When the popular 2022 sci-fi movie Nope was announced to be coming to Netflix UK, ending its streaming drought and finally giving UK viewers a way to watch, I was expecting it to dominate the viewing charts for weeks. However it's not even reached the top spot, and that's largely because of a surprise addition dominating the position.
At the time of writing Nope is the third most streamed movie in the UK, with recent Netflix Original Hit Man valiantly clinging onto position #2. And at the top spot, defying the flashy movies below it, is a little BBC Three crime documentary called Car Crash: Who's Lying?
Originally broadcast on BBC Three and iPlayer in November 2018, Car Crash is a TV true crime documentary about a car crash with more than meets the eye.
It follows the aftermath of a car crash in a sleepy Hampshire town, which threatens to tear up the friendship group of the passengers in the car. But when the police get involved the stories of the car's passengers begin to change, showing that there's a larger mystery going on, and it takes the police a whole year to work it out.
Reviews of Car Crash: Who's Lying? were largely positive when the show came out, and judging by the fact that the show is now the most-watched movie on Netflix, people are still pretty keen on it six years later.
True crime documentaries tend to be popular on Netflix but usually, they're ones that involve cults, murders or conspiracies; Car Crash is a little tame by those standards, but perhaps its smaller scale actually makes it a nice antidote to Netflix's usual fare.
At only 51 minutes long, this is a fairly short watch, perfect if you want to watch something easy that won't take up half your evening.
Rounding out Netflix's top 10 most watched movies right now are Originals Under Paris and Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors, a Minions movie, Home Invasion, Big Game, The Contractor and The Footballer, His Wife and the Crash, another documentary. That's a surprising lack of Netflix Originals in the top list compared to how many we usually see.
The real surprise, though, is that the anticipated sci-fi movie Nope hasn't made it to the top, despite this being the first time it's streamed in the UK. Maybe viewers just said "nope!".
