World Animation Day: Netflix’s Most Watched Original Animated Movies and Series

KPop Demon Hunters is the most watched Netflix Original animated movie since the engagement reports began, and a preschool detective show is the most watched Original animated series. Those are the two headline findings from a trawl through every Netflix Engagement Report published to date, and there are plenty more surprises further down both lists.

October 28th is World Animation Day, which marks the first public screening of Émile Reynaud’s animated projections in Paris back in 1892. It felt like the right excuse to answer a question we get asked a lot: when you add up every half-yearly report Netflix has released, which of its own animated titles have actually been watched the most? Inspired by Nielsen’s own findings (where Netflix came out quite poorly, it must be said, but there are huge caveats as to why – namely they use raw viewing minutes and titles with large back catalogs dating back decades tend to perform better) for the most-watched animated titles, we wanted to look ourselves. 

Netflix has been publishing its What We Watched engagement reports since December 2023, covering six-month windows from January 2023 onwards. Seven reports are now out, taking us through the end of June 2026. Each one lists hours viewed, runtime and views for every title that cleared 50,000 hours, which makes it the best public dataset we have on what people are really watching. You can search the whole lot yourself with our engagement report search tool.

Both lists rank by views, the metric Netflix itself has used as its headline number since late 2023. Views are hours viewed divided by total runtime, so a 90-minute movie watched to the end once counts as one view. We show hours alongside so you can see where the two measures disagree.

A few ground rules worth knowing before you scroll:

• Only Netflix Originals are included. Licensed titles like The Boss Baby, Sing and The Super Mario Bros. Movie all out-watched most of the Originals below, but they belong to someone else and tend to come and go. We’ve included titles Netflix distributes as Originals in most of the world, such as Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution and The Seven Deadly Sins.
• Series numbers are grouped across every season. This is the big one. A show’s figure below is the total for all of its seasons combined across all seven reports, not its best single season. That rewards long-running shows with deep libraries, and it is why a 2015 DreamWorks series can sit above a 2024 hit.
• Movies are feature-length only. Shorts and specials like Sing: Thriller, The Boss Baby: Get That Baby! and The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday rack up huge view counts because they are 12 to 30 minutes long, so we’ve left them out.
• The window is January 2023 through June 2026. Anything released before 2023 only counts what it was watched in that period, so Klaus and BoJack Horseman are being measured on their back catalogue years, not their launch.

Top 5 Netflix Original animated movies

1. KPop Demon Hunters (2025): 648.7 million views

No contest. Sony Pictures Animation’s demon-slaying girl group has more than two and a half times the views of the next Original on this list, and that is with only two full reporting windows behind it. 1.08 billion hours is the kind of number usually reserved for whole series libraries, not a single 100-minute movie. It is already Netflix’s most-watched film of any kind, animated or not, and the soundtrack’s chart run kept people coming back long after the first weekend.

2. Leo (2023): 241.1 million views

Adam Sandler’s 74-year-old classroom lizard was the biggest animated movie Netflix released in 2023, and it has kept ticking over ever since. Its 430 million hours put it well clear of everything except KPop Demon Hunters, and it is one of the strongest arguments yet for Netflix’s long-running Happy Madison deal paying off in animation as well as live action.

3. Back to the Outback (2021): 145.1 million views

The surprise of the top five. The Australian creature comedy came out in December 2021, so none of its launch window counts here. Every one of its 145 million views comes from 2023 onwards, which makes it the best example on this list of a family movie finding a second life in the library. Kids rewatch, and Netflix’s recommendation engine clearly knows it.

4. The Sea Beast (2022): 136.7 million views

Chris Williams’ Oscar-nominated seafaring adventure sits fourth on views but third on hours, with 271 million. Its two-hour runtime drags the view count down, which is a good reminder of how the metric works. Like Back to the Outback, all of this is post-launch viewing, and it has aged into one of Netflix’s most reliable animated catalogue titles.

