Netflix’s weekly top-10 charts used to read as a quiet data dump. For the week of Sept. 28, 2026, they are a reminder that second-week momentum, not just a big opening, is where streaming demand shows up.
A rare second-week jump
Janus Metz Pedersen’s crime drama Unabomber, starring Jacob Tremblay and Shailene Woodley, led all English-language films with 24.9 million views. That is up from 16.4 million in its premiere week — a lift of more than 51%.
That kind of growth is notable because most titles decline after week one. Retention usually narrows as casual sampling drops away. Instead, the film widened the gap between itself and the rest of the chart. The other list-toppers that week didn’t even clear 7 million views.
The second-biggest English-language film, the true-crime documentary The Widower: ‘Til Death Do Us Part, drew 11.6 million views. Tyler Perry’s Doing Life followed with 9.3 million, Nate Bargatze’s The Breadwinner had 5.3 million, and The Equalizer 3 rounded out the list at 5 million.
The TV chart changes hands
On the English-language TV side, East of Eden opened with 6.5 million views and unseated Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story. The series has also pushed John Steinbeck’s novel back up the book charts — an IP halo that matters for license holders and studios deciding which properties to greenlight next.
Monster finished the week at 5.7 million views, a 60% drop from its second week, which itself had risen 20% over the premiere. The fourth season has passed 32 million views in its first three weeks. Across all seasons, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s anthology has now cleared 325 million views, which is why Netflix treats Monster as franchise inventory rather than a one-season bet.
Read the curve, not the slot
For media planners and content buyers, three signals stand out:
- Retention beats rank: a title that climbs in week two is a stronger indicator of word-of-mouth than a big opening that collapses.
- Context matters: the film chart’s bar is far higher than the TV chart’s right now, so cross-title comparisons need care.
- IP halo is real: a novel returning to book charts is a marketing asset most viewership reports under-measure.
The week-to-week slope is usable. A 51% second-week gain signals discovery and recommendation loops doing their job. A 60% third-week fall, as in the case of Monster, is not necessarily failure: anthology seasons burn through core fans quickly and then settle.
For ad-supported and AVOD buyers, these slopes matter. Titles that keep growing pull in a different audience than titles that spike and fade. Retention data helps decide where sponsorship or promotion spend will keep working past launch week.
Source: TheWrap
