A year at No 1, a billion hours watched: how KPop: Demon Hunters took over Netflix

Every week a dozen shiny new things drop on streaming, and most are forgotten before the weekend ends. This one wasn’t. Somehow, the animated movie 'KPop: Demon Hunters' kept finding new eyeballs month after month and quietly turned into one of Netflix ’s most stubborn success stories.

The run, by the numbers

• 52 consecutive weeks in Netflix’s Global Top 10 — a full year without falling out, per a report from Whats on Netflix.
• Over 1 billion hours watched and more than 639 million completed views tallied during that run, again via Whats on Netflix.
• Back on August 26, 2025, Netflix’s own account publicly celebrated the movie as its most popular film ever at 236 million views.

If those view totals don’t perfectly line up, that’s because different snapshots and yardsticks are being used at different times. Either way, the picture is the same: this thing didn’t just open big — it kept growing. Whats on Netflix credits word of mouth, repeat viewing, and a strong pull with younger audiences for the long tail. And in terms of sheer consecutive weeks on the chart, it outlasted plenty of titles you’d assume would be unbeatable.

So why did this one stick?

Animated. K-pop energy. Demons. It’s a clean, high-concept hook that plays globally, and it apparently played to kids and teens who rewatch the stuff they love. Most Netflix movies spike and fade. This one just... didn’t. It’s rare to see momentum build long after premiere day, but that’s exactly what happened here — the kind of lingering attention that makes streamers rethink what a hit can look like over time.

The Sony call that aged really well

Before any of this, Sony sold 'KPop: Demon Hunters' to Netflix — a choice that got second-guessed until the results started rolling in. Tom Rothman, who runs Sony’s Motion Picture Group, later backed the move on Matt Belloni’s podcast 'The Town,' summing up the business reality like this:

'You open or you die,' he said, calling the movie business a parachute business.

Translation: in a market this volatile, you either secure the right launch or you splat. Handing the film to Netflix put it in front of a gigantic global audience instantly, and the year-long staying power suggests Sony didn’t leave much (if anything) on the table.

One more sign it broke through: it even got the parody treatment in 'Scary Movie 6.' Not exactly a subtle marker, but it does tell you how far the title seeped into the culture.

Bottom line: 'KPop: Demon Hunters' didn’t just beat the opening-week race — it rewrote what a slow-burn streaming juggernaut can look like.