Digital i is launching a new series: The Monthly Podium, powered by Digital i. Each piece looks at one market’s top 10 movies or shows across Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and, in select markets, HBO Max.
First up: the UK, May 2026. Here’s what the top 10 movies on each platform looked like in May, 2026
Summary:
- Netflix's UK top 10 in May 2026 ran almost entirely on 2026 releases, led by The Crash at 4.3M reach.
- Amazon Prime Video's top 10 skewed older, with drama the largest genre across four of the ten titles.
- Disney+'s top 10 split between new releases and a deep catalogue, with titles dating back to 1980.
1. Netflix
Netflix’s UK top 10 in May is dominated by titles released in 2026. Seven of the ten titles came out this year: The Crash, Apex, Swapped, Ladies First, Remarkably Bright Creatures, and both Untold UK documentaries. Individually, The Crash led the group at 4.3M, with the rest ranging down to Untold UK: Vinnie Jones at 0.9M. The three older titles on the list, Despicable Me 4 (2024), Vacation (2015) and The Brave One (2007), sit lower down the chart, each below 1.1M.
All ten titles on Netflix's UK chart this month fell into one of four genres: documentary, action, comedy, and drama. Three of the ten titles carry the documentary tag, The Crash, Untold UK: Jamie Vardy and Untold UK: Vinnie Jones. The Crash sits at number one, and the other two are both UK football stories.
2. Amazon Prime Video
Prime tells a different story. Only two of its top 10 are from this year, Jack Ryan: Ghost War at 2.2M and Greenland 2: Migration at 1.5M. The rest of the list runs from 2021 to 2025, led by The Long Walk (2025) at 1.1M. Mortal Kombat, the lone 2021 title, sits at 0.5M.
Genre-wise, drama is the largest single tag on the chart. Four of the ten titles carried a drama tag: Jack Ryan: Ghost War, Hunting Season, The Smashing Machine and Not Without Hope. Sci-Fi appeared on three titles, Greenland 2: Migration, Altered and Mortal Kombat, and comedy on two, Good Fortune and Sidelined: The QB and Me.
3. Disney+
Disney+ goes further still. Two 2026 titles, one 2025 title, and seven that stretch back to 1980: three Star Wars films, Toy Story 3, Frozen, Encanto and The Devil Wears Prada. Five of those seven have been around longer than Disney+ itself, which only launched in 2019. The Punisher: One Last Kill led the newer releases at 0.9M, while the older library titles each sat at 0.3M to 0.5M.
With The Devil Wears Prada 2 hitting theatres on 1 May and Toy Story 5 launching on 19 June, audiences perhaps got the perfect excuse to stream the originals ahead of the new releases, helping The Devil Wears Prada take the third spot and Toy Story 3 the sixth.
"May's UK data reveals three fundamentally different bets: Netflix riding the wave of fresh 2026 releases, Prime maintaining a deeper catalogue with drama at its core, and Disney+ splitting the difference between new tentpoles and library depth." - Vicky Vipond, Research Team Lead
4. The picture across all three
Same market, same month, same measurement, and three different answers to what’s actually pulling an audience. Netflix's UK chart barely touched anything from before this year. Prime sits in the year-or-two-old middle ground, with drama rarely far from the picture. Disney+'s chart splits cleanly between new releases up top and a deep library underneath. One market snapshot, three different stories.
5. Reach is one part of the picture
Reach tells you how many accounts started watching a title. It doesn’t tell you how much of it they watched, whether they came back for more, or how many times they streamed it.
For anyone weighing a licensing deal, a renewal, or where to put the next content investment, bringing in more metrics is the obvious next step. Completion rate, view-through rate and total streams, alongside reach, give a far more granular view of how a monthly top 10 list actually translates into keeping subscribers glued to their screens.
"The particular standout is Netflix's animated film Swapped, which achieved an extremely successful launch, outpacing even KPop Demon Hunters' opening performance in its first few weeks. Of course, KPop Demon Hunters maintained that trajectory to become Netflix's most-watched title in history. What May shows is that a strong launch window is just the beginning; sustained momentum is what separates a solid performer from a record-breaker." - Vicky Vipond, Research Team Lead
Next in The Monthly Podium: France, across Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+.
