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Final Season Pushes Squid Game Back To No. 1 In Streaming Rankings

Final Season Pushes Squid Game Back To No. 1 In Streaming Rankings

News182 days ago
Last Updated:
The third and final season of Squid Game recorded the highest viewing minutes of the year so far.
Netflix's Korean drama Squid Game broke yet another record in the US. With the release of the third and final instalment of the survival thriller on June 27, it hit another massive streaming record on the overall Nielsen charts. The show, directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, has set the highest streaming record of the year so far, with 3.2 billion minutes viewed in its first week of release, between June 23 and June 29.
According to the Nielsen streaming charts in the US, the final season of Squid Game has the highest weekly total for a streaming title this year. This also made it the most-watched show in the US since The Night Agent season 2, which crossed 3.1 billion minutes of viewing in January.
Notably, Squid Game season 2 holds the all-time top position on the chart. When the second was released on December 26, 2024, it garnered 4.6 billion viewing minutes during the week between December 30 and January 5.
Other Names On The Nielsen Chart
Besides Squid Game, the Top 10 on the Nielsen chart also included some big names. In second place is the dating reality show Love Island USA, with 1.78 billion views. The third place has been occupied by Netflix's Australian drama, Animal Kingdom, with 1.70 billion viewing minutes. The same streaming giant's espionage drama, Blindspot, and its American crime drama, The Waterfront, held the fourth and fifth places, with 1.65 billion and 1.45 billion viewing minutes, respectively.
Meanwhile, Netflix's comedy drama Ginny & Georgia, which revolves around the story of a mother and daughter duo, entered the chart after the release of its third season on June 5. The series managed to rake in a total of 979 million viewing minutes, thus landing sixth on the chart.
Jeremy Allen White's The Bear Came 7th
The Bear's season 4, the fast-paced culinary drama starring Jeremy Allen White as the lead, came seventh on the list. It garnered 917 million viewing minutes, which is a noticeable drop from last year's 1.2 billion for season 3. The show, created by Christopher Storer, has been renewed for a fifth season.
Disney+'s Bluey and Grey's Anatomy held the eighth and ninth positions, respectively, with 860 million and 842 million viewing minutes. At the tenth position is Netflix's new animated Korean film KPop Demon Hunters, whose simple yet effective storyline, coupled with its chart-bursting songs, has become the talk of the town. The film garnered 778 million viewing minutes in the US.
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Sarzameen: Ibrahim Ali Khan's terrible film accidentally gets you to root for a terrorist to kill an Indian soldier, and you can't even deny it
Sarzameen: Ibrahim Ali Khan's terrible film accidentally gets you to root for a terrorist to kill an Indian soldier, and you can't even deny it

Indian Express

time29 minutes ago

  • Indian Express

Sarzameen: Ibrahim Ali Khan's terrible film accidentally gets you to root for a terrorist to kill an Indian soldier, and you can't even deny it

In Sarzameen, a stern military man allows his only son to be murdered by terrorists in Kashmir because… nation comes first or something. You often hear about parents who proudly declare that they are willing to sacrifice their children for the country, and perhaps Prithviraj Sukumaran's Vijay Menon is cut from the same cloth as those folks. The only difference is that his son isn't a soldier on the front-lines, but a child for whom he feels no love. Played by Ibrahim Ali Khan, the child's name is Harman, and the only reason his father hates him is that he isn't like the other boys; he's timid, he can't play sports, and he speaks with a stutter. Bizarrely enough, Sarzameen implies that Vijay wouldn't have let his son die had he conformed to the 'norms' of boyhood. If Harman didn't have a speech impediment, the movie suggests, he'd likely have lived. It's an astounding thought that struck absolutely nobody in the Dharma writing incubator that coughed up this script, which relies almost exclusively on contrivance, convenience, and coincidence to keep the plot moving. Sarzameen expects us to root for a reunion of some kind after it reveals that Harman miraculously survived a bullet to the head — nobody dies in this movie, even after being shot at point-blank range — but unintentionally gets us to cheer for a terrorist to kill a member of the Indian Army. Also read – Nadaaniyan: Ibrahim Ali Khan makes one of the worst debuts in years; is Karan Johar determined to set fire to his career before it even begins? Only a complete failure in storytelling can send a viewer so wildly off track. Sarzameen is directed by Kayoze Irani, who showed such promise with his heartfelt short film in Ajeeb Daastaans. For him to have selected this as his feature debut makes no sense; as it is, it feels like he wasn't involved in the conceptualisation and execution of the action scenes at all. His focus, presumably, was on the drama. And it's drama straight out of a poor '90s movie; you can imagine how competent Sarzameen is when you realise that even Netflix, which gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to Nadaaniyan, drew the line. As with that film, it feels like every line of dialogue here has been dubbed in a booth and not performed on set. Hindi isn't Prithviraj's mother tongue, and acting doesn't come naturally to Ibrahim. He shows up only after the first act, when Harman inexplicably escapes from the clutches of his captors and reappears in his parents' lives. For some reason, his mother, played by Kajol, is still married to Vijay, even after he abandoned Harman and left him to die. Had Sarzameen shown us what happened during those eight years, her decision would've made sense. But because it doesn't, you're left to assume that the only reason she stuck around is because she has a job to fulfil in the film's third act. Unlike Brody from Homeland, who was closely monitored by the CIA after he returned from captivity tried to begin his life afresh, Harman is simply allowed to go home to his parents. They barely recognise him. He no longer has a stutter, and he seems more confident than he used to be. Vijay is convinced that he's an imposter — the fact that he believes Harman would be the same person who 'died' eight years ago is bananas. Vijay knows that Harman was living with terrorists; he knows that Harman was probably tortured and brainwashed. And still, he welcomes Harman into his house without having him cleared first. Sarzameen seems to think that the dramatic conflict of these scenes rests in whether Harman is Vijay's son, and not whether he's a terrorist. The more suspicious Vijay becomes of Harman, the more you want to lean in and remind him that it's all his fault. Consequently, you root for the kid to shoot him in the face. This almost happens in the pre-interval scene, by the way. But the scene ends with a twist so wild that its sole purpose, seemingly, is to disarm you for the further insanity that Sarzameen has prepared for the climax. Let's talk about it. It is revealed that Harman was, indeed, a militant brainwashed against his father, who, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume, is the living manifestation of India. The villains didn't have to work too hard; Vijay did have him murdered, after all. The movie would've been far more complex had Harman come from a loving home, or if it had shown Harman commit a terrible crime before resurrecting himself. It's almost as if the most interesting chunk of the story — the eight years that Harman spent away from home — was deliberately edited out. 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Why does Sarzameen have more in common with Kajol's own Fanaa — the film's Harry Potter connections deserve a separate article — than it does with something like The Forever Prisoner, a film that understands the difference between empathising with a wrongdoer and actively cheering them on. By relying on trivial tropes, the movie does a disservice not only to its own characters, but also a very real geopolitical issue.

Salman Khan, SRK Fired Fake Guns Outside Rakesh Roshan's Room During Karan Arjun: 'Both Of Them…'
Salman Khan, SRK Fired Fake Guns Outside Rakesh Roshan's Room During Karan Arjun: 'Both Of Them…'

News18

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  • News18

Salman Khan, SRK Fired Fake Guns Outside Rakesh Roshan's Room During Karan Arjun: 'Both Of Them…'

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‘Your Kids Aren't White': American Woman Exposes Hate Faced By Foreigners Married To Indians
‘Your Kids Aren't White': American Woman Exposes Hate Faced By Foreigners Married To Indians

News18

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