--- title: "Is Wednesday REALLY the biggest streaming hit ever? Netflix’s own chart puts Squid Game ahead!" url: https://badiyaa.com/wednesday-netflix-most-watched-show-squid-game-numbers/ published: 2026-10-28T02:49:00+00:00 modified: 2026-10-28T02:49:00+00:00 section: Entertainment publisher: Badiyaa --- # Is Wednesday REALLY the biggest streaming hit ever? Netflix’s own chart puts Squid Game ahead! Wednesday Season 1 leads Netflix's English-language chart with 252.1 million views, but Squid Game Season 1 logged 265.2 million. Season 3 wrapped filming on September 30. A headline doing the rounds this week crowned *Wednesday*, Netflix’s 16-episode gothic mystery starring Jenna Ortega, as “the biggest streaming hit in history.” Netflix’s own all-time charts tell a more complicated story: the show is a record-holder, but not the record-holder. The first season of *Wednesday* sits at No. 1 on Netflix’s all-time list of English-language shows with 252.1 million views. Yet on the streamer’s separate list of non-English shows, *Squid Game* Season 1 shows 265.2 million. Both lists use the same yardstick, total views in the first 91 days of release. ## What Netflix’s numbers actually show Netflix publishes four all-time charts: English shows, non-English shows, English films and non-English films. Sort five of the heaviest hitters by hours watched instead of views, and Wednesday drops to third: - ***Squid Game* Season 1 (2021):** about 2.21 billion hours; 265.2 million views. - ***Stranger Things 4* (2022):** about 1.84 billion hours; 140.7 million views. - ***Wednesday* Season 1 (2022):** about 1.72 billion hours; 252.1 million views. - ***Squid Game* Season 2 (2024):** about 1.38 billion hours; 192.6 million views. - ***Adolescence* (2025):** about 0.55 billion hours; 142.6 million views. Run the math and the gap is clear. *Squid Game* Season 1 is ahead by 13.1 million views, or about 5%. On hours, the Korean thriller leads by roughly 486 million, and even *Stranger Things 4* logged about 119 million more hours than *Wednesday* Season 1, because its episodes run longer. Where *Wednesday* is untouchable is the English-language chart. Its first season beat the runner-up, *Adolescence*, by 109.5 million views, close to 77% more. And no English-language series season has come within 100 million views of it. So the fair version of the claim: *Wednesday* Season 1 is the most-viewed English-language show season Netflix has ever measured, and the second-most-viewed show season of any language on the service. “Biggest in history” across all of streaming is a bigger claim than Netflix’s charts can back, since they only measure Netflix titles. ## Why the 16-episode label matters The show has just two seasons so far, eight episodes each. Season 1 dropped on November 23, 2022. Season 2 arrived in two halves, on August 6 and September 3, 2025, and has 119.3 million views, enough for No. 6 on the English list. Add the two together and *Wednesday* has 371.4 million views across both seasons’ first 91 days, a combined figure Netflix does not itself rank. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, with Tim Burton directing four episodes per season, the series reimagines the Addams Family’s deadpan daughter as a teenage psychic solving murders at Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for outcasts. Season 1 was shot in Romania, with Cantacuzino Castle in Bușteni standing in for the school. ## Season 3: cameras down, date still secret Netflix renewed the show for a third season in July 2025. Filming started on February 23, 2026, moved through Ireland and Paris, and wrapped on September 30. The new run adds Eva Green as Morticia’s sister, Ophelia Frump, while Winona Ryder, Chris Sarandon and Noah Taylor join the cast, with Lena Headey and Andrew McCarthy as guest stars. Ortega, Emma Myers, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán return. Green was hurt during filming in Dublin in late June and taken to hospital, recovering later that week. Netflix has not announced a premiere date. For scale, Season 2 arrived about 32 months after Season 1. Whenever Season 3 lands, its target is already on the board: the 252.1 million views its own first season set. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Wednesday (TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday_(TV_series)) *Image: Colleen Sturtevant, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*