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Fandom is one of the driving forces behind digital content creation. Tumblr GIFsets promoting TV shows, four-hour YouTube essays about the Star Wars hotel, hundreds of millions of words of fanfiction, and countless views and comments on content creators’ videos (not to mention the channel subscriptions and merch purchases) are all born out of fan fervor. Platforms like YouTube have increasingly recognized how powerful fandoms can be–and now Netflix seems to be catching on, too.

For years, Netflix, like virtually all other major streaming services, hasn’t allowed people to take screenshots or screen recordings of what they’re watching. If you try to record any kind of footage from what you’re watching, you’ll get a blank black square. This prevents some piracy methods, sure, but it also hinders fans who just want to share a favorite shot or talk about a favorite clip on social media.

At this year’s Mipcom, where Spain is the Country of Honor, Spanish director J.A. Bayona hosted a masterclass in which he talked about inspiration, anchoring his stories in a moment and the importance of improvisation.

Early on, Bayona was asked to talk through his creative process, from picking a project to writing to filming and everything in between. According to the director, the first step is finding something that resonates with him and anchoring everything else he does to that point.

“I need to feel a connection to a feeling idea that resonates with me. That’s something that, if it’s strong enough, will last the process of making a film, which is a very long and sometimes painful process. You really need to have a very strong connection to the material in order to sustain that,” he explained.

Using his 2012 natural disaster hit “The Impossible,” for which...

Spain is having a moment.

If that sounds familiar, it might be because Spain’s been having a moment for the last few years. The bump came when the government launched the Spain Audiovisual Hub in 2021, offering strategic backing of the industry by pumping 1.6 billion euros ($1.73 billion) into it.

In the three years since, Spain has made progress on all four of the Hub’s main areas of focus: attracting foreign investments and shoots, improving financial and tax instruments, training talent — especially women — as well as regulatory reforms and the elimination of administrative barriers.

Now, Spain has been designated MIPCOM’s 2024 Country of Honor, and the Spanish government has launched an ambitious campaign called Spain, Where Talent Ignites aimed at boosting the country’s global recognition, reputation and marketability of Spanish productions, and growing business opportunities in an increasingly competitive landscape.

“The aim of the campaign is to associate the Spanish audiovisual industry with talent,...

J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow is one of Netflix’s most-watched movies of this year so far yet the director revealed today it was mainly intended for an older audience.

Speaking at MIPCOM, the Oscar-nominee said his creative team were “surprised” when the movie about the Uruguayan rugby team’s survival experience after their plane crashed in the Andes proved to be a “phenomenon” with younger audiences.

“Society of the Snow was meant to be for a more mature audience,” said Bayona. “When I look back it makes sense because it had young actors going through a difficult situation and the younger audience felt related to these characters. But it was never intended to be a film for young people and it became one.”

Society of the Snow, which launched in late 2023, was third in Netflix’s most-watched movies of the first half of this year, and top...

Laura Fernández Espeso, who took over as CEO of The Mediapro Studio (Tms), in 2020, has taken the Iberian powerhouse global. The group now has 52 offices across 31 countries, and this summer launched operations across the U.S. and Canada. “We’ve opened offices in Los Angeles after operating in Miami and New York over the last few years,” she says, Tms US & Canada fulfills our goal to create, produce, and distribute content in English, intended for audiences all over the world.”

Tms’ English-language credits to date include the Paolo Sorrentino-directed limited series The Young Pope and The New Pope, for HBO/Max, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s family adventure series The Famous Five for the BBC, as well as such features as A Perfect Day, Hunting Ava Bravo, and Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths.

Indie film is where Fernández Espeso got her start in the industry, more than 20 years ago.

J.A. Bayona’s Oscar-nominated “Society of the Snow,” Netflix series hit “Money Heist” and Prime Video’s “Red Queen” have spearheaded the success of Spanish content worldwide, per a new report unveiled at Mipcom by Spanish trade and investment body Icex and entertainment analytics org, Parrot Analytics.

Data they presented at the annual confab in Cannes revealed that Spain-originated content has generated an estimated $5.1 billion in global streaming revenue over the past four years.

For 2024, Spanish content is expected to deliver $1.4 billion in global revenue, reflecting a steep demand across key regions and confirming the country’s dominance in the non-English content market. Spain is Mipcom’s country of honor in this year’s edition.

