CoComelon: Season 1 – 136.2 million
3. Little Angel: Volume 1 – 132.1 million
4. PAW Patrol: Season 5 – 130.7 million
5. CoComelon: Season 2 – 102.3 million
6. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Tanjiro Kamado, Unwavering Resolve Arc – 95.8 million
7. CoComelon: Season 3 – 91.4 million
8. Little Angel: Volume 2 – 86.2 million
9. CoComelon: Season 4 – 82.5 million
10. Sonic Prime: Season 1 – 82.1 million

Perceptive readers will recognize that only one show on that list is a Netflix original, Sonic Prime, and that the others are all acquisitions. It’s also worth pointing out that Netflix only has global rights to certain shows, such as Little Angel and Sonic Prime, as well as some seasons of CoComelon.

As to which titles were most popular overall, we added hours viewed totals for some of Netflix’s most-watched series and came up with the following list:

1. CoComelon: Seasons 1-8 601.2 million
2. PAW Patrol: Seasons 1-8 – 312.6 million
3. Gabby’s Dollhouse: Seasons 1-7 – 290.1 million
4. Peppa Pig: Seasons 1-6 – 276.0 million
5. Masha and the Bear: Seasons 1-5 – 231.9 million
6. Little Angel: Seasons 1-2 – 218.3 million
7. Demon Slayer: Four Seasons – 185.1 million
8. Teen Titans Go!: Seasons 1-5 – 181.5 million
9. Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir: Seasons 1-3 – 139.3 million
10. Grizzy and the Lemmings: Seasons 1-3 – 132.1 million
11. Avatar: The Last Airbender: Seasons 1-3 – 124.3 million
12. Record of Ragnarok: Seasons 1-2 – 113.7 million
13. Sonic Prime: Season One – 82.1 million

It should be noted that the definitions of seasons, parts, chapters, and volumes tend to differ from one studio or distributor to the next. Some of these titles have specials that pulled in tens of millions of viewer hours, but we didn’t calculate them in our list, which is not exhaustive and only meant to provide a general look at what’s popular on the platform.

We also pulled out the 10 most-viewed animated features on Netflix in the first half of the year.

1. Minions: The Rise of Gru – 96.4 million
2. Sing – 80.5 million
3. Paw Patrol: The Movie – 77.2 million
4. Sing 2 – 76.6 million
5. The Boss Baby – 75.1 million
6. Trolls – 73.4 million
7. Hotel Transylvania 2 – 67 million
8. Home – 62.8 million
9. The Sea Beast – 62.7 million
10. The Croods – 56.4 million

Again, Netflix Originals, even the highest profile originals, lagged well behind big-name acquisitions. The only animated feature produced by the streamer to crack the top 10 was Chris Williams’ The Sea Beast.

The next-highest original feature was Wendy Rogers’ The Magician’s Elephant. Released on March 17, the film performed admirably, given it was only available for half the months tracked in the report. It was Netflix’s 16th-most-watched animated film during that time, racking up 48.3 million viewer hours.

Perhaps surprisingly, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was only the 20th most-watched animated film on Netflix in the first half of this year, despite being available for all six months tracked and winning the Oscar for best animated feature during that time.

Update: Filmmaker and vfx artist Ryan Grobins went through Netflix’s full list of 18,000 titles and organized all of the animated features into a list that he has shared here.