- Netflix’s new #1 movie is an animated K-pop adventure shattering records – KPop Demon Hunters has 236 million views, overtaking all past Netflix films theguardian.com.
- Beloved franchises and sequels are thriving across platforms: Wednesday Season 2 leads Netflix’s charts netflix.com, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building returns with a mob-themed Season 5 tvguide.com, and an Alien series tops Disney+ flixpatrol.com.
- Originals vs. old favorites: Fresh content is booming (e.g. Thunderbolts on Disney+ flixpatrol.com, Japanese thriller Alice in Borderland on Netflix tvguide.com), yet decades-old hits like Grey’s Anatomy still rank high on streaming playlists flixpatrol.com.
- September’s lineup is packed: Netflix’s Wednesday Season 2 Part 2 (Sept 3) and Prime Video’s The Girlfriend (Sept 10) kick off the month tvguide.com, followed by Peacock’s The Office spinoff The Paper (Sept 4) tvguide.com and Jessica Chastain’s Apple TV+ thriller The Savant (Sept 26) apple.com.
- Global audiences are all-in: Fans worldwide are flocking to diverse genres – singing along in theaters to Netflix’s K-pop musical netflix.com, bingeing international dramas, and proving Ted Sarandos’s mantra that “authentically local” stories can become global sensations observer.com.
Top Streaming Hits of Early September 2025
As summer turns to fall, streaming viewership is at an all-time high. A handful of breakout hits and fan-favorite series are dominating screens worldwide. On Netflix, an unlikely champion has emerged: the animated musical KPop Demon Hunters, which Netflix confirms is now its most-watched film ever with over 236 million views, surpassing even 2021’s star-studded Red Notice theguardian.com. This bubbly K-pop meets demon-slaying adventure has been the #1 Netflix movie globally for weeks, fueled by a fervent fandom – its soundtrack made Billboard history with four songs in the Hot 100 top 10 simultaneously theguardian.com. Netflix even staged sing-along theatrical events across the US, UK, and beyond to cater to the craze, selling out over 1,000 cinemas in one weekend theguardian.com theguardian.com. It’s a vivid example of how original content can catch fire worldwide, especially when it taps into a cultural wave (in this case, the global appetite for K-pop and anime-style storytelling).
Meanwhile, major franchise titles and returning series are keeping subscribers glued to their couches. Disney’s platforms are leaning on their deep bench of IP: on Disney+, Marvel’s Thunderbolts has rocketed to the top of the movie charts as of Sept 1 flixpatrol.com – no surprise given the Marvel brand power. At the same time, Disney’s new sci-fi/horror series Alien: Earth (an FX-produced spin on the Alien franchise) is the #1 trending show for both Disney+ and Hulu audiences flixpatrol.com flixpatrol.com. Over on Amazon’s Prime Video, a mix of action thrillers and teen dramas rule: Chris Pratt’s Navy SEAL saga The Terminal List spawned a sequel series, Dark Wolf, which currently holds the #1 spot on Prime’s global TV rankings flixpatrol.com, closely followed by the teen romance The Summer I Turned Pretty flixpatrol.com. And on Max (formerly HBO Max), the top show is squarely in the DC superhero universe – Peacemaker Season 2 (John Cena’s offbeat vigilante) sits at #1 on HBO Max’s trending list flixpatrol.com, indicating viewers’ enduring appetite for comic-book fare. Even the Sex and the City revival And Just Like That… isn’t far behind (#2 on HBO’s chart) flixpatrol.com, proving nostalgia-heavy revivals still draw eyeballs.
What’s striking is the breadth of genres and audiences represented in these hits. We have a family-friendly animated musical, a gritty superhero comedy, a Korean-made survival thriller, a gentle teen love story, and a 90s sitcom spinoff all thriving at once. “After eight months, 2025 has delivered some incredible TV highlights” across genres, as one entertainment outlet noted, from the sci-fi drama Andor Season 2 to offbeat comedies and prestige thrillers gamesradar.com. It’s clear that streaming audiences are hungry for variety. And crucially, great stories from anywhere in the world can find a massive following. Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently remarked that the biggest global hits often start as local sensations, crafted with authentic local flavor rather than a generic international formula observer.com. Indeed, many of today’s most-watched titles – from a Japanese dystopian series to a Colombian telenovela revival – resonate precisely because they carry unique cultural signatures.
