Netflix's number one movie just broke a 2024 record

Eddie Murphy comedy vehicle Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F shot to the top of the Netflix charts as soon as it was released, but we now know how many people really watched it.

In its first week on stream, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F was watched 41,000,000 times, or 80,700,000 hours in total.

That makes the film Netflix’s most-watched movie at release of the whole of 2024. It closest rival is Damsel, a film released in March that didn’t get brilliant reviews but sure did bring in the crowds.

It was watched 35.3 million times in its first week.

The last film to actually beat Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F was December 2023’s Leave the World Behind. And its first-week score was almost identical, with 41.7 million views.

Even Extraction 2 only managed 42.8 million views on its debut earlier in 2023, painting a picture of what we might consider “peak Netflix.” Creep close to that 40 million view count for a movie, and you’re getting there.

If Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F manages to hold up in its second week, this could be a contender for the most-watched film of the year, full stop. But, hey, there are plenty of months left to go.

The best part is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is a pretty decent watch too.

While few of us were expecting this fourth film in the 40-year-old series to match the original, and it doesn’t, this could easily have been a car crash. And it isn’t.

Axel F currently sits at a respectable 67% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, and has a 79% audience score.

Fans say it returns to the straightforward snappy action charms of the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies. Detractors say more-or-less the same, but that the schtick just isn’t that fresh anymore.

You can watch the first three Beverly Hills Cop movies on Netflix too. Going by the films’ Rotten Tomatoes score, Axel F is second only to the original in terms of quality.

However, the consensus online (so far at least) is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F sits between the second and third films. Who’s up for a marathon to decide once and for all?

• The best movies on Netflix (July 2024)