Netflix's Dahmer Is More Popular Than Bridgerton Now

Netflix says that Dahmer has been watched for 701.4 million hours so far, making it the service's No. 2 most popular English language show yet.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter

Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.

Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials

Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)

See full bio

Joan E. Solsman

Oct. 11, 2022 12:22 p.m. PT

2 min read

Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer — Dahmer is Netflix's second most popular English-language series so far.
James Martin/CNET

Netflix's Dahmer has been more watched than either season of Bridgerton, making it Netflix's second most popular English language series, according to watch-time stats released Tuesday showing the popularity of the serial-killer series continuing to grow.

The show, which goes by the full title Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, has been watched worldwide for a total of 701.4 million hours from its release date on Sept. 21 through Sunday.

By comparison, the second season of Bridgerton was watched for 656.3 million hours in its first 28 days of release. Bridgerton's first season was watched for 625.5 million in its first 28 days.

Dahmer remains behind the 1.35 billion hours watched of Stranger Things 4, Netflix's most-watched English language series, as well as the 1.65 billion hours devoted to Squid Game, which is the most watched show on Netflix overall, according to the company's charts. Dahmer has more than a week to accrue more watch-time toward its ranking in Netflix's all-time charts, but it's unlikely to overtake either Stranger Things or Squid Game in the remaining time.

For years, Netflix was notoriously tight-lipped about its viewership. Beau Willimon -- the creator of House of Cards, which initially put Netflix's original programming on the map -- once said the company wouldn't even share viewership metrics with him.

But within the last two years, Netflix has become much more open about the popularity of its shows and movies to help it recruit talent and stoke buzz. First, Netflix added a top-trending ranking to its service, so people can see the most popular titles streaming on Netflix in their country on any given day. Then it also started publicly sharing popularity stats for certain titles, publicizing the number of accounts that watched two minutes of a particular title in its first month of release.

More streaming advice

In November, Netflix launched a website posting weekly charts of its most popular shows and movies, as well as a global ranking of all-time most watched titles. The charts are updated every week and ranked by the total number of hours that subscribers spent watching them.

The rankings represent an unprecedented trove of data about what's popular on Netflix, detailing the most popular titles in the last week not only globally but also for more than 90 individual countries. It's the most transparency that Netflix has ever adopted for its viewership, but it's also meant to help subscribers like you have a better grip on what's most popular on the world's biggest subscription streaming service.