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“Squid Game” Season 2 has become the No. 2 most popular non-English series in Netflix history.
The second installment of the Lee Jung-jae-led series brought in 126.2 million views in just 11 days on Netflix, ranking the No. 2 most-watched non-English series, behind just “Squid Game” Season 1. Amassing this many views in this time frame marks a new record for the streaming giant.
In the second week since its release, “Squid Game” Season 2 jumped to from No. 7 to No. 2 on the weekly most-watched non-English shows list, capturing 58.2 million views during the week of Dec. 30. Season 2’s success has also caused Netflix subscribers to return to its first installment. “Squid Game” Season 1 scored 13.6 million views during the week of Dec. 30, putting it as No. 2 on Netflix’s non-English TV charts.
It’s not too surprising that “Squid Game” Season 2 would rank No. 2 on Netflix’s list of the most watched non-English language series of all time. After all, Netflix is an American company. Non-English content is important to the streamer, but by and large the company’s most-watched shows and movies are in English.
What is surprising is how the second season of “Squid Game” compares to Netflix’s most-watched English language content. After less than two weeks, Gi-hun’s return to the game currently ranks as the fourth most-watched Netflix series of all time when combining both the English and non-English categories. The current list of most watched Netflix shows is “Squid Game” Season 1 (265.2 million views) followed by “Wednesday” (252.1 million), “Stranger Things” Season 4 (140.7 million), “Squid Game” Season 2 and finally “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (115.6 million).
“Squid Game” Season 2 has also outperformed all of Netflix’s non-English language movies. However, it has yet to compete against Netflix’s list of the most-watched English language movies. The 10th place movie on that list is “The Mother,” which secured 136.4 million views in its first 91 days. Since “Squid Game” Season 2 still has 80 more days of eligibility for being considered for Netflix’s Most Popular list, it seems very likely the South Korean thriller will continue to usurp its streaming peers.
During the week of Dec. 30, the limited series “La Palma” was the third most watched non-English language title on Netflix, placing behind the first two seasons of “Squid Game.” That was followed by the South Korean thriller “When the Phone Rings” in fourth place and Season 2 of the Brazilian reality competition “Stranded With My Mother-in-Law” in fifth place.
The other big title toward the end of December was the Harlan Corben show “Missing You.” That secured 21.7 million views, making it both the most-watched English-language series as well as the second most-watched title of the week. It was then followed by the sixth season of “Virgin River,” the first season of “Black Doves,” the first season of “The Departure” and the limited series “The Madness.” Both “Black Doves” and “The Madness” were remarkable as their appearances marked their fifth and sixth weeks of being on the list, respectively.
On the movie front, the Taron Egerton airport thriller “Carry-On” scored the No. 1 spot on the English-language movies list, seeing 17.4 million views. That was followed by “The Six Triple Eight” in second place, “The Secret Life of Pets 2” in third, “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch” in fourth and “Avicii — I’m Tim” in fifth.
Last but never least for the week was Netflix’s list of non-English movies. The Norwegian war movie “Number 24” led the week with 8.8 million views. That was followed by the Bollywood horror-comedy “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3” in second place. The Italian rom-com “The Love Scam,” the Italian drama “The Children’s Train” and the Indonesian horror-comedy “Kang Mak from Pee Mak” then rounded out the list.