Below, we break down the platform-by-platform highlights of what people are watching right now, and peek at the exciting premieres coming up through September.
Netflix: Record-Breaking Originals & Global Phenomena
Netflix enters September riding a wave of record viewership. The standout is undoubtedly KPop Demon Hunters, which has become Netflix’s biggest film ever in any language theguardian.com. This animated movie – following a trio of K-pop idol girls who moonlight as demon slayers – has captivated a massive global audience. In fact, Netflix confirmed it now holds the title of the service’s most-viewed film, topping the all-time charts with 236 million views to date theguardian.com. It even outperformed live-action blockbusters starring Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot, a stunning feat for an original animated project. The movie’s success has been multimedia, spawning a hit soundtrack (its lead song “Golden” is sitting at #1 on the charts, with multiple other tracks in the Billboard top 10) theguardian.com and sold-out fan sing-along events in cinemas theguardian.com. As one analyst put it, KPop Demon Hunters “bucks the trend of remakes…embracing an entirely new story of unknown characters” rather than relying on established IP theguardian.com – a sign that audiences are eager for fresh, creative content.
On the series side, Netflix’s reigning TV champion is Wednesday (Season 2). The macabre teen comedy (starring Jenna Ortega as the iconic Wednesday Addams) dropped the first half of its second season in August and held the #1 spot on Netflix’s English TV Top 10 for three straight weeks netflix.com. Even as Part 1 ended on a suspenseful cliffhanger, fans kept bingeing – not only did Season 2 remain atop the charts, but viewers also revisited Season 1 in droves (propelling it back into Netflix’s top 5 series) netflix.com. Anticipation is sky-high for Season 2 Part 2, which arrives on Sept. 3 with four final episodes tvguide.com tvguide.com. Netflix is leaning into the buzz: a spooky promotional gala for Wednesday even featured a surprise appearance by Lady Gaga, announcing a tie-in song “The Dead Dance” netflix.com – underlining how this show has become a cultural phenomenon beyond just streaming.
Beyond those headliners, Netflix’s current Top 10 is a truly global mix. A British political thriller series called Hostage (starring Suranne Jones and French icon Juliette Binoche) debuted strong at #2 on Netflix’s English TV list netflix.com, showing Netflix’s ability to elevate non-American productions. In Non-English offerings, an Argentine prison drama (In the Mud), a Brazilian true-crime limited series (Rivers of Fate), and a quirky Korean time-travel romance (Bon Appétit, Your Majesty, starring K-pop singer Lim Yoon-a) are all pulling millions of viewers netflix.com. And later this month, one of Netflix’s internationally beloved originals returns: Alice in Borderland (Season 3) hits on Sept. 25 tvguide.com. This Japanese sci-fi thriller about deadly games was a breakout hit worldwide in 2021; its comeback is highly anticipated, underscoring how Netflix’s “hyperlocal” strategy can create global franchises from foreign-language content. As Sarandos explained, Alice in Borderland is “remarkably British” in sensibility (despite being Japanese-set), yet American fans embraced it – proof that authentic stories travel observer.com observer.com. Indeed, Netflix reports that over 60% of its users watched at least one Korean title last year observer.com observer.com, and we’re seeing that cross-cultural appetite only grow in 2025.
Netflix’s September slate also includes some major film releases feeding the binge. The top movie this week (behind the K-pop juggernaut) is The Thursday Murder Club, a charming mystery based on a British bestseller, which shot to #1 on Netflix’s global film chart flixpatrol.com. There’s also a dark YA horror flick (Unknown Number: The High School Catfish) and a Polish rom-com adventure (Planet Single: Greek Adventure) trending in Netflix’s top films flixpatrol.com flixpatrol.com – again highlighting the international range of content striking a chord. And notably, Adam Sandler’s comedy sequel Happy Gilmore 2 had a huge summer moment: five weeks in Netflix’s Top 10 and even broke a Nielsen streaming record with 2.89 billion minutes watched in one weekend netflix.com. That kind of viewership rivals the biggest TV episodes, showing that streaming movies can eventize the way big TV episodes do.
