Netflix’s political drama The Diplomat moved into the top spot on Nielsen’s streaming charts with sizable growth from its premiere week, and the streamer’s true-crime documentary The Perfect Neighbor also surged.
The Diplomat drew about 1.24 billion minutes of viewing time for the week of Oct. 20-26, improving by 36 percent from the previous week and displacing Monster: The Ed Gein Story from the No. 1 overall spot. The Diplomat’s weekly total was its best since the second week of its first season in 2023. Nielsen also notes that 72 percent of the show’s viewing — about 889 minutes — came from the newly released third season, with the remainder devoted to prior episodes.
The Perfect Neighbor, meanwhile, grew by 26 percent week to week and hit 1.01 billion viewing minutes. Rom-com Nobody Wants This came in third overall with 904 million minutes of watch time with the premiere of its second season on Oct. 23, but that was off by about 13 percent from its series premiere last year.
After three weeks as top streaming title, The Ed Gein Story slipped out of the overall top 10. It ranked fourth among original series with 571 million minutes of viewing. Stranger Things (524 million minutes) had its best week of 2025 so far a month before the final season premiere.
Netflix’s feature film A House of Dynamite debuted with 734 million viewing minutes, finishing second among movies to The Perfect Neighbor. Halloween perennials Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas also returned to the chart.
Nielsen’s streaming ratings cover viewing on TV sets only and don’t include minutes watched on computers or mobile devices. The ratings only measure U.S. audiences, not those in other countries. The top streaming titles for Oct. 20-26, 2025, are below.