“Society of the Snow,” in particular, was the #4 movie driving the most subscriber sign-ups for Netflix and ranked second among movies that contributed to the giant streamer’s subscriber renewals in Q1 2024, according to the report.

Spanish TV fiction continues to reinforce its position at the forefront of global TV, maintaining its edge, its impact on streaming services and overseas reach. Recognizing its merits, Mipcom celebrates Spain as its 2024 Country of Honor. That honor is based on market performance.

Through Oct. 6 this year, seven Spanish titles hit No. 1 on Netflix’s global non-English TV series charts for a total of 15 of 40 weeks, just ahead of South Korea (13). Japan (three) and France (two) trailed well behind.

“Local Spanish TV shows as diverse as ‘Berlin,’ ‘The Asunta Case’ and ‘Raising Voices’ led the way due to their authenticity and quality,” explains Verónica Fernández, Netflix director, series & films in Spain and Portugal.

At Prime Video, the Dopamine-Focus series “Red Queen” debuted Feb. 29 as No. 1 in more than 20 countries, including Spain.

That successful streaming performance extends to Spanish movies. J.A. Bayona’s 2023 multi-award winning “Society of the Snow” is...

Exclusive: After announcing his new company and partnering with Amazon MGM Studios, Scott Stuber has found his first major exec hire as Nick Nesbitt has been set as President of Stuber’s production company. This comes after recently entering into a wide-ranging multi-year film partnership with Amazon MGM Studios to finance and release movies via the relaunched historic United Artists label. The company will produce several films per year under the storied United Artists (UA) label for release both theatrically and via Prime Video. Stuber’s new entity is based out of Amazon MGM Studios’ Culver City lot.

“During our many years working closely together, I’ve seen Nick consistently shepherd ambitious film projects, identify compelling stories for features, and develop trusted relationships with top talent,” said Stuber. “As we partner with Amazon to relaunch the legendary UA brand and kick off a wide-ranging slate of films, I am thrilled...

The 21st Sevilla European Film Festival will take place this Nov. 8-16, and Variety has been given an exclusive heads-up on this year’s competition juries that will choose the winners of the Gold and Silver Giraldillos as well as the special judges’ prize and a new award, the Puerta América Award.

Dedicated specifically to contemporary European film, Sevilla aims to bring the best in European cinematographic culture to the south of Spain for dialogues between the new artists and recognized figures from the industry while also dedicating space to new media for cinematographic expression.

Jurists for this year’s main competition section include British producer David Puttnam, who will chair the jury, Oscar-winning British actor Jeremy Irons, Rome Film Fest artistic director Paola Malanga, French programmer Eva Rekettyei, and French-Algerian director Mounia Meddour (“Papicha”).

Accompanying today’s jury announcements, Sevilla shared details about its new Puerta América Award, granted...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

New Zealand-based Black Mandala Films has picked up sales rights to “1978,” a horror film that starts with a soccer match.

The film will have its world premiere on Friday at the Sitges fantasy and horror film festival in Spain. It will have its U.S. festival premiere at Screamfest on Oct. 12.

Directed by Luciano and Nicolás Onetti, from a screenplay by Luciano Onetti, Nicolás Onetti and Camilo Zaffora, the story is set during the World Cup final between Argentina and Holland, and against the backdrop of a military dictatorship. A group of torturers breaks into a home and kidnaps a group of young people before taking them to a clandestine detention center. What begins as an inhumane interrogation turns into a true martyrdom: the wrong group of people has been kidnapped. They turn out to be part of a macabre cult guided by an unknown supernatural force and the...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

NBCUniversal’s streaming service Peacock had a big July and a massive August thanks almost exclusively to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Netflix had an equally massive January-to-June, in part because of all NBCUniversal’s animated movies available on the streamer.

In case you’ve been living under a mountain of other Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, on Thursday, September 19, Netflix shared more than 16,000 lines of its viewership data from the first half of 2024. It lists every show or movie watched on Netflix around the globe, how many views each had, and for how many hours they were watched. Light reading material for us.

Twice a year, there are endless takeaways from Netflix’s data dump. One of the big ones from this set was just how dominant NBCUniversal’s animated films are — only not on NBCUniversal’s own streaming platform, Peacock.

