The most popular Netflix title dominating the platform this week is The Waterfront, a Southern crime drama set in a fictional small town where the Buckley family’s fishing business has collapsed — and their next move is drug smuggling. From the mind of creator Kevin Williamson, the series dives into a stormy world of family secrets, betrayal, and survival along a fading North Carolina coastline.
Netflix publishes its ranking of the top-performing TV shows each week, and we’ll take a closer look at The Waterfront (the cast of which includes Holt McCallany and Melissa Benoist) below, as well as the rest of what’s hot on the streamer at the moment.
Netflix Top 10 shows
Here’s this week’s complete list of the Top 10 English-language shows on Netflix, based on the latest updated data from the company:
- The Waterfront — 8.3 million views
- Ginny & Georgia (Season 3) — 8.1 million views
- The Survivors — 3.4 million views
- Dept. Q — 3.4 million views
- America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (Season 2) — 3.3 million views
- Sirens — 3.3 million views
- FUBAR (Season 2) — 3.3 million views
- Ginny & Georgia (Season 1) — 2.7 million views
- Raw: 2025 (June 16, 2025) — 2.7 million views
- Ginny & Georgia (Season 2) — 2.7 million views
To learn more about some of this week’s other most-watched series, you can go deeper by checking out our previous coverage of some of the Netflix originals above, such as Dept. Q, which is a detective drama that should appeal to Slow Horses fans, as well as Sirens. For now, though, let’s focus on the biggest Netflix TV release in the world at the moment.
The Waterfront — #1 on Netflix
The current top-ranked Netflix title globally by viewership, The Waterfront is a #1 show in 10 countries this week. It’s also one of those rare titles on the streaming giant where critics and fans are more or lees in perfect alignment, for what that’s worth (it’s got 70% and 69% critics’ and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively).
Plot-wise, this show is about a family that’s ruled Havenport, North Carolina, for decades. Its influence touches everything from the town’s restaurant scene to the fishing industry in the area. As family patriarch Harlan Buckley (McCallany) recovers from a pair of heart attacks, meanwhile, the family’s fishing interests have started to suffer — while Harlan’s wife Belle (Maria Bello) and son Cane (Jake Weary) start to, shall we say, get a little creative in figuring out how to keep the family in the lifestyle to which it’s grown accustomed.
And then there’s daughter Bree (Benoist), who’s in recovery as a result of addiction and has lost custody of her son. She’s now in a messy relationship that threatens her family’s entire future.
“This is about a working man who’s trying to make a go of it for his family,” Williamson tells Netflix’s Tudum. “They’ve pulled themselves up from nothing and they’ve built this mini fishing empire in their small little town. Now it’s being taken away from them bit by bit. They’ll do anything to hold onto it, because it represents their family.”
