A series adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II novel, a true-crime docuseries, and a time-bending murder mystery. What do they all have in common? They’re among the biggest Netflix shows in the world right now, based on the latest data from the streamer’s regularly updated global Top 10 chart — which is dominated this week by the drama All the Light We Cannot See as well as Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom, a docuseries about the murder of a young woman’s parents that’s a Top 10 show in dozens of countries at the moment.
As for the rest of the hottest Netflix shows in the world this week, the newest list is rounded out by other new Netflix releases as well as fan-favorite hits like Selling Sunset and The Fall of the House of Usher (the latter still holding strong in its fourth week as a Netflix Top 10 series worldwide). And as we do each week, we’ll take a closer look at all of it below.
Netflix Top 10 (October 30-Nov. 5)
The ranking below includes the top 10 (English-language) Netflix series in the world right now. Five of these Netflix shows, by the way, made their debut on the Top 10 list this week: All the Light We Cannot See, Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom, Unicorn Academy: Chapter 1, Selling Sunset: Season 7, and Mysteries of the Faith.
- All the Light We Cannot See — 9.8 million views
- Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom — 4.7 million views
- Bodies — 4.3 million views
- Life on Our Planet — 4.3 million views
- Unicorn Academy: Chapter 1 — 3.3 million views
- Get Gotti — 3.2 million views
- The Fall of the House of Usher — 2.8 million views
- Selling Sunset: Season 7 — 2.8 million views
- Beckham — 2.7 million views
- Mysteries of the Faith — 2.3 million views
Next, let’s zero in on the biggest Netflix series in the world this week, by far — the streamer’s adaptation of
All the Light We Cannot See — #1 on Netflix
As for the biggest Netflix show in the world right now, it was pretty much a given that director Shawn Levy’s limited series was going to dominate everything else this week. And that’s in spite of the fact that it’s got a pretty disappointing Rotten Tomatoes audience score and a seriously embarrassing critics’ score on the review site, making this four-episode series feel like perhaps the biggest Netflix disappointment of the year.
For those of you who loved the book that the show is based on (Anthony Doerr’s 2014 novel of the same name) and have been eagerly awaiting this Netflix release? I must strongly caution you against checking out the reviews first.
A sampling:
- Decider: “Its cowardice in exploring the knottier parts of World War II render it toothless, if not tonally incoherent.”
- From The Guardian: “The long-anticipated adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s bestselling and Pulitzer prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See is finally here. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely not.”
- RogerEbert.com: “Nothing about this final product suggests that Levy or Knight were the right choice to bring this story to the screen. Their vision for Doerr’s novel is shallow, messy, and, most unfortunately, instantly forgettable.”
- USA Today: “Some books should stay on the page.”
Plot-wise, All the Light We Cannot See is about a blind French girl and her father who flee German-occupied Paris with a legendary diamond to keep it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. My advice, just skip this Netflix series altogether and go straight to the source. The book is a monumental achievement and a deeply engrossing read that I cannot recommend highly enough.
