The upcoming year is set to bring a fresh wave of entertainment with new movies, shows, and a plethora of content for us to indulge in. However, as we eagerly anticipate these new releases, it begs the question: will we easily forget the titles that captivated us in 2023? Reflecting on those memorable evenings spent binge-watching our favorite shows or enjoying a night out at the theaters for a new film, it's essential to acknowledge the lasting impact of these experiences.
In light of this, we delve into a compilation of the top 10 most streamed movies & tv shows 2023. It's worth noting that not all the featured films were released in 2023; some 2022 releases continued to hold their ground on streaming platforms. Additionally, some of the latest titles may not have made it to the list, as they had limited time to compete with the enduring popularity of content that has been streaming for an extended period.
Top 10 Most Streamed T.V. Shows 2023
Gen V
When it looked like "The Boys" was getting too big, their spin-off show "Gen V" stepped in with the next generation of Super Heroes to give the show some new life (or compound V). "Gen V" is just as bloody, raunchy, and gleefully crazy as the main series.
What makes it so great is that it focuses on the characters and works important themes like generational trauma, body dysmorphia, cyberbullying, etc., into the plot of the first season. This "Boys" spin-off is likely the first big-budget soap to write Gen-Z characters with real depth. It shows that kids are the future.
Cunk On Earth
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker and actress Diane Morgan have made some sketches and miniseries about Philomena Cunk over the last ten years. Cunk is a T.V. documentary host who is completely stupid and sure that everything she says is right.
This new limited series finally Cunk'ed American viewers. In it, Philomena tries to summarize all the significant events in human history while comparing them to Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam" a lot of the time. The show that consistently made people laugh the most this year, even more than What We Do in the Shadows, which almost made the list.
The Fall Of The House Of Usher
The Sacklers have had a rough few years on T.V., with problematic roles in "Painkiller" and "Dopesick" and less direct roles in "Pain Hustlers" and, well, "Succession." But it was Mike Flanagan who really enjoyed seeing the biggest killers in capitalism go down.
He turned the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe into a huge miniseries about how great it would be for the rich to get what's coming to them. Throughout eight episodes, "The Fall of the House of Usher" twists one Poe story of woe after another.
It also builds up the titular house, which is based on a drug similar to fentanyl, only to bring it down one brick at a time. It might not be the scariest or most shocking horror book of the year, but Flanagan likes the way horror looks more than how it works.
"I'm A Virgo"
Boots Riley is the person you can trust to look into America's many problems. The writer/director, best known for his hit first movie "Sorry to Bother You," went back to criticizing American standards with "I'm a Virgo." Jharrel Jerome plays Cootie, a 13-foot-tall guy from Oakland who was raised in secret by his aunt Carmen Ejogo and uncle Mike Epps.
He wants to explore the world outside his window, and the striking visual style that reminds of Adult Swim makes him seem even more significant, both in a physical and a figurative sense.
When Cootie is accidentally shown to the neighborhood (and the world), he becomes an instant symbol. White people objectify and label him, some wanting to use him for money and others believing he is the messiah that their group has been waiting for.
Poker Face
New artists are putting on an old-school show. Rian Johnson wrote and directed Glass Onion with Natasha Lyonne, who created and starred in Russian Doll. The result is a fun and intelligent homage to T.V. mystery shows from the 1970s, such as Columbo and Banacek.
Each episode starts with a murder, but then the camera pans back to show that Lyonne's character, Charlie Cale, who has an uncanny knack for telling when someone is lying, was watching from the edges of the earlier scenes. Every week, she solves a crime, which shows that the only problem with solo procedurals is that they need to be made better.
Beef
This year, Netflix took some hits in the public eye, both from the strike and the growing belief that the company is more interested in following a formula than being creative. Their 2023 story was broken by this great drama about two people from very different backgrounds who run into each other, bounce off of each other, and run into each other again.
Amy Lau (Ali Wong, in one of the best performances of her career) almost hits Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) in the parking lot, which sets off a chain of events that will change both of their lives. In that way, it is a show from the 2020s. In a lot of ways, this decade has been marked by strife and crises. "Beef" knows how those turns and bends can lead to entirely different places.
Reservation Dogs
The most daring thing in Sterlin Harjo's series that breaks genres is a physical leap. Bear (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), and Cheese (Lane Factor) are stuck in California at the beginning of Season 3. At the end of Season 2, they finally went on the long-awaited trip to the coast, where they found peace for a lost friend whose death started the series.
But the last episodes don't go back to their Oklahoma home right away; instead, they go on a lot of different trips. There's an open-ended quality to the first thirty minutes that makes room for new purpose and sadness in the middle and a moving tribute to the community at the end.
"Rez Dogs" has always been brave enough to change tone, shift perspective, and go against what people expect. But its ending feels both planned and unplanned in a way that only extraordinary stories can. Okay, there's a lot of life there, a lot of energy and knowledge.
