‘Frankenstein’ Powers to the Top as ‘Squid Game: The Challenge’ and ‘Death by Lightning’ Stall in Netflix Top 10s

Welcome along to another deep-dive into the Netflix top 10s on Netflix. This week, we’ve got some big debuts, including Squid Game: The Challenge S2, Death by Lightning, and Frankenstein, with the latter the only one debuting to strong numbers. We’ll also check in on The Witcher S4 in its second week. 

A few omissions to talk about this week. First up is The Vince Staples Show, which returned for its second season. It failed to get into any countries’ daily top 10s, so it probably shouldn’t come as a massive surprise that it didn’t rank in the global top 10s this week. Another omission is Just Alice, a new Colombian romantic drama series. 

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Full List of Netflix Top 40 For Week Ending November 9th

Let’s first dive into the full list of the 40 movies and series that topped the English and non-English charts, beginning with how this week ranked against weeks prior, dating back to mid-2023:

• English TV: 36,800,000 (Rank 104 of 125 weeks)
• English Film: 82,600,000 (Rank 41 of 125 weeks)
• Non-English TV: 31,300,000 (Rank 37 of 125 weeks)
• Non-English Film: 26,000,000 (Rank 93 of 125 weeks)

English TV

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	The Witcher: Season 4	53,400,000	7,400,000 (1.37%)	2
2	Nobody Wants This: Season 2	21,100,000	4,800,000 (-48.94%)	3
3	Bad Influencer: Season 1	22,200,000	4,000,000	1
4	Selling Sunset: Season 9	25,600,000	3,600,000 (-14.29%)	2
5	Death by Lightning: Limited Series	11,600,000	3,200,000	1
6	Squid Game: The Challenge: Season 2	11,500,000	3,200,000	1
7	Leanne Morgan: Unspeakable Things	3,300,000	3,000,000	1
8	Stranger Things	19,300,000	2,800,000 (55.56%)	12
9	Raw: November 3, 2025	5,200,000	2,400,000 (4.35%)	1
10	The Bad Guys: Breaking In: Season 1	9,200,000	2,400,000	1

English Film

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	Frankenstein	73,600,000	29,100,000	1
2	KPop Demon Hunters	20,700,000	12,400,000 (-11.43%)	21
3	A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE	19,500,000	10,200,000 (-67.72%)	3
4	Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers	9,700,000	5,600,000 (-44.55%)	2
5	Shrek Forever After	8,200,000	5,200,000	4
6	Jack Reacher: Never Go Back	10,100,000	5,100,000	6
7	Ballad of a Small Player	8,400,000	4,900,000 (-28.99%)	2
8	The Woman in Cabin 10	5,600,000	3,500,000 (-25.53%)	5
9	Shrek	4,900,000	3,300,000	15
10	Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches	3,100,000	3,300,000	1

Non-English TV

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	Rulers of Fortune: Season 1	44,400,000	5,900,000 (11.32%)	2
2	The Asset: Season 1	25,200,000	5,300,000 (-53.10%)	2
3	Physical: Asia: Season 1	25,700,000	3,600,000 (-30.77%)	2
4	Heweliusz: Limited Series	17,100,000	3,300,000	1
5	Breathless: Season 2	20,100,000	2,900,000 (93.33%)	2
6	Amsterdam Empire: Season 1	13,800,000	2,700,000 (8.00%)	2
7	Juan Gabriel: I Must, I Can, I Will: Limited Series	9,900,000	2,400,000 (33.33%)	2
8	As You Stood By: Limited Series	19,000,000	2,300,000	1
9	Typhoon Family: Limited Series	17,100,000	1,500,000 (-6.25%)	4
10	One-Punch Man: Season 3	2,400,000	1,400,000 (-17.65%)	3

Non-English Film

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	Mango	9,200,000	5,800,000	1
2	The Woman in the Line	7,100,000	4,000,000 (66.67%)	2
3	Baramulla	7,500,000	3,700,000	1
4	Idli Kadai	7,000,000	2,900,000 (-44.23%)	2
5	Caramelo	4,600,000	2,700,000 (-34.15%)	5
6	Babo: The Haftbefehl Story	2,800,000	1,800,000 (-56.10%)	2
7	The Elixir	3,400,000	1,700,000 (-72.13%)	3
8	Groom & Two Brides	2,500,000	1,500,000	1
9	The Best Mother in the World	1,700,000	1,000,000	1
10	Fall for Me	1,600,000	900,000	8

