Attention Span

Netflix Movie Runtime and Viewership, January - June 2025

Between January and June of 2025, 11,390,100,000 (11.39 billion!) views were shared between 1851 different movies on Netflix.

In this sea of movies, 10 features stand out from the rest, representing a combined 897,100,000 (897 million!) views:

These movies vary in genre (from Animation to Romance) and rating (from PG to R). Straw, a serious drama following a single mother on an extremely difficult day, has very little in common with The Secret Life of Pets 2, a animated comedy extremely popular young children (The Secret Life of Pets (the first one) just barely misses out on top 10, by 800,000 views).

Despite their differences, these movies are relatively similar in runtime. If you watched a movie on Netflix in this time period, it could be anywhere from a measly 9 minutes long to a staggering 224 minutes long.

But the most popular movies (including our top 10) are found within a ~45 minutes window, ranging from 80 minutes (just shy of 1.5 hours) to 130 minutes (just over two hours) long. This, it seems, is the sweet spot for our attention spans.





Comparing Runtime (in minutes) to Views (rounded to the nearest 100,000 views) gathered from Netflix's What We Watched the First Half of 2025 Report, we can see which movies are most favorable to our attention spans. Our top 10 movies (highlighted in red) stand out from the rest of the pack.

If we ignore these standout movies, we can begin to pick apart the genre-specific trends in movie runtimes and viewership.





Zooming into the main cluster of movies, we can see that most movies are between 80 minutes and 150 minutes long. These movies are long enough to watch in a single sitting, but not so long that they deter viewers.

The Average Netflix Movie in this time period is 108 minutes long, has 6.3 million views, and contains the words "2, Part, My, and, Movie" in the title. A lot of sequels, and lot of self referential titles.

Animation movies are more popular and shorter than the average movie. Most are between 85 and 100 minutes long.

If you want to make a popular movie, it might be in your best interest to make it animated and keep it under 100 minutes.

Action movies tend to be longer, with more popular action movies being found in the 100 minute to 140 minute range.

Action movies can run long and still get a lot of views, which is not the case for other genres.

Romance movies have fewer views overall. Most fall between 90 minutes and 130 minutes, and high viewcount movies don't appear to have a specific length advantage.

In fact, if you're making a Romance movie, avoid a 110 minute runtime - these seem to struggle.

Comedies tend to be shorter, with most under or around 120 minutes long. Again, there doesn't seem to be a specific length advantage for high viewcount.

While Horror Movies overall have lower view counts, the most popular ones are between 90 and 100 minutes long. Shorter movies are your ticket to success in this genre.

Dramas tend to be longer, but their length doesn't see to improve view counts. The most popular dramas in this time period are either 90 minutes or 130 minutes long.

Adventure movies are not as common as other genres. These movies tend to be longer, but the most popular exampels are on the shorter side of the genres.

Documentaries are shorter than other genres, with the longest one in this dataset at a relatively short 122 minutes. Not as many Documentaries are found on Netflix as other categories, but a few manage to get a good number of views.

If there are two winners early 2025, they are Animation and Action movies.

Both genres manage to capture a lot of views, making them the most popular genres on Netflix in the first half of 2025.





Many, many factors can influence a movie's runtime, and it's usually not clear how long a movie will be until it is made. Genre conventions play a role, as can director's styles, target audiences, and production constraints. Furthermore, while the most popular movies are found in this 45 minute range, so are most Netflix movies: a higher density of movies means a higher chance some of them will be super popular.

When someone sits down to watch a movie on Netflix, they will probably choose something that fits their available time. If they're watching with kids, they might go for something shorter. If they have a free evening, they might pick something longer.

Despite these nuances, it seems that our attention spans are best suited for movies that are around 1.5 to 2 hours long.