The Last Of Us
Everyone in 2023 didn't think they needed another sad zombie show, especially one that was based on a video game. There have already been 150 seasons of "The Walking Dead" and countless other post-apocalyptic stories. Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, on the other hand, knew better. They made a drama out of the worn-out bones of other dramas and turned them into something new and valuable.
Joel (Pedro Pascal), a jack-of-all-trades, is in charge of keeping Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a beloved young girl, safe as they travel through a dangerous part of America that a deadly fungal plague has destroyed. They barely stay away from cannibals, Nazis, the infected, and their scary pasts along the way.
Dead Ringers
"Dead Ringers" is one of the scariest T.V. shows I can remember seeing recently, with some of the best actors in the business giving outstanding performances. Rachel Weisz gives two gripping performances: one as the softer, kinder, sadder Beverly and the other as the rowdy, mischievous, and maybe murderous Eliot Mantle.
The costume and hair teams also did a great job of making the two characters stand out. Beverly wears delicate jewelry and keeps her hair neat, while Eliot's hair hangs loose, just like her personality. Giving birth is a horrible thing to watch, and "Dead Ringers" makes sure to show this with a lot of scary images.
But Jennifer Ehle, who plays the scene-stealing Rebecca Parker, the billionaire who funds the Mantle Center, is the scariest person in the ensemble cast, which also includes Poppy Liu as the mystery housekeeper of the Mantle twins named Greta.
Every word she says is poison, and even when she doesn't say anything, the poison keeps seeping out of her pores and unblinking eyes. The show is worth watching just for her; she's like a horror movie in herself.
The Bear
The first season of the half-hour Chicago restaurant thriller made by F.X. was exciting; even though almost every scene was so stressful, it made you want to have a panic attack. For Season Two, The Bear took it easy a bit, which let Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and the rest of the cast enjoy turning their Italian beef sandwich shop into a high-end restaurant.
There was still a lot of stress, especially in the season finale and a Christmas flashback show with a lot of guest stars. But there were also many beautiful times of happiness, like when Marcus (Lionel Boyce) went to Copenhagen to learn how to make the best desserts and when Richie got an internship at the best restaurant in the world. It is a show that knows how to make people feel, both good and bad.
Top 10 Most Streamed Movies In 2023
The Super Mario Bros.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is an animated comic action movie made by Universal Pictures. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic directed the movie, and Matthew Fogel wrote the script. The movie is a version of Nintendo's popular Mario video game series.
Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Charlie Day, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, and other well-known stars did voice work for the movie. The movie did very well at the box office and even broke a few records when it came out in April 2023.
Spider-Man - Across The Spider-Verse
Sony Pictures will make the animated superhero movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in 2023. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson all helped direct the movie. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham wrote the script. As the second movie in Sony's Spider-Verse series, the movie came out.
Some of the big names in acting who did the voices for the characters in the movie are Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Jake Johnson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya, Karan Soni, and many more. The movie did well at the box office and with critics. It was also a significant milestone for animation movies in 2023.
John Wick - Chapter 4
Lionsgate's John Wick: Chapter 4 is a neo-noir action drama. Chad Stahelski directed the movie, and Shay Hatten and Michael Finch wrote the script. With this movie, the first John Wick movie series, which ran from 2014 to 2023, came to an end.
Essential parts in the movie were played by Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, George Georgiou, Ian McShane, Bill Skarsgård, Hiroyuki Sanada, and others. People who saw and reviewed the movie loved it, and they gave it high marks for its action scenes, visuals, and acting.
Barbie
After making $1.4 billion, Greta Gerwig's comedy hit "Barbie" is now available to watch on Max. It was the highest-grossing movie of 2023 and Warner Bros.'s all-time biggest earner. After getting 9 Golden Globe nominations and a record-setting 18 Critics Choice Award nominations, the movie is expected to get a lot of Oscar nominations.
Who else has unrealistic ideas about what makes someone beautiful? Stars in movies. Why is Gerwig's take on the trendy toy line so clever? Because, like Barbie, they are role models. Margot Robbie looks a lot like Barbie, but her confidence makes her performance great. She made the kind of family movie that Gerwig probably wished she could have seen as a child. She put a message (or several messages) inside Barbie's hollow hourglass shape.
Fair Play
Owen Gleiberman ranked "Fair Play" as the ninth-best movie of 2023, stating that it is similar to a drama that Adrian Lyne would have made in the 1990s. The movie is about two hedge fund analysts, Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor), who are in a serious relationship but have to keep it a secret because it's against the rules of their company.
But it might also be the most honest and up-to-date picture of the fast-paced, dangerous world of banking since "Wall Street" by Oliver Stone. Chloe Domont, who wrote and directed the movie, uses jargon-heavy dialogue that is full of greed to make her characters come across as convincing.
