Netflix’s Top Movie Right Now Is a Sci-Fi Thriller With Just a 22% Critics Score on Rotten Tomatoes

Netflix’s new hit movie, The Old Guard 2, is topping the charts worldwide, even though critics aren’t impressed. The film, starring Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman, was the most-watched movie on Netflix in the U.S. from June 30 to July 6 and ranked number one in 74 countries.

This success comes despite the movie holding a low 22% critics score and a 36% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s not just The Old Guard 2. Other popular Netflix movies also show a big gap between viewer numbers and critic scores. For example, the 2021 sci-fi film Infinite, starring Mark Wahlberg, is the third most-watched global English-language movie. It has only a 17% critic rating and 34% on Popcornmeter, a review aggregator.

Netflix hasn’t released the official Top 10 movies list for July 7 to 14 yet. But FlixPatrol, an independent streaming ratings tracker, reports that the July 10 release Brick is currently the most popular Netflix movie worldwide.

This German-language original hit number three on the U.S. Top 10 list, behind Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Destination Wedding and the animated movie KPop Demon Hunters, which has stayed in the Top 10 for three weeks.

Brick, a sci-fi mystery-thriller, made the Top 10 in over 90 countries, including number one spots in Germany, France, and Mexico. It also made the Top 5 in Australia, Canada, and the UK. This is despite a low 31% critics rating from 16 reviews and just 29% from verified Netflix users.

The Old Guard 2, released on July 2, 2025, is a sequel to the first film. Directed by Victoria Mahoney and written by Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker, the movie is based on Rucka’s comic book The Old Guard. Charlize Theron returns along with KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Veronica Ngô, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. New cast members include Henry Golding and Uma Thurman.

The story picks up six months after the first movie. Andy leads her team—including Joe, Nicky, Nile, and Copler, to recover weapons from a secure compound in Split. While hiding, Nile dreams about a woman attacking someone in a library and stealing books.

Rotten Tomatoes shows that only 23% of 83 critics gave the movie a positive review. The site sums it up as: “Bogged down by tedious lore and lackluster execution, The Old Guard 2 finds this budding franchise already long in the tooth.” Metacritic gives it a score of 44 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, calling the response “mixed or average.”

This all shows that Netflix movies don’t always need good reviews to become hits. Fans are still watching and streaming, no matter what critics say.

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