Netflix to Test Releasing Weekly Top 10 Lists for TV Shows, Movies

Netflix is exploring a new way to help you figure out what to watch. In the UK, the company plans on releasing weekly top 10 lists on the most popular content.

"For those who want to watch what others are watching, this may make choosing titles even easier," Netflix said in a letter to shareholders on Tuesday about the upcoming experiment

The top 10 lists will cover "various programming categories." So presumably, the lists will rank the best TV shows and movies across different genres. "After a few months we'll decide whether to end or expand the test," Netflix added in the letter.

In the US, Netflix will already show you what's popular and what's trending. However, both categories generally offer a diverse collection of different TV shows and movies, which can include documentaries, comedy specials and foreign soap operas.

Whether Netflix's experiment will crown a No. 1 show each week, or simply group the top 10 together, wasn't made clear. But at the very least, the pilot is intended to entice people to watch more content over the streaming service.

"The core idea behind this is there's a bunch of our members who really enjoy watching the most popular shows," said Netflix's chief product officer Greg Peters during an earnings call. "They enjoy watching the show and then engaging in the public conversation around the show, and all the memes that are shared around."

The top 10 lists will also enable to Netflix to share the data over social media. Subscribers will be able to see what's popular, go and watch the content, and then join in on the memes, debate and public reaction.

"Popularity is a data point that people can use to choose. Not the most important one. Not the only one. But we don't want to suppress it if it's helpful to our members," added Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos during the earnings call.

If the top 10 lists do become a standard feature, it'll also help marketing and research firms determine what's exactly popular over Netflix, which has generally avoided releasing ratings data for the company's shows and movies.

About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
Xbox 360 FTW
The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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