Jon Bernthal and Tessa Thompson Dominated Netflix’s TV Lineup in the First Half of the Year
Netflix has revealed its biggest television successes of the first half of 2026, and Jon Bernthal and Tessa Thompson came out on top. Their crime thriller His & Hers was the most-watched series on the platform during the first six months of the year, according to Netflix’s latest What We Watched report.
The report, released by Netflix on Thursday, showed that His & Hers collected 104 million views worldwide between its premiere on January 8 and the end of June. The strong performance made it the biggest TV release on the streaming service during that period.
The series managed to beat several major returning shows, including Netflix’s popular romance drama Bridgerton. Season 4 of Bridgerton earned 100 million views after arriving on January 29, placing it just behind His & Hers in the rankings.
Another major success came from Harlan Coben’s thriller I Will Find You. The series premiered late in the reporting period on June 18 but still reached 64 million views by the end of June. Netflix data later showed the show continued gaining viewers in July, pushing its total above 85 million views in less than a month.
The performance of I Will Find You has raised expectations that it could become one of Netflix’s biggest English-language series ever. The show is based on the work of Harlan Coben, whose previous Netflix adaptation Fool Me Once became one of the platform’s most popular releases.
Netflix also saw strong results from its Korean dramas. Teach You A Lesson, which premiered on June 5, quickly attracted a large audience and became one of the standout international hits of the year. Other titles, including Run Away and Man on Fire, also made Netflix’s top 10 list with more than 40 million views each.
The latest numbers show that Netflix’s new releases are becoming a bigger part of the platform’s success. Five of the ten most-watched shows in the first half of 2026 were new series that premiered during that same period. This is a change from the second half of 2025, when most of the biggest shows were returning seasons of established hits.
Overall, Netflix reported that viewers watched 97 billion hours of content during the first half of 2026. According to the company, this was the highest half-year viewing total since it began sharing regular audience reports.
However, the numbers also highlight some challenges for Netflix. Several returning shows did not match the early performance of their previous seasons. One Piece and The Night Agent both appeared in the top 10, but their latest seasons had weaker opening weeks compared to earlier releases.
Even Stranger Things 5 remained one of Netflix’s biggest shows, reaching 56 million views despite its finale arriving at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, other returning series such as Running Point, Beef, A Man On the Inside, Nobody Wants This, The Four Seasons, and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder struggled to reach the same level of attention as their earlier seasons.
Netflix also announced that it plans to change how it shares viewing data. Starting in 2027, the company will stop releasing its six-month What We Watched reports and move toward yearly audience summaries. Netflix said the change reflects its growing focus on quality and long-term success rather than simply releasing more content.
Which Netflix series has been the biggest hit of 2026 so far?
For now, His & Hers stands as Netflix’s biggest TV winner of 2026 so far, proving that new original shows can still create massive global interest when they connect with audiences.
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