The top six animated films (and nine of 10!) on Netflix over...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Audiovisual from Spain, operated by Spanish governmental export and investment org Icex, hosted a short film screening, roundtable discussion and cocktail party at the San Sebastian Festival on Tuesday evening to promote its new screen industry promotion campaign: Spain, Where Talent Ignites.

At the city’s historic Tabakalera culture center, Icex CEO Elisa Carbonell explained, “This campaign aims to help build an image associated with the country related to transversality, diversity and the richness of its creativity. There is talent in all countries, but not everyone values it equally. Our commitment is to put talent at the top.”

The centerpiece of the evening’s festivities and the Where Talent Ignites campaign, which will host events at Mipcom, AFM and the Busan festival in the coming weeks, is a short musical fashion film titled “La causa del accidente que provocó el incendio,” which premiered in front of a packed house.

Directed...

From Sept. 25 to Oct. 2, the 20th edition of Mexico’s Monterrey Film Festival will screen nearly 100 films, culled from world-class festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca and SXSW. The festival will stage Mexican, Latin American and world premieres of fiction and documentary features, many by first-time film directors. Below are 10 outstanding titles:

“The Blue Star,” Javier Macipe, Spain, Argentina (Mexican premiere)

An Ibero-American co-production between Fernando Bovaira’s Mod Producciones of Spain (“Biutiful”), Macipe’s El Pez Amarillo, Cimarrón (“Society of the Snow”) and Prisma, Argentina, the 90s-set film centers on Mauricio, a famous Spanish rock musician who decides to travel across Latin America in a bid to reconnect with his roots. He meets Don Carlos, an aging musician who’s struggling despite having composed some of his country’s most famous folk songs. Carlos, like a musical Master Miyagi, takes in the visitor, and together they form a quirky, Quixote-like duo destined for commercial failure.

Netflix Spain unveiled two new film projects at the San Sebastian International Film Festival that it is producing with Spanish filmmakers and production companies.

Carlos Sedes’ La Viuda Negra (which translates as The Black Widow) is being produced by Ramón Campos’ film and TV outfit Bambú Producciones, whose credits include Cable Girls and Isaki Lacuesta’s One Year, One Night.

The race-against-time thriller is about a body found in a parking lot in Valencia and the unexpected suspect the investigation digs up. It is now in pre-production.

Sedes is best known for TV series Fariña and, more recently, The Asunta Case.

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

San Sebastian — Released Sept. 21, Netflix’s latest data dump for first half 2024 estimated that non-English stories were “hugely popular,” making up early a third of all its viewing. Titles from Spain led the way, Netflix claimed, citing “Society of the Snow”, “The Asunta Case” (31 million) and “Raising Voices” (25 million).

Little wonder that at €1 billion, Spain ranked second in Europe, after the U.K., in 2023 in global streamer investment on original content, according to a European Audiovisual Observatory report this month.

Now a just presented report on Sunday at the San Sebastián Film Festival has added another wrinkle to estimates of the vast moneys moved by Spain’s film and TV industries.

From the Spain Film Commission, in collaboration with Profilm, Spain’s association of line producers, and conducted by Olsberg·Spi, the report, entitled the Economic Impact of International Productions in Spain, is the first study of the total knock-on...

San Sebastian — At one of the biggest industry gatherings at this year’s San Sebastián Festival, Netflix has announced new Spanish movies from “Cable Girls” showrunner Ramón Campos and “Cross the Line” director David Victori, as it unveiled new talent details on four other banner titles.

Produced by Ramón Campos at his Madrid-based label Bambú Producciones, also behind “Grand Hotel,” “Velvet” and “Fariña,” and directed by Carlos Sedes “The Asunta Case,” “Cable Girls”), murder mystery “La Viuda Negra” begins with a body stabbed seven times is discovered in a car park in Valencia. The prime suspect for the city’s Homicide Group is Maje, the dead man’s Maje, young and kind widow to whom the deceased had been married for less than a year.

Billed as a psychological thriller, Victori’s “Cortafuego” is produced by Anxo Rodríguez y Ferrán Tomás of ESpotlight Media and stars a topnotch cast of Joaquín Furriel,...

After realizing his dream of winning the Palme d’Or for “Anora,” what is next for Sean Baker? Maybe an erotic film, but certainly not a major studio project.

