Most-Streamed Titles of 2025

Ranked by Nielsen Data

2025 Streaming Unwrapped

Ranked by Nielsen Data

Nielsen is celebrating the top streaming shows and movies of 2025 with its second annual ARTEY Awards. Named after our founder, Arthur C. Nielsen, the ARTEY Awards (Audience Rated Television Entertainment of the Year) are a testament to the stories and fan favorites that audiences couldn’t stop watching. This recognition—powered by Nielsen’s media intelligence—is reserved for the streaming titles that achieved the highest levels of viewership across the year, commemorating the content that truly defines the cultural conversation.

This past year, audiences spent a whopping 16.7 trillion minutes streaming—that’s about 11.6 billion days, or 31.7 million years’ worth. This is a 19% increase compared to 2024, when audiences spent 14 trillion minutes streaming, equivalent to 9.7 billion days or 26.6 million years.

2025 Top Overall Streaming Programs

Top Overall Streaming Title & Top Acquired Series

Bluey

45.2B

mins on Disney +

Animated Australian import Bluey is the returning champion this year, ranking as the overall most-watched streaming title of the year and most-watched acquired title. Bluey’s notably short episodes, which average just eight minutes in length, further underscore just how much the show resonates with kids (who make up more than half the audience) and families.

Runner up

Grey’s Anatomy

40.9B

mins on Netflix and Hulu

Grey’s Anatomy also repeated as the runner-up for most-streamed overall, but closed the gap a bit this time around. Beyond being an evergreen favorite, new episodes help keep Grey’s in our Streaming Top 10 week after week, and while it did not take the overall crown, it was the top streaming title among women 18-49.

Top New Streaming Original Series of 2025

Top New Original Drama Series

The Pitt

11.4B

mins on HBO Max

The Pitt may be the dark horse of this year’s ARTEY Awards. The HBO Max original hovered just outside the Top 10 before finally breaking in five times consecutively toward the end of its first season’s 15-episode run. The Pitt is also one of just a handful of shows exclusive to HBO Max that doesn’t also air on HBO’s linear network. With over 11 billion viewing minutes and an Emmy win in 2025, it’s clear that critics and viewers alike have embraced the gritty medical drama.

Runner up

The Residence

9.5B

mins on Netflix

Following its mid-March premiere on Netflix, The Residence charted in the Streaming Top 10 for six consecutive weeks and ultimately totaled over 9 billion viewing minutes on the year. The eccentric detective trope seems to be having a moment in the TV world as well: you have Rian Johnson’s Knives Out film series on Netflix, Poker Face on Peacock (also from Johnson), and High Potential and Will Trent on ABC. It’s no surprise that the lead character in The Residence, Cordelia Cupp, played by Uzo Aduba, also falls into that category.

Most-Binged Title

For this category, we examined streaming titles with extensive libraries (50+ episodes) and limited the calculations to viewers who had spent at least one episode’s worth of time with the show (20 min. or longer). While half-hour programs tend to be more binge-able, the level of dedication from audiences in viewing to programs across the board was astonishing.

Gunsmoke

241

episodes per viewer on

Paramount +, Pluto and Peacock

Last year, Gunsmoke competed for our Legacy Award, coming in just behind Little House on the Prairie. This year, it solidified itself as a streaming staple, more than doubling its total minutes from 10.2 billion in 2024 to 22.5 billion in 2025. This year it’s been crowned the most-binged streaming title of the year, averaging a whopping 241 episodes per viewer out of the 404 total episodes available to stream. A big contributor to its growth story is accessibility, as its availability on ad-supported platforms like Pluto enabled fans of the show to stream for free. Unsurprisingly for a show that premiered in 1955, Gunsmoke’s audience tends to skew older. It is also a favorite among Black viewers, who contributed 29% of watch-time across the year.

Runner up

American Dad!

143

episodes per viewer on Hulu

Adult animation is another very popular genre in streaming, and American Dad! finds itself in the same position it was last year: runner-up in the Most-Binged category. While it didn’t reach the same minute total as fellow Fuzzy Door production Family Guy, it seems viewers who watched at least one episode of American Dad! also tended to watch a lot more. That being said, both adult animation series were among the top five most-streamed shows by adults 18-34 in 2025.

Streaming Icon of the Year

Seth MacFarlane is Nielsen’s inaugural Streaming Icon of the Year. This is the first time Nielsen has bestowed this specific honor, designed to recognize a creator, actor, producer or writer whose vast body of work drives significant, sustained viewership across platforms.

Seth MacFarlane

The ARTEY for Streaming Icon of the Year was presented to Seth MacFarlane. This specific honor recognizes a creator, actor, producer or writer whose vast body of work drives significant, sustained viewership across platforms. As a prolific force in entertainment, MacFarlane was selected as the inaugural recipient for his time-tested ability to engage audiences. In 2025 alone, MacFarlane’s catalog of TV series and films generated over 60 billion viewing minutes across streaming platforms, a figure equivalent to about 116,000 years of time spent streaming.