‘Stranger Things’ Outdoes Disney on the Charts
Everyone spent the holidays doing two things: watching movies and finishing Stranger Things.
We just got the final batch of Nielsen Streaming Ratings for 2025, and they tell the story.
Photo: Disney
Disney’s December ascension ended with a mighty thud. Overnight, Home Alone died.
Meanwhile, everyone switched to Netflix instead, leading to an obvious outcome.
Stranger Things has outdone Disney on the charts, although it won the battle, not the war.
Stranger Kaboom
Photo: Pexel.com
How would I describe the final season of Stranger Things?
As a fan since day one, I found it a bit meandering and rather boring on the whole.
However, I quite liked the resolution and felt it finished the stories well.
I especially liked the final scene, the passing of the torch to a new generation of kids.
Photographer: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
Mine was most decidedly not the majority opinion, as some fans haaaaaaated the finale.
Rumors abounded that Netflix was hiding the real final episode to show the following week.
Seriously, if you missed it, Conformity Gate dominated Stranger Things fandom for a while.
People grew so obsessed because Stranger Things was a true pop culture phenomenon.
Photo: The New York Post
During a five-week period at the end of 2025, the series shattered streaming records.
First, the show earned 8.3 billion viewer minutes for the first half of the season.
Then, the series finale somehow broke that unprecedented record with another 8.65 billion viewer minutes.
Nielsen’s streaming charts display a bar chart, as does Hollywood Reporter’s site.
You can glance at that chart to realize just how dominant Stranger Things was at the end of 2025.
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Alas, Disney wasn’t so fortunate. If anything, its content got swept away by Stranger Things.
Few people stream multiple programs at once, which dramatically hurt Disney’s ratings.
As streaming viewers rang in the New Year, they were either watching Stranger Things or the NFL.
I get it, as we binged Stranger Things as well. It’s just what fans did as the year wound down.
Nielsen
Nielsen’s The Gauge reinforced the point with its stunning December data.
According to the streaming tracker, 47.5 percent of media consumers watched streaming content. That’s the highest total on record, with streaming only having recently surpassed linear television for the first time.
In December, the gap grew, with broadcast content managing just 41.6 percent of viewership.
That’s partially a byproduct of Netflix streaming multiple NFL games on Christmas Day.
On a seemingly unrelated note, Christmas Day broke a record for the highest viewer total.
Photo: TamirMoore.com
According to Nielsen, “streaming usage surged to 55.1 billion viewing minutes, shattering the previous single-day streaming record by 8% (12/25/2024, 51.2 billion minutes).”
Since Disney didn’t have any NFL games on that day, there wasn’t much it could do.
Photo: Forbes
Still, Disney’s hot streak during the lead-up to Christmas Day ended suddenly.
Christmas content was driving the bus on streaming from mid-November until then.
Deadline
During the chart I covered last week, 80 percent of the top consisted of holiday classics.
Now, we’re evaluating the charts for the week of December 29th through January 4th.
Movie Poster – Home Alone
Let’s just say that people grew bored with the antics of Kevin McCallister virtually overnight.
After winning the Nielsen Movies Chart for the previous week, Home Alone fell off the chart.
Scene from Home Alone
So, the classic film’s viewership dropped from more than one billion minutes to less than 236 million in a week.
Disney’s Streaming Hits for the Week
Bluey asks Aunt Trixie to take off Muffin’s cone while Bingo and Mum watch on. (Credit: Disney Channel)
Despite the looming threat of Vecna, some Disney content managed to chart during the week in question.
Here are Disney’s streaming hits for the end of 2025 and start of 2026:
- Homeland – 1.08 billion viewer minutes
- Bluey – 1.056 billion viewer minutes
- NCIS – 784 million viewer minutes
- Grey’s Anatomy – 697 million viewer minutes
- Bob’s Burgers – 672 million viewer minutes
- Law & Order – 660 million viewer minutes
- Percy Jackson & The Olympians – 574 million viewer minutes
- Zootopia – 260 million viewer minutes
- Avatar: The Way of Water – 249 million viewer minutes
Photo: Disney+
At this point, any week where Disney claims fewer than ten entrants is a poor showing.
Still, I’ll give Disney a pass on this one, as it was a perfect storm of contributing factors.
Photo: Disney/Netflix
Netflix’s Christmas Week lineup was nothing short of historic, and then we have the other thing.
As soon as people left their loved ones over the holidays, they stopped streaming Christmas movies.
Photo: Netflix
So, titles like Die Hard and A Christmas Story disappeared from the charts.
At least Disney got a bump from its December movie blockbusters.
Photo: Disney
Zootopia and Avatar’s prior films both charted as fans relished the new films in theaters.
To a larger point, Disney needs to create more new hits for the Originals chart, though.
Photo: Disney
I chronicled this throughout 2025, so it’s nice to see Percy Jackson & The Olympians consistently chart.
Disney really could use its own Stranger Things/Fallout, though. It’s a glaring weakness.
Photo: MickeyBlog
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Feature Photo: Netflix
