Netflix has been notoriously stingy with its data. Even directors and showrunners have had a hard time gauging if what they’d put out into the world was reaching its intended audience. With the recent advent of the Netflix Top 10, though, we can now get at least one little peek behind the curtain. The list of Netflix’s daily Top 10 Most Popular indicates an omnivorous appetite among the Netflix faithful, from low-budget thrillers to blockbusters, animated kids movies to docu-series of every stripe. Here are the entries for October 7 of the most popular TV shows and movies on Netflix.
Netflix originals American Murder and Emily in Paris remain at #1 and #2, while CBS’s underrated Evil climbs up to #4.
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Year: 2020
Director: Jenny Popplewell
Genre: Crime Documentary
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77%
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 83 minutes
Watch on Netflix
Nothing is quite so American these days as the true-crime documentary, and Netflix presents another mystery for us to examine, the disappearance of Shanann Watts and her two young children. Of course, it’s no longer a mystery and the truth is brutal and tragic and has already been made into a Lifetime movie that Watts’ family has denounced.
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Year: 2020
Creator: Darren Star
Stars: Lily Collins, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Lucas Bravo, Samuel Arnold, Bruno Gouery
Genre: Romance, Drama
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%
Rating: TV-MA
Watch on Netflix
If Sex and the City and Younger had a mistress it would be Emily in Paris. This little bon mot from executive producer Darren Star leans in hard to stereotypes we have about the French. They are very open with sex. They have very open marriages. They have utter disdain for Americans. They smoke a lot. But this 10-episode series has such a joie de vivre it’s easy to ignore its faults and savor its deliciousness. It’s the TV equivalent of a buttery, flakey croissant that you devour. Each episode leaves you wanting more—even if its airy plots are quickly forgettable. Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) is a young marketing executive who gets the dream gig of going to Paris for a year when her firm buys Savior, a Paris-based boutique marketing firm for luxury brands. This opportunity arrives when Emily’s boss (Kate Walsh in an inspired cameo) throws up and discovers she’s pregnant. Emily lands in Paris and much to the consternation of her boss Sylvie (Philippine Leroy Beaulieu) she doesn’t speak a word of French. Oh mon dieu! She quickly befriends office mates Luc (Samuel Arnold ) and Julien (Bruno Gouery) and gorgeous neighbor Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), who just happens to be a chef at the café across the street. Never have omelets seemed so sexy.
Perhaps the best part of the series is that it was filmed on location in Paris, allowing the City of Light to become a central character on the show. The series gives us a wistful glimpse to one of the world’s most romantic places. If for that reason alone, one should say “oui oui” to Emily in Paris. —Amy Amatangelo
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Year: 2020
Creators: Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy
Stars: Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Annie Murphy, Emily Hampshire, Noah Reid, Jenn Robertson, Chris Elliott
Genre: Sitcom
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%
Rating: TV-MA
Watch on Netflix
The narcissistic matriarch of her spoiled clan, stripped of their fortune and plopped down in the rural burg of Schitt’s Creek, former soap star Moira Rose—as played by Catherine O’Hara, dressed by costume designer Debra Hanson, and written by Schitt’s Creek co-created by Dan Levy and his team—was, for the series’ first two seasons, the main reason to tune in: She’s high camp catnip (“What is your favorite season?” “Awards.”) with a wig collection that qualifies as the best drama on television. And then something happened. Her husband, Johnny (Eugene Levy), once the owner of a successful chain of video stores, rediscovered his purpose running a motel. Moira won a seat on the town council. Their son, David (Dan Levy), opened a store and met the love of his life. Their daughter, Alexis (Annie Murphy), finally finished high school (it’s a long story) and decided to enroll in community college. In Seasons Three, Four, and Five, the Roses put down roots, and as they have, the people of Schitt’s Creek—once treated primarily as rubes, innocently getting in the way of the family’s plans to flee back to their former lives—have learned to wrangle them, in some cases by developing sharper edges of their own. Though it hasn’t lost its absurdist inflection, what began as a fish-out-of-water comedy about a bunch of snobs reduced to eating mozzarella sticks at the Café Tropical has become a gentler, warmer, more complicated tale of what happens when the fish sprout legs, and one of the best comedies on television: Call it the sweetening of Schitt’s Creek. —Matt Brennan
