Animated Films Are 33 Of The Most Watched In Netflix’s New Data Dump: How Streamer’s Originals Stacked Up Against Licensed Titles

Everett Collection

When Netflix released its latest major data set on Thursday — its second under the name of What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report — animated features continued to demonstrate a major impact for the streamer. Of the top 100 most viewed titles in the period of review, from July to December 2023, 33 were animated, bringing in a total of 1,087,600,000 views.

That being said, titles licensed from other studios continued to heavily overshadow Netflix originals, in terms of impact. Of the 33 animated titles in the Top 100, five were produced by Netflix; the Adam Sandler starrer Leo ranked the highest at #3 overall, coming in with 96 million views. Others that made the cut included The Monkey King (#30, 42,900,000 views), Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (#41, 35,200,000 views), the Oscar-nominated Nimona (#47, 31,200,000 views), The Sea Beast (#84, 20,800,000 views) and Back to the Outback (#93, 19,600,000 views).

By far the greatest supplier of Netflix’s top ranking animated films was Universal, which through a exclusive licensing deal, brought 22 titles to the streamer during these months— most of them, from DreamWorks and Illumination. Other companies represented on the list included Sony (with 3), Paramount/Nickelodeon (1), and France’s SND (1). The relative impact of licensed titles in comparison to originals, in this case, is not all that dissimilar from what’s been seen on the TV side at Netflix, given the streamer’s unique gift for making chart-topping phenomena out of old series like Suits. Animated titles remain a terrific investment for the streamer, overall — given their tendency to be screened for children on repeat, for starters.

Other animated titles ranking high in Netflix’s latest feature report, ordered by number of views, included The Boss Baby (61,700,000), Paw Patrol: The Movie (59,000,000), Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie (49,700,000), Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch (45,300,000), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (44,900,000), Sing (40,800,000), Hotel Transylvania (40,100,000), Trolls (38,300,000), Sing 2 (37,500,000), Shrek (35,100,000), The Croods: A New Age (34,700,000), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (33,800,000), Woody Woodpecker (29,100,000), Shrek 2 (27,000,000), Minions: The Rise of Gru (26,200,000), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (24,700,000), Despicable Me 2 (23,900,000), The Secret Life of Pets (23,900,000), the special Minions & More Volume 2 (23,800,000), The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday (23,500,000), Minions (22,400,000), Madagascar (20,800,000), The Croods (19,300,000), Bee Movie (19,100,000), Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (19,000,000) and Hotel Transylvania (18,300,000).

Most recently debuting titles like Thelma the Unicorn, and poised to put out the anime My Oni Girl tomorrow, Netflix will next month introduce animated films including DreamWorks’ Home, The Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie and its original Ultraman: Rising.