Disney+ & Hulu: Franchises Rule, with New Adventures on the Horizon
On Disney+ (and Hulu) – which we group together since they increasingly share content – it’s a tale of two strategies: leveraging powerhouse franchises and rolling out fresh originals. On the franchise front, Marvel and Star Wars remain huge traffic drivers. Marvel Studios’ latest ensemble film Thunderbolts just landed on Disney+ and immediately grabbed the #1 movie spot on the service globally flixpatrol.com. (The film, which unites antihero characters from across the MCU, hit theaters earlier this year and now is drawing big streaming audiences hungry for Marvel content.) There’s also a lot of buzz around Marvel’s upcoming limited series Marvel Zombies (an animated spin-off) expected later in September tvguide.com. Over in the Star Wars galaxy, while no new series premiered this month, the legacy series still draw attention – for instance, Ahsoka (which debuted in 2024 as a spin-off of The Mandalorian) saw a second season announced and fans are rewatching old episodes in the interim. Disney+ has mastered this cycle of keeping fans engaged between major franchise drops.
The surprise on Disney’s platform, however, is a sci-fi horror series: FX’s Alien: Earth. This Noah Hawley-created show set in the Alien universe is topping streaming charts – it’s currently the most-watched series on Disney+ worldwide flixpatrol.com and likewise the #1 series on Hulu in the US flixpatrol.com (since Hulu carries FX originals domestically). Blending the iconic xenomorph lore with a new Earth-based storyline, Alien: Earth has clearly hooked both sci-fi aficionados and general audiences with its mix of nostalgia and novel thrills. It reflects Disney’s strategy of using Hulu/Star to carry edgier, adult-oriented fare (which Alien certainly is) while still benefiting from the Disney+ international reach. Similarly, a crime-comedy caper series called High Potential – about a single mom detective with an eidetic memory, originally a French hit – is trending high on Disney+’s list (#2 series globally) flixpatrol.com. This is actually an interesting case: the original French show (HPI) became a surprise pan-European smash, and now a U.S. adaptation is in the works. Its presence on the trending chart suggests either the original or early hype for the remake is drawing viewers. Disney appears to be testing how international acquisitions can complement its in-house franchises.
Hulu, which caters to more adult and next-day TV content in the U.S., has its own crown jewel this month: Only Murders in the Building. The witty whodunit starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez has developed a devoted following, and it’s returning with Season 5 on Sept. 9 tvguide.com. This season, the amateur sleuth podcasters find themselves entangled with a New York mob storyline tvguide.com – a new twist that’s generating excitement. Expect Hulu’s viewership to spike on those weekly release days, as Only Murders has become a social media water-cooler show. (Internationally, this series streams on Disney+ under the Star banner, where it’s likewise popular.) Also on Hulu/FX later in the month, keep an eye on The Lowdown (Sept. 24), a noir thriller set in Tulsa from the creator of Reservation Dogs and starring Ethan Hawke tvguide.com. Industry chatter calls it “the hottest TV premiere this September” for FX/Hulu viewers tvguide.com – indicating that the critically acclaimed but niche Reservation Dogs may have primed audiences for more Native American and Midwestern-set storytelling.
Disney’s platforms also show that library content still matters in a big way. On any given week, classic series like Grey’s Anatomy and Modern Family (both now streaming on Disney+ via Star) remain in the top 10 TV shows flixpatrol.com, pulling steady viewership from comfort-bingers. (In 2023, all of the top 10 streamed series were library titles – Suits, Bluey, NCIS, Grey’s, etc. businessinsider.com – and even now in 2025 we see those evergreen titles holding strong.) Hulu’s U.S. trending list is similarly peppered with old favorites – e.g. Futurama recently returned with new episodes on Hulu, sparking re-watches of its 2000s seasons. This underscores a broader trend: licensed and nostalgic content complements the new originals. Disney isn’t shying away from this; as media analysts note, studios have become more willing to license out or share their shows to boost revenues businessinsider.com. So a show like Bluey (on Disney+ worldwide) or Suits (which had a record-breaking run on Netflix in 2023) can still be a killer app for a streaming service even if it wasn’t originally made for it businessinsider.com businessinsider.com.