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Year: 2020
Creators: Robert King, Michelle King
Stars: Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, Aasif Mandvi, Michael Emerson
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%
Rating: TV-MA
Watch on Netflix
I’m not quite sure CBS knows Evil is on its network because Oh. My. God. I can’t believe the same network that airs like 50 different versions of NCIS is airing this meditation on evil from the same people who brought you The Good Wife. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) is a forensic psychologist who becomes something of a believer when she meets priest-in-training David Acosta (Colter) and tech expert Ben (Aasif Mandvi) and they begin to investigate whether or not certain crimes have a demonic or psychological basis (or both). The always creepy (in the best way) Michael Emerson is also on hand as Leland Townsend, a mysterious character who epitomize the title of the series. Truly my only complaint about this drama, which gets better with each passing episode, is that may be too creepy for me. The show produces the kind of scares that stay with you long after the lights go out. —Amy Amatangelo
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Year: 2020
Creator: Evan Romansky
Stars: Sarah Paulson, Alice Englert, Rosanna Arquette, Cynthia Nixon, Edmund Tolleson, Jon Jon Briones, Sharon Stone
Genre: Thriller
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 60%
Rating: TV-MA
Watch on Netflix
Sarah Paulson was born to play the sadistic nurse dreamed up by Merry Prankster Ken Kasey back in 1962. The new prequel series to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest follows the domineering Nurse Mildred Ratched as she takes a job at a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles, where Dr. Richard Hanover is conducting experimental lobotomies. With stylish cinematography and a cast that includes Cynthia Nixon, Sharon Stone and Vincent D’Onofrio, it’s a Ryan Murphy production through-and-through. Whether you enjoy it will probably be determined by how much you think that’s a good thing.
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Year: 2020
Director: Mike Elliott
Stars: Madison Pettis, Lizze Broadway, Piper Curda, Natasha Behnam, Ed Quinn, Sara Rue
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
Watch on Netflix
The raunchy movie franchise gives young ladies a turn in the spotlight in its ninth installment now that Jim Levenstein is old enough for his own kids to start getting into trouble.
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Year: 1999
Director: Dennis Dugan
Stars: Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Stewart
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 39%
Rating: PG-13
Watch on Netflix
The most Adam Sandler premise of all Adam Sandler movies—his Sonny Koufax gets dumped for being an immature man-boy, so he adopts a five-year-old to prove her wrong. Only problem is he’s an immature man-boy who doesn’t know what to do with a kid. Bad enough to win Sandler a Golden Raspberry for Worst Actor. Good enough to earn $235 million worldwide.
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Year: 2011
Director: Olivier Megaton
Stars: Zoe Saldana, Jordi Mollà, Lennie James, Michael Vartan, Cliff Curtis
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 28%
Rating: R
Watch on Netflix
You don’t remember this 2011 thriller staring Zoe Saldana as a Colombian hitwoman looking to avenge her parents who were murdered when she was a little girl in Bogota? Netflix gives new life to this Luc Besson-penned flop.
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Year: 2020
Director: Rod Lurie
Stars: Scott Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones, Orlando Bloom, Jack Kesy, Cory Hardict, Milo Gibson
Genre: War, Drama
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
Rating: R
Watch on Netflix
Jake Tapper’s 2012 book about the Battle of Kamdesh in Afghanistan is now a movie directed by Rod Lurie. With the pandemic disrupting both its SXSW premiere and theatrical run this summer, Netflix has scooped this depiction of the bloodiest American battle during the Afghan War, the 2009 defense of an outpost originally designed to help with community development but often attacked by the Taliban from the mountains which surrounded it.
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Years: 2020
Genre: Kids, Animation
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 50%
Rating: TV-Y
Watch on Netflix
The massively popular YouTube channel is now a Netflix show, sure to worm its way into the brains of kids and parents everywhere. The 3D animated nursery and kids songs have already been streamed billions of times online.
