Netflix’s latest number one movie is one of the biggest hits of 2024

The Union has been the top movie globally at Netflix since last week, but we now know what scale of hit we’re dealing with here. It’s not a small one.

In its first three days on stream, from August 16 to August 18, The Union was watched for 60 million hours, according to Netflix’s own stats. That’s equivalent to 33.1 million full views.

This makes it the third biggest debut for an English language Netflix movie of the year, after Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (80 million hours) and Damsel (64.8 million). It's bumped down to fourth if we include non-English-language flicks, underneath shark sensation Under Paris (70.9 million).

Damsel went on to become the seventh most popular Netflix movies of all time, totting up 138 million views in its first 91 days on stream. Could The Union also just squeeze into the all-timer top 10?

The Union reviews

Reviews would suggest not, but that has never stopped a Netflix original movie from becoming titanically popular.

The Union currently sits at 38% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, with an even lower 26% audience score. This isn’t just the critics looking down their nose at a serviceable-but-fun action movie.

The Union sees Mark Wahlberg play a classic everyman character with an ordinary job. But he’s pulled into the role of a secret agent by his ex, Roxanne, played by Halle Berry.

It’s an unremarkable concept, a kind of nerve-jangling wish fulfilment story that isn’t exactly zeitgeist-trendy right now. But plenty of the leading critics actually found The Union to be satisfying, in the way better made-for-streaming action movies so often are.

It sees “two vets of the genre working together for the first time,” says the Deadline review. “It really is a cut above and just pure entertainment.”

The Guardian’s 3-star review says “it at least rises above expectations,” and “keeps up a pleasurable rhythm of information, mission, combat and flirting, through increasingly eye-rolling plot turns.”

The Times’s 3-star review has a similar conclusion, saying “this is not the kind of movie you talk about at film club. Nonetheless there is lots to enjoy in this profoundly silly action dramedy.”

But, yes, you can find plenty of reviews suggesting The Union is simply stinking up the joint over at Netflix, if you go looking for them.

In other Netflix chart news, the two Kingsman movies having been pulling in eyeballs too, and currently take up the second and third chart spots in their second week on stream.

The original Kingsman: The Secret Service is the biggest hitter. And 15.2 million views in just a week for a decade-old 2014 film? That sounds pretty good to us.

• The best movies on Netflix (August 2024)