The ultimate season of Stranger Issues is greater than a tv conclusion—it marks the top of Netflix’s first period of ascension. Since its debut in 2016 (when its solid of children nonetheless regarded like precise kids), Stranger Issues has been the most well-liked TV collection behind solely Sport of Thrones. Its means to drive subscription development, generate addiction-level hours of viewing, and mint cash cemented Netflix’s rise as a programming powerhouse.
Streaming is a hits-driven enterprise, and each main participant wants a tentpole collection to anchor its outcomes. As Stranger Issues closes, let’s pinpoint crucial actively working flagship TV collection of the streaming period. Utilizing a mixture of viewership, income, longevity and franchise potential, listed below are the reveals doing their finest Atlas impressions by holding up their respective streamers.
Netflix: Stranger Issues
In 2022, Stranger Issues was the most-watched U.S. streaming unique at 52 billion (!) minutes (No.2 was Ozark at 31.2 billion minutes), based on Nielsen. Even after three years with out new episodes, it ranked because the seventeenth most-watched streaming unique (5.4 billion minutes) over the primary half of 2025. The four-episode Season 5 premiere in November drew the most important first-week international viewers for an English-language Netflix collection—second all-time solely to Squid Sport Season 2’s debut.
After 9 years atop the pop-culture hierarchy, whispers of spinoffs, prequels and different expansions persist. But creators Ross and Matt Duffer are departing Netflix for a profitable deal at Paramount, leaving Netflix and not using a clear inheritor obvious.
Squid Sport really generated probably the most estimated international income for Netflix ($180 million from This fall 2024 to Q3 2025, together with subscriber retention and new subscriber acquisition, per Parrot Analytics). It was additionally the second most-watched streaming unique in 2021 (16.4 billion minutes) at its debut and the ninth most-watched present total throughout the primary half of 2025 (15 billion minutes). However it’s completed now.
Wednesday’s second season turned Netflix’s fourth most-watched English collection ever, however dropped 50 % in comparison with Season 1. Since The Adams Household IP belongs to Amazon MGM, Netflix can’t seize its full worth.
Within the absence of Stranger Issues, the market-leading streamer faces a void on its launch calendar with no apparent fill.
Amazon Prime Video: The Boys
Like Netflix, Amazon is nearing the top of a flagship run. The hyper-violent superhero satire The Boys will conclude after its upcoming fifth season, having ranked within the Prime 15 streaming originals twice (in 2022 and 2024). The query is how a lot greater this superpowered IP can fly.
Amazon is planning a Nineteen Fifties-set prequel collection (Vought Rising) and a Spanish-language collection (The Boys: Mexico). However earlier spin-offs—animated anthology Diabolical (one season) and live-action companion Gen V (two seasons)—didn’t fairly escape regardless of being well-liked.
Luckily for Amazon, Reacher has emerged as Amazon’s subsequent heavyweight over its first three seasons. In 2024, it ranked tenth amongst Nielsen’s U.S. streaming originals (10.6 billion minutes) and climbed to fifth total in 2025, per Samba TV’s State of Streaming report (releasing new seasons yearly helps keep viewers momentum). This has made it Prime Video’s greatest TV windfall over the past 12 months, with an estimated $132 million in income contribution. A derivative was ordered for the collection in October.
Disney+: The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian helped Disney+’s launch outperform all affordable expectations within the platform’s first 12 months of existence. Since 2020, it has landed twice amongst Nielsen’s ten most-watched collection whereas turning into the linchpin of the streamer’s small-screen Star Wars universe.
This Could, the present will make the leap to the large display with The Mandalorian & Grogu, Star Wars’ first big-screen outing since 2019’s disappointing The Rise of Skywalker. Translating TV fandom into theatre ticket gross sales is much from assured, however model energy ensures a excessive ground.
The larger query: Does this film spell the top of the collection? In that case, Disney+—which has struggled to create live-action hits past the getting older Marvel and Star Wars titles—wants a brand new flagship. Andor ($138 million in estimated income over the past 12 months) was a vital marvel, however wrapped up its two-season run with out approaching the identical viewership highs.
That mentioned, with Hulu now totally built-in into Disney+, future seasons of FX’s Shogun may emerge because the streamer’s subsequent tentpole.
HBO Max: The White Lotus
HBO titles make up simply 14 % of HBO Max’s library, but drive greater than 18 % of its viewers demand, per Parrot. The premium cable community is tv’s flagship model. After all, it continues to ship streaming worth. The White Lotus, in all of its unique esoteric glory, might now be the service’s high title.
Samba TV named it 2025’s most-streamed U.S. present total with the 12 months’s fourth-largest two-week viewership debut. From January to June, the upstairs-downstairs dynamic of the homicide thriller anthology was Nielsen’s sixteenth most-watched collection on streaming (11.5 billion minutes) and generated an estimated $124 million for HBO Max over the previous 12 months, per Parrot.
Manufacturing on Season 4 is about to begin in 2026 in France.
Apple TV: Severance and Ted Lasso
This one’s a toss-up.
Ted Lasso remodeled the early id of née Apple TV+, evolving from a feel-good sitcom to a status dramedy. It ranked because the twelfth most-watched present of 2021 (8.1 billion minutes) and the highest total unique of 2023 (16.9 billion), per Nielsen, regardless of the streamer’s small subscriber base. However Season 3 closed the unique chapter, and whereas a continuation is in growth—with some returning solid, however a brand new on-screen soccer workforce—it’s unclear if Ted Lasso will stay a juggernaut after one other lengthy wait.
As a replacement, the heady thriller Severance turned a status breakout in its second season. Over the primary half of this 12 months, it was the fifth most-watched streaming unique (9.2 billion minutes), per Nielsen, and led all Apple TV reveals in estimated income contribution ($146 million), per Parrot. Apple calls it its high collection ever based mostly on distinctive viewers within the first month of its sophomore run. But after a virtually three-year hole, one other lengthy wait looms earlier than Season 3.
