This Christmas Classic Is Making A Last-Minute Push To Become Netflix’s #1 Movie Of 2020

Back on Feb. 27, 2020, Netflix
NFLX
premiered its Top 10 ranking system. This list—which was to be updated daily—was created to showcase which movies and shows were trending on the world’s most popular streaming platform.

The #1 film on that day was The Last Thing He Wanted, followed by flicks like A Haunted House, Girl on the Third Floor, A Bad Moms Christmas, etc. Essentially, the list back in February 2020 was full of movies that were popular at that moment in time…but wouldn’t go on to make much of an impact at Netflix.

That is except for one of the Top 10 movies on Feb. 27. In the #9 position was The Grinch, which had made its theatrical debut approximately 16 months earlier.

And to this day, that Dr. Seuss classic has continued to dominate the Top 10 charts.

So much so that, by the end of December, The Grinch could very well become the most successful movie on Netflix in 2020.

Ultimately, it’s difficult to determine which movies and shows are the most “successful” on Netflix. The streaming platform keeps a tight wrap on its numbers, and its metric for measuring popularity has changed over the years. But if we use the Top 10 charts as the foundation, then there’s just about no other film on Netflix that has performed as well as The Grinch has this year.

I know this because of a Top 10 ranking system I formed earlier this year. Basically, movies and shows receive points each day based on where they rank on the daily Top 10 charts. A film gets ten points for a first-place finish, six points for a fifth-place showing, one point for tenth place—etc.

And while several movies have performed well during various stretches of the year—such as Spenser Confidential, which gathered 236 points over 26 days in March; or The Old Guard, which put together 179 points over 24 days this past summer—only a select few movies have managed to remain popular throughout the year.

And that includes The Grinch, which has made a Top 10 appearance at least once during every single month in 2020.

While the first several months of the year were slow for the Dr. Seuss story, The Grinch gained some momentum in October—a month when the film finished in tenth place with 64 points. And then everything blew up in November, when The Grinch spent every single day on the Top 10 charts and finished in first place with 182 points.

That momentum has clearly carried into December, as The Grinch has already accrued 21 points. And if the animated classic can put together 79 more points over the next 28 days—which, at this point, seems like a given—then The Grinch will officially secure more Top 10 points than any other movie has on Netflix in 2020.

Here are the current 2020 rankings:

1. Despicable Me – 428 points
2. The Grinch – 349 points
3. The Angry Birds Movie 2 – 284 points
4. 365 Days – 282 points
5. Spenser Confidential – 236 points
6. Hubie Halloween – 224 points
7. The Wrong Missy – 187 points
8. The Lorax – 184 points
9. Extraction – 182 points
10. Angel Has Fallen – 182 points

As you can see, animated films are poised for success on Netflix. They seem to have inherited the watchability factor, which is why they’ve been able to dominate the Top 10 throughout the year.

And The Grinch has arguably had more success than any of those competitors. The film just saw its 56th consecutive appearance on the Top 10 charts (that’s a record, by the way) and its 77th non-consecutive appearance this year (that’s the second-most of any movie on Netflix).

And now as we head into the final days of 2020, it seems as though Despicable Me—which had been the year’s frontrunner for several months—will very soon relinquish its title to The Grinch.