The 3 Animated Movies That Dethroned KPop Demon Hunters Are The Last Films You’d Expect
Zoë Miskelly is an editor and second in command for Screen Rant's Movies team, having covered the entertainment industry for almost 10 years now. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account
Three animated movies are in the film roster that collectively dethroned KPop Demon Hunters by ousting it from Netflix's weekly top 10 movie leaderboards following the movie holding its spot for well over a year. The legacy of KPop Demon Hunters is at this point very much cemented in a major way, with the movie's swift success and impressive long-term results setting a wide number of records for the worlds of movies and streaming.
As such, while KPop Demon Hunters has finally fallen out of Netflix's weekly top 10 most-watched movie leaderboards, it still ends this run with a truly impressive set of records that seem nigh impossible for upcoming films to beat - especially when it comes to the fact that KPop Demon Hunters still remains Netflix's most-watched movie of all time.
That said, three animated movies did manage to make their way into Netflix's weekly most-watched movie records instead of KPop Demon Hunters during the week it fell out of this roster. This alone would be striking enough, but the specific movies that managed to do so make this matter all the more interesting, too, since this isn't a case of a new animated hit snatching this record from the iconic 2025 film.
The Three Movies In Netflix's Latest Weekly Top 10 Records Are Not The Films You Might Expect
Netflix's records for its weekly movie leaderboards between August 30-September 6 brought a major plot twist for the platform by revealing that, after 63 weeks in Netflix's most-watched weekly movie leaderboards globally, KPop Demon Hunters had slipped out of this roster after setting a truly history-defining record.
Interestingly, this period does still have a range of animated movies that are in the streaming platform's top 10 most-watched list, though these films may also be something of a surprise for viewers. This is namely because said trio of films is comprised of 2001's Shrek, 2004's Shrek 2, and 2019's The Angry Birds Movie 2, rather than any newer animated installments.
Given each of these films has been out for several years, their arrival in Netflix's global movie leaderboard for this period of time is a striking one, though this does make sense for more than one reason.
Why The Three Animated Movies Are In Netflix's Latest Top 10 Movie Leaderboard Instead Of KPop Demon Hunters
Though KPop Demon Hunters has been a much more recent success story for the world of animated movies, it has to be said the Shrek series certainly has the advantage in terms of having an older and more expanded franchise behind it, especially since there's still forward-facing interest in rewatching Shrek and Shrek 2 given Shrek 5 is set to release in 2027.
Inversely, both of the Shrek movies and The Angry Birds Movie 2 naturally have a lower baseline in terms of challenge when it comes to being in the Netflix weekly global top 10 movie leaderboard compared to KPop Demon Hunters. The 2025 film having been in this roster for a staggeringly impressive 63 weeks means remaining in this lineup would require Netflix's user base to continue to rewatch it more and more after the film has well exceeded a year in this leaderboard, which is logically a much bigger ask than rewatching Shrek after potentially decades of not seeing it.
Similarly, it also has to be taken into account that classic or older animated movies have historically oftentimes had their place in Netflix's most-watched film lineup of any specific week long before now. As such, these three films having been in the platform's most-viewed lineup during this period of time does make sense, even if it has also resulted in KPop Demon Hunters' record-ending week looking even more surprising overall.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.