Speaking at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the latest stop for his Cannes breakout title, the director said winning the prize will “allow me to continue to make the films I want to make in the way I want to make them and continue getting budgets along the size of ‘Anora.’ It puts me in the place where I want to be. I’m not looking for it to get me a Marvel film or to open doors with studios. That is certainly not my intention.”

Despite “Anora” being yet another entry to Baker’s canon of stories about sex work — which includes films such as “Red Rocket” and “Tangerine” — the director is reluctant to say his movies are about sex.

Netflix co-ceo Greg Peters spoke on Friday about the company’s local language business, stating: “I think about this as unlocking the creative potential of the human race around the planet.”

In a wide-ranging conversation at the Financial Times Business of Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles, Peters said the service is producing content “in 50 countries and 50 languages”.

The executive, who just returned from a trip to South Korea and Japan and will visit five countries in Europe next week as the company celebrates ten years on that continent, said: “We’ve got teams around the world that are deeply embedded...

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Netflix Dishes The Data

Being transparent: Long-serving Netflix execs love to ruminate on the era when the company was a DVD mailing service, but what felt pertinent this week was the streamer’s more recent transformation into an outfit that is very much at ease with transparency over viewing data. The murky days of walled gardens and numbers being kept hidden from even the most in-the-know producers appear behind us, and Ted Sarandos was in the English capital to beat this particular drum. In a fortuitous bit of timing that was probably more execution than luck, the CEO keynoted a Netflix-sponsored Rts London Convention event in the week that the streamer’s latest data dump revealed the Brits have this year, in common parlance,...

Spanish Oscar nominee Society Of The Snow was among the most watched films on Netflix in the first half of 2024, according to the streamer’s latest viewership data.

Ja Bayona’s real-life disaster drama was at number three in the chart, behind action titles Damsel and Lift, with 103.8 million views. Other notable titles in the top 100 included Sam Esmail’s Leave The World Behind, in 35th place with 40.5 million views, and Richard Linklater’s 2024 Venice premiere Hit Man – 47th with 30.9 million views.

Maestro, which scored seven Oscar nominations, was viewed 5.8 million times in the time period, while double nominee Nyad was on 11.2 million.

Are there millions of people hate-watching movies on Netflix?

Two of the streaming giant’s original films, sci-fi feature “Atlas,” starring Jennifer Lopez, and romantic comedy “Mother of the Bride,” starring Brooke Shields and Miranda Cosgrove, garnered notably poor reviews and audience-rating scores. But both were among the most popular films on Netflix in the first half of 2024, according to the company’s latest massive data report: “Atlas” registered 77.1 million views worldwide and “Mother of the Bride” had 77.7 million.

Those metrics put both in the top 10 of Netflix’s most-watched movies for the first six months of the year — all the more remarkable because the report measured less than two months of viewing for those two titles: “Mother of the Bride” debuted May 9 and “Atlas” dropped on May 24.

“Atlas” has a meager 19% critics score (based on 110 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes, and “Mother of the Bride” is even lower at 13% (48 reviews...

Netflix unveiled the first big data dump of 2024 on Thursday, and the engagement report for everything watched in the first half of the year proved that subscribers really love three things: Millie Bobby Brown, sharks and animated movies.

Some of the data points were unsurprising – we knew Brown’s “Damsel” was a huge hit, and indeed it was the most-watched film for the first half of the year. But others were interesting, like just how heavily Netflix’s streaming partnership with Universal factors into what’s being watched and the relative success of Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” films.

Below, we thumb through the biggest winners on the film side of the data dump.

Millie Bobby Brown and “Damsel” Millie Bobby Brown in “Damsel” (Netflix)

Netflix has invested heavily in “Stranger Things” star Brown’s career over the last few years, picking up “Enola Holmes” (in which she stars and...

Netflix’s latest data dump shows licensing is back with a bang.

The U.S. streaming giant has spent recent months animatedly hoovering up rights to legacy titles from rivals including Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney.

Viewing data for the first half of 2024 appears to show that the strategy is paying off, with a number of titles featuring prominently in Netflix’s most-watched list.

One of the best-performing buys has been Young Sheldon, the Big Bang Theory spin-off that had been exclusively streaming on Max until last November.

The first five seasons of the comedy series cumulatively pulled nearly 106M views into its orbit, with Season 1 charting in 25th place in the most-watched TV list.