Looking ahead on Disney’s calendar: Septembers’s big premiere on Disney+ will be Marvel Zombies (a limited animated series) dropping Sept. 25 tvguide.com, catering to the Marvel die-hards. And in the first week of October, Loki Season 3 is rumored to arrive, which would no doubt send Disney+ viewership soaring again. Over on Hulu, besides Only Murders, there’s buzz for the return of The Handmaid’s Tale (its final season is expected soon) and the newly acquired hit British sitcom Only Fools and Horses making its US streaming debut. In short, Disney’s dual streaming strategy – marquee franchises on one hand, grown-up or global content via Hulu/Star on the other – seems to be paying off with a very full plate of popular programming.
Amazon Prime Video: Thrillers, Teen Romance & Global Revivals
Amazon’s Prime Video service is enjoying success with both action-packed originals and YA dramas that keep very different audiences satisfied. The current #1 TV series globally on Prime is The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, a spin-off/sequel to the hit 2022 Chris Pratt military thriller flixpatrol.com. This new chapter, reportedly focusing on another character from the same universe (nicknamed “Dark Wolf”), has clearly clicked with fans of the original’s macho, conspiracy-laden action. Its strong debut reflects Prime Video’s push into franchise-building – turning a single hit film or series into a returning series or universe (much as they did with Jack Ryan or Bosch). Right on its heels at #2, however, is something totally different: The Summer I Turned Pretty, Amazon’s adaptation of a YA romance by Jenny Han flixpatrol.com. Season 3 of this teen beach-town love triangle was released recently, and its high rank shows how youth-oriented dramas are a pillar of Prime’s lineup (not unlike Netflix’s focus on teen hits). The contrast between Terminal List and Summer underscores how Prime Video is targeting both the Dad crowd and the Gen-Z crowd – and succeeding with each.
Another notable trend on Prime Video is the success of international and cross-cultural content. For example, the classic Colombian telenovela Yo Soy Betty, la Fea (“Ugly Betty”) found new life on Prime. Amazon launched a sequel series (Betty la Fea, the Story Continues) in 2024, reuniting the original cast 20 years later, and it’s currently in Prime’s top 10 worldwide flixpatrol.com. Additionally, the original Yo Soy Betty, la Fea itself is trending on Prime in some regions flixpatrol.com – proving the “Netflix effect” can apply on Amazon too, where an old show gains huge new streaming viewership (just as Suits did on Netflix). Prime has also added popular regional titles, from Indian films to Japanese anime, to bolster its catalog; for instance, the anime SPY×FAMILY quietly charts on Prime’s worldwide list (in some countries) as Amazon nabbed rights in select territories flixpatrol.com.
In terms of movies, Prime Video’s top films at the moment highlight Amazon’s original productions. The current #1 Amazon film globally is The Map That Leads to You, a romantic drama Amazon Studios released (and clearly promoted well, given its strong viewership) flixpatrol.com. Also high on the list is Heads of State (#4) flixpatrol.com, an Amazon original action-comedy starring John Cena and Idris Elba that debuted this summer – indicating Amazon’s investment in star-driven originals is paying off. Genre fare is present too: e.g. Hounds of War (an action thriller) and The Monkey (a horror flick based on a Stephen King story) are in the top 5, catering to thriller/horror fans flixpatrol.com. Notably, Amazon seems to have snagged some big-name recent releases for September: the new Exorcist: Believer film (2023) is listed on Prime’s trending movies flixpatrol.com, presumably after its exclusive window elsewhere, which could draw horror aficionados to Prime.
Prime Video’s upcoming slate for September is diverse as well. They are premiering an original thriller series called The Girlfriend on Sept. 10 tvguide.com, which is expected to appeal to fans of twisty mystery dramas. Later in the month, Amazon has the global launch of Hotel Costiera (Sept. 24), a glamorous Italian limited series set on the Amalfi Coast, and We Were Liars, a YA miniseries based on a hit novel (tapping again into the teen market). And for comedy fans, Season 4 of The Boys (Amazon’s flagship edgy superhero satire) is on the horizon, though likely in late 2025. For now, Amazon’s strategy of serving multiple niches – from military action to swooning teen romance to Latin American nostalgia – has its Prime Video viewership spread widely across different genres, rather than one show monopolizing all attention. This breadth can be a strength, attracting different subscriber demographics.
