‘Ad Vitam’, ‘The Breakthrough’ and ‘American Primeval’ start spectacularly in Netflix Top 10s

Welcome to your weekly roundup of the biggest stories from Netflix’s top 10 hours falling for the week ending January 12, 2025. Every Tuesday, Netflix updates its top 10 statistics page with 40 new hours for the top movies and shows from the past seven days . These are the best stories of the week!

Note: In this report of Netflix hours viewed from January 6, 2025 to January 12, 2025, we use “Complete Viewings Equivalent” or CVE, expressed in millions. This means that we divide the watched hours advertised by Netflix by the running time of movies or series. It allows for better comparisons between films and series, but it is not a target audience measurement. It is the minimum number of views if they were all complete from the first second to the last of the movie or season.

In case you missed it, my full 2024 review dropped yesterday, looking at the most watched movies and shows of the year.

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1. Play octopus season 2 momentum is weakening.

As I have said for the past two weeks, Play octopus Season 2 loses momentum very quickly after its explosive start, to the point that next week it will fall below the tracks of Play octopus Season 1 and Wednesday. It was an excellent performance overall, but this highlights the difference between an outstanding performance and genuine, widespread global buzz.

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2. Virgin River continues to be impressive

I also wanted to reflect on the first 14 days of Virgin River Season 6, which shows impressive stability compared to the previous season, with a very low dropout rate. The renewal for a seventh season is therefore completely understandable.

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3. Ad Vitam

Ad VitamNetflix’s first French film of 2025 gets off to a spectacular start with 17.1 million CVEs in just three days, making it the best launch for a French Netflix film released on a Friday since June 2021. With strong debut, it is even possible to consider a place in the international Top 10 of all time (since AKA is currently on the list and Ad Vitam had a better start). However, it will have to fight hard and maintain momentum in the coming weeks to potentially achieve this.

Zooming out to all international films released on a Friday, the Guillaume Canet-led film achieved the 8th best launch since June 2021. That said, several films prior to it failed to secure a place in the international Top 10, so it is now up to Ad Vitam to continue to soar.

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4. American Primeval

The Western Limited Series American Primeval by Peter Berg had a solid start with 10.4 million. CVEs in the first four days. Given that the western genre is inherently niche on a global scale, this is a pretty strong debut, the eighth best for a new limited series released on a Thursday.

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5. The breakthrough breaking through!

The aptly named Swedish series The breakthrough managed to break through and break the record for the best launch of a new international series released on a Tuesday with 10.6 million CVEs in six days. It also surpasses the best launch of an English-language series season, which is pretty incredible considering the limited marketing surrounding it. But that’s the power of Netflix’s system at work.

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6. Subterranean and Hound’s Hill

Two other European series were released on the same day last week, so let’s round them up. It is a bit of a surprise to see the Romanian series Subteran surpass the Polish series Hound’s Hill (3.7M CVEs vs. 2.4M CVEs). While Hound’s Hill has already run its course, Subterranean has every opportunity to ensure a renewal.

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7. Fake profile season 2 has a rough return

It’s a tough return for the Colombian series Fake profilewhose first season was a huge hit upon its release in 2023. But in 2025, the series has lost almost 60% of its audience to the launch of season 2, which is pretty harsh. The naming convention that Netflix uses to define this season suggests a limited series format, so it is uncertain whether there will be a third season.

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8. Jerry Springer, lights, camera, action

2025 starts like previous years with its weekly documentary series. This week’s release dives behind the scenes The Jerry Springer Showwhich dominated American television in the 90s with its endless scandals. The launch is also solid with 7.7 million EVCs in six days, placing it in the top 5 best Tuesday debuts.

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9. Dubai Bling season 3

One program that is on the rise is the reality series Dubai Bling. Season 3 had a stronger launch than Season 2, which is rare enough to be worth noting.

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That’s it for this week – see you next week for more!