Similarly, Netflix also licensed HBO’s Sex and the City from April this year, with six seasons of the show registering a combined 33M views.

Related: Netflix Data Dump: Spanish-Language Titles Soar As ‘Berlin’, ‘The Asunta Case...

Netflix’s all-out assault on the Spanish-language content market is paying off.

The latest Netflix ‘What We Watched’ data dump — or ‘engagement report’ in the streamer’s lexicon — shows seven Spanish-language TV shows, including Money Heist spin-off Berlin, were in the 100 most-watched for the January to June period this year. A further three films made the top 100 in that chart, including Society of the Snow (aka La Sociedad de la Niece) at number three with 103.8 million views.

Netflix has made Spanish-language content, and specifically originals produced out of its huge studios just outside of Spain’s capital Madrid, a major priority in the battle for international streaming subscribers. The strategy appears to be paying off when comparing this latest data set with previous incarnations.

Berlin, which stars Pedro Alonso in the titlular role as a master thief, was the ninth-most-watched TV show with 48.5 million views. The show, a prequel to...

The theme song for Netflix’s data dump for the first half of 2024 might as well be “Rule, Britannia.”

Four U.K.-produced series are at the top of the streamer’s internal rankings for January to June, led by Fool Me Once with 107.5 million views worldwide over the course of those six months. Season three of Bridgerton (91.9 million views), Baby Reindeer (87.6 million) and The Gentlemen (75.9 million) round out the top four.

All told, Netflix’s 280 million subscribers watched 94 billion hours’ worth of programming on the service in the first half of the year, up from about 90 billion hours for the second half of 2023. Netflix’s first engagement report, covering the first half of 2023, covered about 100 billion hours of viewing.

As with the last report, the list of top series spotlights Netflix’s global reach. In addition to the four British series at the top of the list the top...

Netflix saw a British invasion in the first six months of the year — with four of its 10 biggest shows globally in the first half of 2024 coming from the U.K.: “Fool Me Once,” the Emmy-winning “Baby Reindeer,” “The Gentlemen” and “One Day.”

In addition, Shonda Rhimes’ U.K.-set “Bridgerton” Season 3 was the No. 2 most-watched show worldwide from January-June 2024. The season notched a whopping 91.9 million views in less than two months following its May 14 premiere. All told, shows in the “Bridgerton” universe garnered 189 million views in the first half of 2024; views in the six-month period for “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story” hit 24 million (doubling versus the second half of last year) while views of of “Bridgerton” seasons 1 and 2 jumped fivefold compared with the prior six months.

The company calculates views by dividing total hours viewed divided by runtime. (See the lists of the top 10 shows and films on Netflix below.

Netflix released another round of viewership data Thursday afternoon revealing its most-watched films and shows across the first half of 2024.

On the film side, the pack is led by the Millie Bobby Brown-starring Damsel, which clocked more than 143 million views globally, according to the data. The film, also starring Robin Wright and Angela Bassett, was released on the streamer in April and opened strong clocking 35.3M views in just three days of availability.

In second place is F. Gary Gray’s Lift, starring Kevin Hart and Sam Worthington, which clocked 129 million views. The third title on the expansive list is J. A. Bayona’s Society Of Snow with 103 million views. The Spanish-language flick debuted at last year’s Venice Film Festival and was Oscar-nominated. After Society Of Snow, the contemporary shark flick Under Paris clocked 84 million views while Brooke Shields’s romcom Mother of the Bride was watched by 77 million.

“Damsel” and “Fool Me Once” are taking the titles of the most-watched movie and show on Netflix in the first half of 2024.

Specifically, the Millie Bobby Brown movie was viewed 143.8 million times for a total of 263.7 million hours. As for “Fool Me Once,” it was viewed 107.5 million times for a total of 689.5 million hours.

Netflix dropped its first engagement report of the year on Friday, revealing that people watched over 94 billion hours on Netflix during this six-month time period.

On the movies side, the Kevin Hart and Billy Magnussen heist comedy “Lift” was more widely viewed than “Fool Me Once,” securing 129.4 million views. That was followed by the third most-watched titled “Society of the Snow” at 103.8 million views as well as “Under Paris” at 84.7 million views and the Universal Pictures movie “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” at 80.3 million views.

The rest of the top 10 movies included “Mother of the Bride...