Max (HBO): Superheroes, Scandals & Prestige Dramas
On Max (formerly HBO Max), the lineup of what’s trending reflects HBO’s reputation for both high-quality originals and buzzy franchises. The #1 series on Max right now is Peacemaker Season 2 flixpatrol.com. This James Gunn-created DC Comics series mixes raunchy comedy with superhero action, and its second season dropped with much fanfare (after a long wait since Season 1 in 2022). The fact that it’s topping Max’s global charts suggests that HBO’s foray into quirky comic-book content has paid off – audiences who might not typically watch an HBO drama are tuning in for the irreverent tone of Peacemaker. At #2 is And Just Like That…, HBO’s revival of Sex and the City now in its sophomore season flixpatrol.com. Its strong showing proves that Millennial nostalgia (and maybe curiosity about Carrie Bradshaw’s latest adventures) can still drive engagement. Together, these two hits illustrate HBO/Max’s two-pronged approach: big genre swings on one hand, and comfort-food sequels to beloved older shows on the other.
Further down Max’s trending list, we see evidence of HBO’s signature “prestige drama” appeal. The Gilded Age – the lavish period drama from Downton Abbey’s creator – sits at #3 flixpatrol.com, indicating viewers are catching up on Season 2 (which aired in 2024) and building anticipation for the next chapter. Also present is And Just Like That…’s fellow NYC-set dramedy The Other Two (which had a controversial final season in 2025). And in a bit of a surprise crossover, the video-game adaptation Twisted Metal appears in HBO’s top 10 shows flixpatrol.com – not because HBO produced it (it’s actually a Peacock original in the US), but internationally HBO Max carries the series in certain regions. This shows how content can trend on multiple services via regional licensing: Twisted Metal, a violent action-comedy based on a PlayStation game, was one of Peacock’s summer hits, and its inclusion on HBO’s charts overseas underscores global interest in the show.
HBO’s documentary and true-crime content is also making waves. A chilling docuseries called The Yogurt Shop Murders (re-examining a notorious cold case) is in HBO’s top 10 flixpatrol.com, appealing to the ever-present true-crime fanbase. And HBO’s original movies like Final Destination: Bloodlines (a new installment in the horror franchise) are topping the Max film chart (#1 HBO movie this week) flixpatrol.com, which aligns with the spooky season hype as Halloween approaches. This mix – superheroes, prestige period pieces, edgy video-game adaptations, true crime, and horror – illustrates HBO Max’s evolution from a boutique prestige platform to a broad tent streaming service that still maintains HBO quality across genres.
New releases in September on Max continue this eclectic trend. On Sept. 7, HBO debuts Task, a limited series crime drama starring Mark Ruffalo as an FBI agent on the hunt for a band of violent thieves tvguide.com. Created by the writer of Mare of Easttown, Task is already being touted as HBO’s next binge-worthy mystery – a welcome addition for those missing True Detective or Mare-style shows tvguide.com. HBO is also rolling out a two-part documentary Seen & Heard: The History of Black Television (shining a light on Black pioneers in TV), as well as a new stand-up comedy special from viral comedian Caleb Hearon tvguide.com. And though delayed by production strikes, fans are eagerly awaiting Season 2 of The Last of Us (the hit apocalyptic drama) presumably in 2025 – which could become HBO’s next record-setter given the first season’s acclaim.
One more interesting trend on Max: co-viewing of older HBO hits. With Game of Thrones spinoffs in development, many subscribers have been rewatching Game of Thrones (still one of the most-streamed library series on Max). Similarly, ahead of the new season of True Detective: Night Country (expected later this year), viewership for earlier True Detective seasons spiked. It seems HBO’s renowned back-catalog – from The Sopranos to Succession – continues to bolster engagement between big new releases. In short, Max is leveraging both the new and the nostalgia, and audiences are responding strongly to both.