Once Emily gets the promotion Luke was aiming for, their relationship ends thanks to enough psychology and emotional playacting to make the movie an accurate, heightened projection of the world after #MeToo.
The Killer
"The Killer" by David Fincher is based on a series of French graphic novels by Alexis Nolent. The movie was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote "Fight Club" for Fincher. The movie stars Michael Fassbender as a sniper who falls apart after a bad job.
Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard, and Sophie Charlotte are also in the group. The movie had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it got a lot of attention. The mood is charged just by seeing Fassbender do push-ups while wearing black rubber gloves. "Well, I Wonder" by the Smiths plays in the killer's ears to help him get into the groove.
This makes the needle drop sound like a murderous pop opera. As we watch the target move around the apartment, the movie creates the kind of hypnotic tension that makes us think of "The Day of the Jackal" or certain scenes from Brian De Palma movies. At this point, we understand that movies have put us not only in the killer's shoes but also on his side. We want him to do it.
The Little Mermaid
After making $568 million around the world at the box office over the summer, Disney's live-action "The Little Mermaid" made its debut on Disney+. Halle Bailey plays the famous part of Ariel. Melissa McCarthy plays Ursula, Javier Bardem plays King Triton, and Jonah Hauer-King plays Prince Eric.
Bailey should be enough for any crowd to want Disney to bring this old favorite back. You should hear her sing "Part of Your World" with the same passion that made Jennifer Hudson famous when she sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going." There is a new star.
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
As Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny showed, the fifth time wasn't the trick. In this new (and last) story in the long-running series, Indy is a much older man in 1969 who is trying to deal with how things are changing. It will be up to Indiana Jones to save the world again when some of his old Nazi enemies show up. Along the way, he will see some old friends again.
Dial of Destiny isn't as bad as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but its $300 million budget doesn't show on the screen, so it never had a chance to do well at the box office and be the big finale that everyone wanted it to be.
Action movies with grumpy 80-year-old stars aren't viral these days. Dial of Destiny's lackluster box office performance means Harrison Ford will never have to don that famous fedora hat and whip again.
Ant-Man And The Wasp - Quantumania
There would be no list of the movies that made the most money at the box office without some Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Mania, the third movie in the Ant-Man series, is the most critical MCU movie coming out in 2023.
As Scott Lang (Paul Rudd, The Shrink Next Door), Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly, Lost), and others are taken to the Quantum Realm, the stakes have been raised in Quantumania. Scott meets Kang the Conqueror in the minuscule world. Kang is a time-traveling lousy guy played by Jonathan Majors of Lovecraft Country, who is set to be Marvel's next Thanos-type lousy guy.
As the first movie in Phase 5 of the MCU, Quantum Mania hints at the main story of Marvel's Multiverse Saga, which is similar to the Infinity Saga. Even though it made over $200 million in ticket sales in the United States, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Mania did poorly at the box office and got the worst CinemaScore in the history of the MCU.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which came out in May and did well, brought back the Marvel brand, so maybe Quantum Mania was just a blip on an otherwise perfect filmography.
Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan's biographical classic Oppenheimer is his first movie in two years after a break. Cillian Murphy, who has worked with Nolan for a long time, plays a significant role for the first time in one of the director's movies.
He is joined by Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and Robert Downey Jr. The story is about Oppenheimer's life, mostly about his work on the Manhattan Project and the security hearing in 1954 that led to his security clearance being taken away.
Nolan may have made his best movie yet with Oppenheimer. Both reviews and audiences have praised the movie, and many people think it will finally bring Nolan to the stage of the Dolby Theater. Impressively, the movie has also been a massive hit at the box office, earning a considerable amount of money.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is The Most-Watched T.V. Show In 2023?
"NFL Sunday Night Football" was the most-watched T.V. show in the United States in the 2022/2023 season, with roughly 18.14 million viewers.
What Is The #1 Movie Right Now, 2023?
Barbie. 2023 will go down in cinema history as the Year of Barbie.
What Is The #1 Series On Netflix?
Fool Me Once (2024) Author Harlan Coben is taking over Netflix with adaptations of his mystery novels and thrillers, including British TV shows The Stranger and Stay Close.
What Is The #1 Show In America?
Football, of course, remains the dominant story in broadcast and cable.
Final Thoughts
As 2023 draws to a close, the "top 10 most streamed movies & TV shows 2023" stand as a testament to the resilience and innovation within the entertainment realm. These offerings, ranging from daring series exploring generational themes to blockbuster movies breaking records, have not only entertained but also mirrored the societal shifts of the times.
In a landscape marked by streaming giants, changing business strategies, and a hunger for captivating narratives, these top-streamed selections have left an indelible mark on the ever-evolving tapestry of digital entertainment in 2023.