‘The Boroughs’ and ‘Ladies First’ Post Disappointing Debut Weeks

Welcome to your weekly rundown of the biggest hits and misses on Netflix. For the week ending May 24th, 2026, we’re looking at a surprisingly sluggish start for The Duffer Brothers’ latest sci-fi venture, The Boroughs, and a lukewarm debut for the highly anticipated rom-com Ladies First. Plus, we’re checking in on returning favorites, diving into global trends, and analyzing everything in between.

First, the no-shows: Mating Season, the new animated series from the creative minds behind Big Mouth, failed to crack the charts. It’s only sitting at 15th in the global top 10s at the time of publishing and is already dropping. While recent seasons of Big Mouth did manage to chart (despite season-to-season drops), logging less than 2.1M views is a rough start for this new venture.

Other no-shows include another UK Untold doc, with Liverpool’s Miracle of Istanbul not making the top 10. Carizzma from Argentina also failed to rank.
Also, we might need to pour one out for KPop Demon Hunters, as its reign in the weekly top 10s looks poised to end either this week or very soon. It’s a crying shame, given it’s coming up on 52 straight weeks… Can the fans rally to help it snatch another incredible record? We’ll have to wait and find out.

Now let’s get into the headlines and charts!

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1. The Boroughs Debuts Weak In Week 1

Since its debut on Thursday, it’s been clear that this new sci-fi series from The Duffer Brothers—their second project of 2026—was going to face a slow march up the charts. As of publishing, the show has finally managed to topple Berlin S2 globally, suggesting we’ll see some strength in week 2. But you probably know where we’re going with this.

With just 35.3M hours and 5.6M views, the series is sitting quite low in the charts and is by no means a smash hit. We previously noted that the creators have a multi-season plan and that season 2 is already in active development. If it hopes to secure those extra seasons, it’ll need to pick up the pace and display some strong backend metrics (like completion rate) that we don’t necessarily have access to. Here’s how the series stacks up against other season 1 debuts in recent years that all dropped on a Thursday:

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2. Ladies First Also Weak In Week 1

Also on the weaker side this week is Ladies First. The new romantic comedy starring Rosamund Pike and Sacha Baron Cohen debuted with just 11.9M views, making it the third-weakest debut for any English-language Friday movie of 2026 so far.

Of course, those are a mix of genres, so let’s stack it up against some movies in recent years that are similar(ish) in theme:

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3. Swapped vs KPop Demon Hunters in Week 4

Swapped, now in week 4, suffered a 38.4% drop in viewing hours this week. As its curve begins to flatten in the chart below, it’s looking increasingly likely that it won’t pull off a KPop Demon Hunters-style run. Still, it’s putting considerable distance between itself and every other Netflix Original animated film the streamer has ever released. Overall, an incredible success.

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4. Nemesis and Man on Fire Fates Still Up In The Air

Nemesis and Man on Fire are the two big recent scripted series on the English-language side. Both are vying for renewals, but neither has received an official green light just yet. Neither is a runaway smash hit, and both are riding awfully close to the line that led to The Waterfront getting canceled last year. We’re 50/50 on both but leaning more towards renewal on Man on Fire.

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5. Kylie Minogue Isn’t A Global Star

Netflix’s big documentary series on Kylie Minogue received a massive press push in recent weeks, but with just 2.1M views and a #10 finish in its opening week, it opened significantly weaker than most other Wednesday celebrity/music docuseries in recent years.

What’s fascinating about this docuseries, however, is that Kylie’s popularity is heavily concentrated in select countries. She performed well in Australia and New Zealand (obviously, given that’s where she’s from), followed by the UK, which she has called home for most of her career. From there, we can see her appeal also translates well in the Nordics and Eastern Europe. Elsewhere, however, the docuseries was a complete no-show.

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6. Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine in Week 2

Once again, we come back to something we’ve said over and over: nine times out of ten, the opening few days are the most important. Dominating the charts for most of its first full week on Netflix (and its second week in the top 10s), Berlin season 2 is performing well compared to nearly every other Spanish show. But when stacked up against the first season of Berlin—which had a blistering start back in 2023—it’s still down 50%. The good news? That first season, now renamed to Berlin and the Jewels of Paris, reappeared in the top 10s, proving audiences are still heavily invested in the Money Heist universe.