Apple TV+ and Others: Star Power, Spin-Offs & Niche Surprises
Outside the big four streamers, several other platforms have their own hits and strategy for September. Apple TV+, known for its polished, star-studded originals, is gearing up for a major launch: The Savant on September 26 apple.com. This limited series stars Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain as a mysterious investigator infiltrating online hate groups, and Apple is clearly positioning it as their next must-see thriller. The trailer has generated buzz for its tense, ripped-from-the-headlines vibe, and with Chastain’s name attached, Apple hopes to replicate the success of past award-winning limited series (The Morning Show, Black Bird, etc.). Apple TV+ has also quietly built franchises of its own – for instance, its spy thriller Slow Horses returns for Season 5 this month (continuing the adventures of Gary Oldman’s misfit MI5 team) tvguide.com, demonstrating Apple’s ability to keep subscribers hooked with ongoing series in addition to flashy miniseries. And let’s not forget earlier in 2025, Apple delivered the mind-bending second season of Severance and the epic scale of Foundation’s third season, both of which drew critical praise and passionate fan followings (in fact, Severance Season 2’s cliffhangers had social media abuzz). While Apple doesn’t release viewership figures, third-party data suggests these shows significantly boosted Apple TV+ engagement gamesradar.com.
Meanwhile, NBCUniversal’s Peacock service is betting on known properties to grab attention. The quirky comedy Twisted Metal (adapted from the video game, starring Anthony Mackie) became Peacock’s surprise summer hit, attracting viewers with its over-the-top car combat and dark humor. Peacock’s top show in early September, however, might soon be The Office – or rather, its new spin-off The Paper, which premieres Sept. 4 tvguide.com. The Paper is a mockumentary following a struggling small-town newspaper (with a wink to The Office – it even involves one of the original Office actors, Oscar Nuñez, playing himself tvguide.com). This comedy is one of Peacock’s big original offerings this fall, and given the enduring love for anything Office-related, it could draw a sizeable crowd to the streamer. Peacock is also the go-to for live sports and WWE in the U.S., so while we talk series here, note that big sports events (NFL, Premier League, WWE Pay-Per-Views) also bump up Peacock’s usage significantly each week.
Paramount+, on the other hand, continues to lean into the “Taylor Sheridan-verse” and other franchise expansions. Sylvester Stallone’s gangster drama Tulsa King – one of Sheridan’s many series – had its second season conclude in late 2024, and fans won’t have to wait long for more: Paramount announced Season 3 of Tulsa King is coming on Sept. 21, 2025 yahoo.com. This series, often described as “The Sopranos meets Yellowstone,” has been a strong performer for Paramount+ (Season 1 broke some debut records for the service in 2022). Its return is a linchpin of Paramount+’s fall lineup, alongside other Sheridan projects like Landman (a new oil-industry drama) and the ever-popular Yellowstone franchise (whose final episodes will eventually hit streaming after their network run). Paramount+ is also home to the Star Trek universe – though on a brief pause due to production delays, Trek fans are still streaming Strange New Worlds and old Voyager episodes, keeping those shows trending in the platform’s internal metrics. And for comedy fans, Paramount+ just added hundreds of episodes of classic Nickelodeon and Comedy Central shows in September (from SpongeBob to Chappelle’s Show), quietly bolstering its library appeal.
Finally, we’d be remiss not to mention international streaming platforms and how some of their content is breaking out globally. For instance, South Korea’s TVING/Wavve platform produced the thriller Adolescence (mentioned by Sarandos as “remarkably British” in tone observer.com despite being Korean) – Netflix picked it up internationally, where it found a niche audience. Likewise, Japan’s Crunchyroll (for anime) and India’s Hotstar continue to contribute titles that end up trending on global services (e.g. popular anime like Dan Da Dan are being scooped by Netflix flixpatrol.com, and Hotstar’s Hindi originals sometimes surface on Hulu). In 2025, the streaming world truly has no borders.
Emerging Trends & Takeaways
Stepping back, a few key trends emerge from this snapshot of streaming’s most-watched:
- Original Ideas Can Triumph: The runaway success of KPop Demon Hunters shows that audiences will embrace new, creative stories just as much as familiar franchises. This original animated film not only beat out legacy IP on the platform, it did so by attracting a broad demographic – from kids to teens to K-pop fans to animation buffs theguardian.com. Its success “defies concerns that original animated movies were losing their lustre” in an era of sequels and reboots theguardian.com. Streamers may take this as a cue to invest in fresh ideas (especially those with cross-genre appeal like music + fantasy).