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1. The Witcher Season 4 Flat in Week 2

Last week, we wrote about how the Season 4 debut was pretty bad. Disastrous, in fact. Are there any signs of life in week 2? Not really. The series rose 100 thousand views, with viewing hours essentially flat on the week before, and is expected to begin a steady decline next week. Because season 3 of The Witcher was released in two batches, we’ll be leaning more heavily on the viewing hours charts below because views aren’t an excellent metric for split seasons over time:

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2. Frankenstein Debuts at #5 Biggest Movie Debut of 2025

We’ve done a bit of a deeper dive for Frankenstein in a separate post, but the headlines are: Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein debuted to 73.6M hours watched, equating to 29.1M views. That makes it Guillermo’s biggest debut on Netflix to date and the fifth biggest movie debut of 2025. 

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3. Death By Lightning does not strike lightning

It’s been a rough time as of late with prestige-limited series. Black Rabbit didn’t perform to expectations, and Death by Lightning tragically did even worse. A historical drama may be a hard sell, but Netflix was hoping its two big stars would get it over the line. Sadly, ranking only fifth with 3.2M views, its ranking was one of the worst debuts for a limited series in recent years, bar Ripley. 

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4. Squid Game: The Challenge Returns to A Whimper

It’s probably safe to say that they should’ve done a better job at lining up season 2 of Squid Game: The Challenge to launch somewhere in between seasons 2 and 3 of the main show, given that we saw an over 80% drop in views for season 2 of the show. It’s not a perfect 1:1 comparison, given that the rollouts have been slightly different. As a reminder:

• Season 1 rolled out weekly-style across three dates, beginning on a Wednesday: a batch of five, then four, then a single finale. 
• Season 2 is structured as a three-week event, beginning on a Tuesday, with two batch drops of four apiece, followed by a standalone finale in the third week.

So, despite that extra day to pick up views and a shorter runtime, which should have helped, it still saw a considerable decline. It’s also worth noting that season 1 was released over Thanksgiving, which gave the US viewers a boost, no doubt. Still, an 80%+ drop is significant. Is Squid Game mania over? 

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5. Heweliusz

Big debut for Netflix Poland this week with Heweliusz dropping on Wednesday. While the series did break out of Poland and entered the daily top 10 charts in 75 countries since its debut, it only picked up 3.3M views, putting it behind The Hooligan and above Hounds Hill. It’s an incredibly local story but also themes of disaster are universal so we’ll see how it develops in the weeks to come. 

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6. Leanne Morgan Has Biggest Stand-up Special Debut of 2025

Perhaps buoyed by her sitcom Leanne, Leanne Morgan’s first major stand-up special performed exceedingly well in the Netflix top 10s, beating out some huge names in the charts for the first week of availability. Comparing against 2024 specials, only Matt Rife’s A Crowd Work Special was bigger with 4.9M views, and Mike Epps was on par with Leanne with Ready to Sell Out. 

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7. As You Stood By

On the K-Drama front, the new crime thriller As You Stood By debuted on Friday and performed relatively well, with 2.3M views in its opening weekend, putting it around the middle of the pack compared to similar K-dramas released on the same day. 

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Check-Ins with Various Shows and Movies

Last week, we noted how the Spanish medical drama series Breathless (Respira) season 2 had a bit of a poor start. Things picked up in week 2 with a 97% rise in viewing hours, but it’s still lagging quite significantly behind its season 1 counterpart. A renewal seems a bit of a 50/50 right now.  

Nobody Wants This saw a 50% drop in viewing hours in week 3, which is higher than season 1 saw (40% in week 3), but how is the show still stacking up? Let’s take a look:

Finally, we’re just a couple of weeks from Stranger Things returning, and it’s safe to say the marketing campaign, one of the biggest in Netflix’s history, is doing its job with the series returning for the second week in a row with a massive 57% rise in viewing hours from last week. Only season 1 is reaching the charts right now, but will more pop up in the coming weeks? We’ll find out!

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That’s our biggest stories from the Netflix top 10s this week – what were you predicting or expecting? Let us know in the comments.