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7. The WONDERfools Gets Nearly 200% Boost in Week 2

Last week, we caught some flak for suggesting that The WONDERfools received a significant marketing push. It’s a difficult metric to quantify, and while we acknowledge that everyone’s social feeds behave differently, we do track the majority of Netflix’s press releases and social output, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree! We brought it up because the K-drama had a slightly underwhelming first week, but its second week bounced back decently with 7.9M views.

Compared to other complete K-drama drops released on a Friday, it’s now firmly ranked among the middle performers in the category.

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8. English Movie Check-Ins

Apex and Remarkably Bright Creatures are still featured in the top 10s this week, with the former dropping 36% and the latter plummeting nearly 60%. Let’s plot them on the chart to see how well they’re performing against other 2026 movies. Apex is now putting a bit of distance between itself and The Rip, but it’s ultimately War Machine that remains the biggest movie of the year so far. Remarkably Bright Creatures is now sitting firmly behind the year’s top performers.

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Full List of Netflix Top 10s For Week Ending May 24th

English TV

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	Nemesis: Season 1	88,900,000 (61.64%)	11,400,000	2
2	The Boroughs: Season 1	35,300,000	5,600,000	1
3	Worst Ex Ever: Season 2	14,600,000 (-55.21%)	3,600,000	3
4	The Roast of Kevin Hart	9,000,000 (-76.68%)	3,100,000	2
5	Man on Fire: Season 1	16,800,000 (-44.55%)	3,000,000	4
6	Legends: Season 1	17,400,000 (-55.04%)	2,900,000	3
7	Raw: May 18, 2026	4,600,000 (-4.17%)	2,600,000	1
8	Perfect Match: Season 4	17,100,000 (51.33%)	2,400,000	2
9	Devil May Cry: Season 2	10,800,000 (-44.33%)	2,300,000	2
10	Kylie: Limited Series	6,400,000	2,100,000	1

English Film

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	The Crash	43,700,000 (136.22%)	27,600,000	2
2	Swapped	27,400,000 (-38.84%)	16,100,000	4
3	Ladies First	18,500,000	11,900,000	1
4	Goat	16,900,000 (9.74%)	10,100,000	2
5	Remarkably Bright Creatures	15,600,000 (-59.59%)	8,200,000	3
6	Apex	10,600,000 (-36.90%)	6,700,000	5
7	Stolen Baby: The Murder of Heidi Broussard	7,700,000 (83.33%)	5,300,000	2
8	In Her Shoes	11,200,000	5,100,000	1
9	No Hard Feelings	8,200,000	4,700,000	3
10	KPop Demon Hunters	6,400,000 (0.00%)	3,800,000	49

Non-English TV

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine: Limited Series	76,300,000 (65.51%)	10,300,000	2
2	The WONDERfools: Limited Series	74,800,000 (195.65%)	7,900,000	2
3	My Royal Nemesis: Limited Series	28,400,000 (17.36%)	4,100,000	3
4	Sold Out on You: Limited Series	24,900,000 (1.63%)	2,200,000	5
5	Between Father and Son: Season 1	6,100,000 (-57.04%)	2,200,000	2
6	Desi Bling: Season 1	10,400,000	2,100,000	1
7	The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek	8,000,000 (-52.10%)	1,600,000	3
8	Berlin and the Jewels of Paris: Limited Series	8,800,000	1,300,000	8
9	James.: Limited Series	2,700,000	1,100,000	1
10	If Wishes Could Kill: Limited Series	6,100,000 (-44.04%)	1,000,000	5

 

Non-English Film

Rank	Title	Hours	Views	Week #
1	KARTAVYA	7,700,000 (-10.47%)	4,200,000	2
2	Bride of the Year	4,100,000 (7.89%)	2,500,000	2
3	Coco Before Chanel	3,200,000	1,700,000	1
4	The Bus: A French Football Mutiny	2,000,000 (-31.03%)	1,500,000	2
5	Dhurandhar The Revenge (Raw & Undekha)	4,900,000 (-27.94%)	1,300,000	2
6	Number One	1,900,000	1,100,000	1
7	My Dearest Assassin	2,300,000 (-82.84%)	1,100,000	3
8	Je m’appelle Agneta	1,800,000 (-18.18%)	900,000	4
9	Village of the Dead	1,200,000 (-47.83%)	800,000	2
10	Hidden Enemy	1,300,000 (-38.10%)	700,000	2

That’s it for the top 10s this week—we’ll see you again next Tuesday!