- Franchise Fatigue? Not Yet: At the same time, established franchises are far from fading. Marvel’s and DC’s latest entries are topping charts on their respective platforms flixpatrol.com flixpatrol.com. The key seems to be spacing them out and keeping quality high. For example, Marvel’s Thunderbolts film is drawing viewers on Disney+ now flixpatrol.com, a few months after theaters, while Marvel’s next big show (Zombies) generates future excitement. HBO’s careful roll-out of Peacemaker S2 after a long gap built anticipation that paid off with a #1 spot at launch flixpatrol.com. Franchises that do stumble (some recent superhero films have underperformed) are quickly forgotten as long as the next one delivers. In streaming, viewers cherry-pick the best entries rather than committing to every single installment.
- Licensed Classics = Big Business: As noted, older TV series continue to prop up engagement across all services. The comfort of a long-running show that people can binge at their own pace is unbeatable – witness how Suits dominated 2023 with a record 57.7 billion minutes watched when it hit Netflix businessinsider.com, or how sitcoms like Friends and Modern Family perpetually linger in Top 10 lists. These shows often outpace shiny new originals in raw watch-time. As Business Insider observed, the top 10 streaming series of 2023 were all acquired library shows businessinsider.com businessinsider.com, and even in 2025, Grey’s Anatomy and NCIS regularly rank high (Disney even touts Bluey as one of its most-streamed shows businessinsider.com). Streamers have learned to balance new releases with these bankable evergreen titles – and some, like Netflix, have even integrated them into their strategy by reviving or spinning them off (e.g. Netflix’s upcoming Suits TV reboot in development, capitalizing on that resurgence businessinsider.com).
- Global Content, Global Audience: Perhaps the most exciting trend is how truly global the streaming hits list has become. Viewers around the world are embracing content from all corners. A Korean reality series (Physical: 100) can catch fire on Netflix one month; a Spanish teen drama (Elite) the next. Right now, a Japanese genre show (Alice in Borderland) and a French dramedy (High Potential) are as eagerly awaited as any English-language series tvguide.com flixpatrol.com. Ted Sarandos summed it up: “The more authentically local it is, the more likely it is to travel” observer.com. We see that with Squid Game in 2021, and we continue to see it in 2025 with e.g. Argentina’s In the Mud or Turkey’s hit film Abandoned Man drawing big Netflix viewership alongside Hollywood fare netflix.com. Streaming has effectively leveled the playing field, allowing a well-told story in any language to become a worldwide phenomenon overnight.
- Genre-Blending & Innovation: Finally, many of these top titles succeed by mixing genres or breaking formulas. Only Murders in the Building fuses comedy with mystery and the podcast craze. Twisted Metal turned a combat video game into a post-apocalyptic buddy comedy. The Lowdown is described as a “Tulsa noir” – a mashup of Western noir with Native storytelling tvguide.com. Even Wednesday took a classic gothic character and dropped her into a YA coming-of-age setting. This experimentation seems to be clicking with audiences who crave something different from the cookie-cutter network shows of old. Executives have noticed that risk-taking can yield big rewards: “If you engineer content to be global, you end up making it for no one,” Sarandos said – implying that you must allow unique creative visions to flourish storyboard18.com. The breakout hits of late 2024 and 2025 strongly reflect that philosophy.
In summary, the streaming landscape in September 2025 is both wildly diverse and incredibly dynamic. Long-awaited sequels to fan favorites (Wednesday, Only Murders, Peacemaker) are thriving alongside bold newcomers and international imports. There’s truly something for every taste: whether you’re a K-pop fan, a Marvel maniac, a true-crime junkie, or a hopeless romantic, the major platforms have you covered with top-tier content right now. And with a stacked schedule of premieres throughout September – including high-profile launches like Peacock’s The Office offshoot, HBO’s next prestige drama, and Apple’s Jessica Chastain vehicle – the momentum doesn’t look to slow down. Global audiences are more connected than ever through these shows and films, binge-watching together and reacting across social media. It all makes for a competitive but creatively rich streaming era. As the fall TV season kicks off, streaming platforms are essentially saying: “Let the binge-watching begin!” – and millions of viewers are happily obliging, one episode (or eight) at a time.
Sources: Variety, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Official Netflix Top 10 site, JustWatch/FlixPatrol analytics, Netflix Tudum blog netflix.com netflix.com theguardian.com flixpatrol.com flixpatrol.com tvguide.com tvguide.com apple.com, and industry commentary observer.com businessinsider.com.
