One of the hottest movies on Netflix right now is 1995’s ‘Outbreak’

• One of the top movies right now on Netflix is 1995’s Outbreak, a thriller starring Dustin Hoffman about a virologist who tries to stop the spread of a killer virus.
• The movie is one of the top titles at the time of this writing per the rankings Netflix now publishes daily, which reveal what the top TV shows, movies, and overall content are on its service at any given moment in time. The lists are updated daily and offer deeper insight into how people are using the streamer.
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Now that Netflix has started posting its own daily lists of the hottest TV shows, movies, and overall content on the service, it’s providing a fascinating window into the dominant streaming service on the planet — and, specifically, at how its millions of subscribers are using it to consume the content they love.

The lists change daily, and Netflix hasn’t given too much insight at this point into how they’re compiled. You can check them out yourself, if you haven’t already, by selecting either the TV or movie categories from the main Netflix page, and just start to scroll down. You should see a collection of outsized numbers next to movie titles, denoting the list — and, interestingly, there seems to be a coronavirus-themed influence on the numbers that are current as of the time of this writing on Friday afternoon.

Here’s what Netflix’s Top 10 movie row looks like as of right now (without scrolling all the way to the right to include the entire list):

Image source: Netflix

As you can see, one of the most popular movies right now, out of everything in Netflix’s massive library of content, is 1995’s Outbreak, sitting right there in the #4 spot.

(Gee, I wonder why that one has shot up toward the top of the ranking …)

The movie stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, and Cuba Gooding Jr. Per Netflix’s description, “In this doomsday thriller, an Army virologist tries to thwart a global biological meltdown in the form of a killer virus infesting a California town.”

Personally, I’d rather not watch something that reminds me so acutely of all the madness happening outside right now. Nevertheless, streaming Netflix is one way to alleviate some of the boredom many people will feel as a result of self-quarantining or hunkering down at home as more people practice social distancing to try and wait out the continued spread of the coronavirus. A virus, by the way, that is now responsible for more than 125,000 infections globally and which is dramatically reshaping almost every facet of life in America.

Here’s the latest data from Netflix on which movies are the top titles on the service as of Friday, March 13:

1. Spenser Confidential
2. The Angry Birds Movie 2
3. Space Jam
4. Outbreak
5. Freaks
6. Life as We Know It
7. Kung Fu Panda 2
8. Valentine’s Day
9. Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back – Evolution
10. He’s Just Not That Into You