5. Swapped (2026): 130.8 million views

The newest title on the list and the one to watch. Swapped arrived in 2026, so it has had at most one six-month report to work with, and it has already racked up 130.8 million views and 222 million hours. On that trajectory, it will pass Back to the Outback and The Sea Beast the next time Netflix publishes, and it should settle in as a clear number two behind KPop Demon Hunters.

The full top 25 animated movies

Feature-length Netflix Original animated films, ranked by views across all seven engagement reports (January 2023 to June 2026).

A couple of things jump out. Sony Pictures Animation accounts for four of the top nine (KPop Demon Hunters, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Wish Dragon and Vivo), which says a lot about why Netflix keeps going back to that partnership. And the two SpongeBob spin-offs, Saving Bikini Bottom and Plankton: The Movie, both cleared 84 million views despite modest reviews, which is the Nickelodeon library doing exactly what Netflix pays for. IP and studio muscle = wins!

The Top 5 Netflix Original Animated Series

One more reminder before the names: every figure here is the show’s total across all of its seasons, added up over all seven reports. A series with six seasons on the service gets credit for all six.

1. The Creature Cases (2022): 222.9 million views

If you don’t have a preschooler at home you may never have heard of it, and that is rather the point. The animal detective series has quietly become Netflix’s most watched Original animated show with 710 million hours across its run, more than Big Mouth, Arcane and BoJack Horseman put together. Netflix keeps commissioning more of it for a reason.

2. CoComelon Lane (2023): 191.2 million views

CoComelon Lane: Season 2. (L-R) Brian Drummond as JJ’s Dad and Cruze McKinnon as JJ in CoComelon Lane: Season 2. Cr. NETFLIX

The licensed CoComelon is the most watched animated series on Netflix full stop, with 862 million views, so it is no surprise that Netflix’s own narrative spin-off lands this high. CoComelon Lane only launched in November 2023 and is already second among Originals, which makes it the fastest riser on either list.

3. Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous (2020): 167.8 million views

DreamWorks’ five-season dinosaur adventure finished in 2022, so like Back to the Outback on the movie side this is all library viewing. Add its sequel Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, sitting at number 14 with 84.3 million views, and the franchise clears 250 million views on Netflix since 2023.

4. Sonic Prime (2022): 142.5 million views

Three seasons of Sonic Prime landed between December 2022 and January 2024, so almost all of its run falls inside the reporting window. It is the strongest performance by a video game adaptation on either list, ahead of both Arcane and The Cuphead Show!, and a useful data point for anyone wondering why Netflix keeps buying Sega and Nintendo-adjacent properties.

5. Big Mouth (2017): 126.8 million views

The only adult show in the top five and the longest-running scripted Original Netflix has ever made. Eight seasons give it a lot of runtime to accumulate hours, and 594 million of them is more than any other adult animated series on the service. Its finale in May 2025 clearly sent plenty of people back to the start.

The Full Top 25 animated series

Netflix Original animated series, all seasons grouped, ranked by views across all seven engagement reports (January 2023 to June 2026).

Yes, Arcane is 18th. Its 434.6 million hours would put it eighth if we ranked by hours, but its episodes run long, and there are only 18 of them, so the view count lands lower than its reputation suggests. The same goes for The Seven Deadly Sins, which has the second-most hours of any show here. If you want a sense of how the top of the chart looks with licensed titles included, CoComelon, Peppa Pig and Masha and the Bear all clear 400 million views, and Paw Patrol alone has nearly 2 billion hours.

Takeaways

Preschool wins on series and Sony wins on movies. Nine of the top 15 series are aimed at under-sixes, and the only adult shows to crack the top 25 are Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, Disenchantment, Record of Ragnarok and Arcane. On the film side, the Sony Pictures Animation deal has delivered the number one title and three more in the top 15, and nothing else Netflix has tried in animation comes close to that hit rate.

The next engagement report, covering July to December 2026, should land in early 2027. Expect Swapped to climb, KPop Demon Hunters to keep adding to a lead that already looks unassailable, and the usual December rush of Christmas specials to push a few new names into the lower half of the movie table.

All figures are taken from Netflix’s published What We Watched reports. You can dig into any title yourself with our engagement report search.