American streaming company with around 325m subscribers worldwide, nearly twice as big as its nearest rivals. It has been making its own original programming for little more than a decade, making it nearly a century younger than most of its Hollywood rivals.
Netflix's first big original hit was "Stranger Things", a paranormal adventure created by the Duffer brothers, set in Indiana in the 1980s. The show, which launched in 2016, was responsible for more than $1bn in subscription revenue over the five years to 2025, according to Parrot Analytics. In the first half of 2025 subscribers spent nearly half a billion hours watching the first four seasons.
"Stranger Things" influenced global culture: it helped bring retro garb such as oversized denim jackets back into fashion, contributed to the growing popularity of "Dungeons & Dragons" and resurrected Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill", whose streams surged by more than 8,000% after the song featured on the fourth-season soundtrack in 2022. The song topped the charts in Britain almost 40 years after its release.
Netflix has created many original hits, from "Stranger Things" to "Squid Game", but has yet to develop triple-A-rated franchises of the kind that children want printed on their pyjamas. It has preferred to build rather than buy intellectual property.
In its full-year 2025 results Netflix reported revenue growing at 16% a year and an operating margin of nearly 30%. Netflix accounts for less than 10% of TV viewing in most of its big markets, including YouTube and other platforms. Its market value fell by nearly a third after it began circling Warner Bros Discovery in October 2025.
On December 5th 2025 Netflix agreed to buy the studios and streaming services of Warner Bros Discovery in a deal worth $83bn—the largest entertainment deal since Disney paid $71bn for 21st Century Fox in 2019. Netflix had beaten Comcast and Paramount Skydance in a bidding battle for the assets. Under the deal, Warner shareholders would keep the declining TV and cable networks in a stub company. On December 8th Paramount pressed pause on the transaction, appealing directly to Warner's shareholders to accept an alternative offer of $108bn for the whole company. UBS points out that Netflix has about twice as many titles as Warner on its streaming service in America, but that when it comes to titles rated at least nine out of ten on IMDB, Warner's HBO Max has 141 against Netflix's 120. Netflix turned "Suits", a forgotten legal drama licensed from NBCUniversal, into a smash hit—suggesting what it could do with gold-plated intellectual property like "Game of Thrones". In January 2026 Netflix improved its offer from a mixture of cash and stock to all-cash, hoping to speed Warner's approval process; a shareholder vote was expected by April. Paramount was lobbying European regulators that it would be the better suitor, planning a $6bn "cost-synergy opportunity" from merging its studio with Warner's.
Netflix has come to see its biggest rival as YouTube rather than competing studios. The Alphabet-owned platform accounted for 28% of streaming on TVs in America in the latest quarter, against Netflix's 19%, according to Nielsen. HBO Max made up less than 3%. YouTube's no-ad subscription plans (which include music) have more than 125m subscribers, comparable to Netflix. Hollywood and social-media business models are converging: streaming platforms are moving into advertising, while social platforms push into subscriptions. Netflix has deals with Spotify and iHeartMedia and began showing podcasts in America on January 11th 2026. Fox also signed a deal in October 2025 to bring "Crime Junkie", a popular podcast, onto Tubi, its video streamer. Netflix plans to show video podcasts from Spotify; Amazon Prime Video has commissioned a series starring MrBeast, YouTube's biggest star. AI is helping narrow the gap between professional and amateur visual effects. Ted Sarandos has said that cinemagoing is "an outmoded idea, for most people".
The company commissions spin-offs to deepen its hit shows: an animated "Stranger Things" offshoot called "Tales from '85" is due in 2026, alongside a live-action spin-off still in its early stages. Other supporting projects include a reality competition show based on "Squid Game" and "Queen Charlotte", a mini-series set in the world of "Bridgerton".
Netflix traditionally gave about 30 films a year a short cinema run to qualify for Oscar nominations (a Best Picture award still eluded the company as of late 2025). It has increasingly used theatrical release for bigger titles: Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" hit cinemas almost three weeks before reaching the small screen, and Greta Gerwig's "Narnia" was promised a cinematic release in autumn 2026.
On November 12th 2025 Netflix opened the first Netflix House, a kind of indoor theme park, in Philadelphia, with attractions themed around shows such as "Wednesday". A second branch, with a "Stranger Things" experience, opened on December 11th in Dallas. Las Vegas is planned for 2027.
One of Netflix's signature innovations was the simultaneous release of entire series to enable bingeing. It has since moved towards dripping out episodes in batches for some shows, including "Bridgerton", "Emily in Paris" and the final season of "Stranger Things", to sustain excitement over a longer period.
Ted Sarandos is Netflix's co-chief executive.
There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.