(Credit: Netflix)

The 10 most popular movies on Netflix this week: September 2024

Thu 19 September 2024 10:23, UK

If it carries on its current trajectory, then the current number-one movie on Netflix, Rebel Ridge, stands a very good chance of entering the streaming service’s all-time most-watched list.

Jeremy Saulnier’s hard-hitting thriller Rebel Ridge premiered less than 14 days ago and has retained the top spot on the platform’s viewership charts for a second week, notching a massive 84.9 million viewing hours and 38.6 million views in that time.

Furthermore, what makes it even more impressive is that the majority of Netflix’s biggest-ever original movies tend to be expensive, action-packed, or star-studded blockbusters boasting at least one A-lister or hot commodity on the other side of the camera, whereas Rebel Ridge is a mid-budget genre flick.

That’s not intended to be disparaging when it’s been riding a wave of critical acclaim and looks to be an instant star-maker for leading man Aaron Pierre, with the film’s performance marking a breath of fresh air when the majority of the streamer’s top-viewed hits tend to be forgettable dreck.

Speaking of which, the highest-ranked newcomer this week is McG’s long-delayed literary adaptation Uglies, which has been savaged by critics. Still, as the adaptation of a popular literary series, there was always going to be an inbuilt audience eager to see if it lived up to the hype, even if it definitely didn’t.

The first half of the two-part feature-length documentary Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter debuted in third. It follows the heart-wrenching story of Cathy Tarkanian, who sets out to track down and reunite with the daughter she’d given up for adoption only to discover she’s been a missing person for over 20 years.

In a grammatical coincidence, the two remaining first-timers on the top ten are both expansive and effects-heavy epics with similar titles that landed in sixth and seventh, with subscribers unable to resist either Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow or Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow.

Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg’s The Union is still holding on strong after five weeks of release, but its days may be numbered as one of Netflix’s most popular movies by this time next week when it’ll join countless others by being completely forgotten in no time at all and never spoken of again unless it gets a sequel.