A Star Studded Disaster Film Leads Netflix's Top Charts

Well would you look at that, there's actually a good movie at the top of the Netflix charts. I kid, of course ... kind of. The biggest streaming platform in the world is notorious for the sheer volume of "content" it produces, and for the most part, that means a heck of a lot of, shall we say, forgettable films and shows — most of which you could swear you've seen but probably can't recall a single scene.

For instance, there was the time a truly abject Spanish slasher climbed the Netflix most-watched charts despite decidedly bland reviews. Or the time everyone watched the disappointing Michael Fassbender thriller "The Snowman" and seemingly proved that Netflix users will watch anything. Recently, we had a film that looked like it could actually be the real deal in the form of the Benicio Del Toro-led thriller "Reptile." Indeed, the movie had the Netflix charts in a chokehold for some time, but since the hype has died down and the reviews resulted in a disappointing 45% Rotten Tomatoes score, "Reptile" is surely doomed to be yet another piece of streaming media that disappeared from our collective memory as quickly as it came.

Now, however, it seems Netflixers the world over have proven that a film of some substance — a film that actually stands a chance of being remembered amid our cluttered cultural moment — can also dominate the charts. Much like "Reptile," the star-studded "Leave the World Behind" looked like it had real potential when the trailer dropped earlier in 2023. Now the film has arrived and seemingly succeeded where "Reptile" stumbled, not only topping the Netflix charts but by garnering good reviews in the process.

Directed by Sam Esmail, "Leave the World Behind" stars Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha'la, and Kevin Bacon. That impressive cast plays characters who, after all arriving at the same vacation home, collectively navigate what appears to be the end of the world. The psychological thriller/disaster movie is an adaptation of author Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel of the same name, and has proven popular with Netflixers around the world.

According to FlixPatrol, a site that aggregates global viewing data from streaming platforms, the movie was an instant hit as soon as it hit the service on December 8, 2023. As of December 11, 2023, "Leave the world Behind" is No. 1 in almost every one of the 93 countries in which it's available. That means it's claimed the top spot in an incredible 85 countries and looks set to take the remaining eight by the end of the week — come on Bangladesh and India, you can do better than the No. 5 and No. 6 spots!

Even more impressive is that fact that the film basically took No. 1 in almost all those countries on the day it debuted. In the small amount of countries where it didn't debut at the top of the charts, it managed to claw its way upward in the following three days, and will surely dominate the global chart when the official Netflix Top 10 data arrives next week — though, it should be noted that the Netflix viewing data is dodgy at best and the official Top 10 site was basically invented to distract us from flimsy viewership metrics.

In /Film's review of "Leave the World Behind," Chris Evangelista wrote that "it's bleak, it's weird, it's kind of funny," and that ultimately Sam Esmail's non-committal approach to providing any answers by the film's end "works." The movie has similarly impressed other critics, too, garnering a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, cementing its status as certifiably fresh. Most seem very impressed with the Esmail's unique approach to the disaster genre. The director crafted a slow burn of a thriller that might not lead to any concrete answers but clearly delivers enough in the way of great performances and effective suspense in the interim.

Not everyone was impressed by the film's ambiguous approach, however. Vulture's Bilge Ebiri, for instance, wrote that, "Esmail uses the story's ambiguity almost like a get-out-of-jail-free card, piling on the weird events without actually telling us what's happening. He half-asses it, in other words." Still, it's nice to see a movie that combines a stellar cast with mostly positive reviews topping the Netflix charts after a pretty uneven year that has seen the triumph of the vastly underrated "Amazing Spider-Man 2" finally getting its streaming due and the nadir that was the whole "The Snowman" debacle.

Whether we'll remember "Leave the World Behind" in years to come remains to be seen, but let's hope with Netflix's recent promise to focus more on quality rather than quantity, we get more streaming movies of this caliber going forward. In the meantime, we'll wait to see if "Leave the World Behind" can nab those final few No. 1 slots and go 93 for 93 by the end of the week.