Netflix’s latest data dump is here and, as trailed by Ted Sarandos earlier this week, the Brits have dominated the TV series listings.

Harlan Coben adaptation Fool Me Once led the pack in the first half of 2024 with more than 100 million views globally, just ahead of the third season of Bridgerton on 91.9 million. Bridgerton had an epic six months, with its first and second season also making the top 20 with 38.4 million and 34.2 million views globally. Shonda Rhimes’ show is commissioned out of the U.S. but made in the UK with British acting talent.

After Bridgerton Season 3 came Baby Reindeer – the controversial smash series that is currently subject to a lawsuit – watched by 87.6 million, with The Gentlemen next with 75.9 million.

The most-watched U.S. series was Avatar: The Last Airbender in fifth with 71.1 million, followed by Griselda. In seventh place was also a British series, American Nightmare, the highest-rated...

Lack of transparency with viewership numbers is an ongoing complaint in the streaming space, but Netflix's co-ceo Ted Sarandos doesn't "think we could be any more transparent than" its biannual data dump, which reports number of views and hours watched per season on the platform. In fact, speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival,...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Bei seiner Premiere auf dem Filmfestival in Malaga Anfang März wurde „Segundo premio“ dreimal ausgezeichnet, u.a. als bester spanischer Film. Nun wurde das von der Geschichte der Indie-Rockband Los Planetas inspirierte Drama ins Rennen um eine Oscarnominierung in der Kategorie „Bester internationaler Film“ geschickt.

Spanischer Oscaraspirant: „Segundo premio“ (Credit: Bteam)

Spanien schickt „Segundo premio“ von Isaki Lacuesta und Pol Rodriguez ins Rennen um eine Oscarnominierung in der Kategorie „Bester internationaler Film“.

Das Drama, das in den späten 1990er Jahren im spanischen Granada spielt und von der Geschichte der Indie-Rockband Los Planetas inspiriert wurde, feierte im März beim Filmfestival in Malaga seine Premiere und wurde dort als bester spanischer Film, für die beste Regie und den besten Schnitt ausgezeichnet.

Spanische Filme waren bis dato 21 Mal in der Kategorie „Bester internationaler Film“/„Bester nicht-englischsprachiger Film“ für einen Oscar nominiert, zuletzt Juan Antonio Bayonas „Die Schneegesellschaft“ in diesem Jahr.

Viermal ging der...

Spain has selected Malaga award-winner Saturn Return as its submission for international feature at the 97th Academy Awards.

Directed by Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez, the drama is inspired by iconic indie rock band Los Planetas and is set in the late 1990s in Granada.

It had its world premiere at Malaga Film Festival where it picked up best film, best director and best editing.

‘Saturn Return’: Malaga Review

Saturn Return is produced by La Terraza Films, Áralan Films, Ikiru Films, Bteam Prods, Sideral Cinema and Los Ilusos Films. Latido Films is handling international sales.

The cast include Daniel Ibanez,...

Spain has selected Malaga award-winner Saturn Return as its submission for international feature at the 97th Academy Awards.

Directed by Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez, the drama is inspired by iconic indie rock band Los Planetas and is set in the late 1990s in Granada.

It had its world premiere at Malaga Film Festival where it picked up best film, best director and best editing.

‘Saturn Return’: Malaga Review

Saturn Return is produced by La Terraza Films, Áralan Films, Ikiru Films, Bteam Prods, Sideral Cinema and Los Ilusos Films. Latido Films is handling international sales.

The cast include Daniel Ibanez,...

With newly-appointed L.A.-based producer Eva Ruiz de Chavez at the helm of its industry arm, the 20th Monterrey Film Festival plans a four-day industry market from Sept. 26-29 that aims to foster more collaboration and co-productions between Ibero-America and the U.S. The festival runs from Sept. 25 to Oct. 2.

Speaking at a press conference, Ruiz de Chavez pointed out that: “Monterrey not only stands out as one of the most thriving economies in Latin America but also as an epicenter of the industry in the country. With the launch of our Film Industry section, we aim to elevate Monterrey’s cinematic profile to match its economic recognition.”

With this goal in mind, Monterrey Industry has developed a comprehensive program that features Work-in-Progress (Wip) sessions and ProMeetings, designed to foster connections between creators and financiers as well as broaden opportunities for filmmakers in the global market.

Some 102 Wip projects...