Jan 22, 2022

Americans were obsessed with streaming Disney's animation in 2021.

Disney-Pixar's Luca was the most-streamed movie of 2021 in the U.S., with 10.6 billion minutes of viewing time. The film skipped its theatrical release and was released straight to Disney+ last June.

Animated films, specifically those produced by the Walt Disney Company, dominate the most-streamed movie list. Seven of the top fifteen titles in the U.S. were animation produced by Disney and available on Disney+, per a new Nielsen report.

Occupying the #2-4 slots were Moana (8.9 billion minutes), Raya and the Last Dragon (8.3B minutes), and Frozen II (5.7B minutes).

The other Disney animated films to make the list were Frozen (#6), Soul (#7), and Coco (#13).

One non-Disney film also made the list: Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation's The Mitchells vs. the Machines in the #9 spot.

Viewership stats for animation were not nearly as rosy on the series side. Among the top 15 most-streamed original series of 2021, not a single animated series cracked Nielsen's list.

Acquired streaming content didn't fare better. Just one animated series made that list: Netflix's Cocomelon, which held the no. 2 spot with 33.3 billion minutes of viewing time.

Nielsen tracked viewership on the following streaming platforms in 2021: Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, AppleTV+, and Hulu. The firm only measured viewing on tv screens, not mobile or computer viewing. While this makes Nielsen's numbers incomplete, its data is currently the only way of reliably assessing viewership across platforms, since none of the streamers, save for Neflix, release regular ratings data.