What Netflix's biggest reveal tells us about what works and what doesn't

One of the many disruptive qualities of so-called industry disruptor Netflix has been a lack of transparency over viewing figures. Unlike their competitors (the main networks and cable channels), they have never been held to the same standard, never judged by ratings, choosing to keep themselves separate, much to the rest of the industry’s frustration. But over time, a shift has taken place.

Slowly but surely, the streaming goliath has started to share viewing data, usually as a brag and only when it shows them in a positive light, but with each shred of information we have started to see the bigger picture. Just last week, we were handed their most revealing dump to date, the 10 most popular original films and shows over the last 12 months, complete with figures for each. While we’re still starved of the bottom end of the list, and disappointingly yet tellingly, any box office data for their theatrical releases, we can start to see what is and isn’t working for the platform.

1 The movie star endures

If one were to examine the top 10 theatrically released films over the last year, the upper end, if not the entire list, would be dominated by franchises, sequels and ones that don’t necessarily rely on the names involved. But on Netflix, an underdeveloped alternative to the multiplex, the biggest films more closely resemble the box office hits of the late 80s and early 90s when star appeal was prioritised over spectacle, a period that saw Rain Man, Fatal Attraction, Ghost and Three Men and a Baby win big.

The top three most-watched Netflix originals of the last 12 months are Bird Box (80 million viewers), Murder Mystery (73 million) and Triple Frontier (52 million), all broad, crowd-pleasing films sold almost exclusively on stars Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler and Ben Affleck, all of whom are actors who broke out in the 90s boasting fanbases that have mostly stayed loyal ever since. The mixture of recog