‘Stranger Things’ was the biggest show of 2022 and it wasn’t even close

If you’ve still got either Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ or Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ stuck in your head over six months after the release of Stranger Things 4, you’re most likely not alone, seeing as Netflix’s biggest hit of last year absolutely dominated broader streaming landscape in 2022.

According to a data wrap from Nielsen detailing the most-streamed original TV series, Stranger Things blew pretty much every other show out of the water. It drew in an eye-watering 52 billion minutes viewed in the United States alone. 

For context, it was trailed by Ozark and Wednesday, which couldn’t beat Stranger Things if their viewership numbers were combined. Ozark pulled 31.3 billion minutes, while Wednesday drew 18.6 billion. 

This can only bode well for the Stranger Things franchise – such gargantuan figures all but guarantee that the Duffer Brothers will be given a blank cheque by Netflix for the Stranger Things 5 production budget. If it has to end, it’s certainly going to go out with a bang. Of course, there’s a good chance there’ll be spin-offs after the fact. Gotta capitalize on the golden goose while it’s still laying eggs, after all. 

Despite a shaky fiscal year for the company that initially disrupted the TV and film market over a decade ago, Netflix’s original content still made up the vast majority of the top 15 most-watched original programs in 2022, per Nielsen’s ratings. There were only two non-Netflix shows in the list, both of which came from Amazon Prime – The Boys and Rings of Power.

On the topic of those Amazon shows, you may find it fascinating that The Boys’ viewership managed to beat out Rings of Power last year, despite the latter show having a hefty $1 billion production budget for its first season.