The latest installment in the beloved animated franchise pulled in an impressive 1.54 billion minutes of viewing time during its first week available on Disney+. When broken down against the film’s 102-minute run time, that figure translates to roughly 15.1 million individual household views across the United States. This stellar opening marks the second-largest single-week total for any movie on Disney+ this year, trailing only behind Zootopia 2, which racked up a massive 1.72 billion viewing minutes back in March.
While Toy Story 5 dominated the overall charts upon its arrival, established streaming series also continued to draw massive audiences, despite experiencing modest drops from their premiere weeks. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story saw a remarkably resilient hold, slipping by just 8 percent to finish the viewing window with 1.36 billion minutes watched. That small decline allowed the true-crime drama to edge ahead of Neagley in the weekly rankings. The Prime Video Reacher spinoff pulled in 1.25 billion minutes, representing a roughly 30 percent decline from its own high-flying premiere numbers, yet it remained a formidable contender on the platform.
Several new television titles managed to crack the overall top 10 during the tracking period of September 21–27, 2026. Netflix made a strong showing with Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, which debuted with 854 million minutes of viewing time, alongside the classic sitcom favorite A Different World, which brought in 751 million minutes in its first week on the platform. Meanwhile, Paramount+’s gripping crime drama MobLand saw a resurgence, returning to the streaming charts following its season two premiere with 364 million minutes. At the same time, Amazon’s mothership series Reacher continued to pull in lingering viewers, collecting 707 million minutes just a week after the dramatic conclusion of its fourth season.
On the acquired series front, long-running horror anthology American Horror Story experienced a significant surge, scoring 763 million minutes of viewing time as its landmark 13th season premiered on September 24. Notably, the three newly released episodes accounted for roughly a third of that total watch time, demonstrating the enduring appeal of the Ryan Murphy-created franchise.
The changing of the seasons also brought familiar comfort viewing back into the spotlight. With the official start of fall, Gilmore Girls made its traditional annual return to the Nielsen rankings. Now streaming on Hulu after spending years as a staple of the Netflix library, the beloved cozy drama drew 512 million minutes of watch time from fans diving back into Stars Hollow as the weather turned cooler.
The movie charts also saw competitive new entries from major subscription services. Prime Video’s romantic comedy adaptation The Love Hypothesis opened in a strong second place on the feature film chart, pulling in 414 million minutes of viewing time. Netflix’s true-crime focused drama Unabomber followed closely behind on the film rankings, capturing 407 million minutes of audience attention during the same weekly cycle.
Nielsen’s streaming metrics specifically track viewing conducted on traditional television sets within U.S. households. The measurements do not account for watch time accumulated on computers, tablets, or mobile devices, focusing strictly on living room television consumption. The data encompassing the top-performing streaming titles for the week of September 21 through September 27, 2026, reflects the ongoing shift in audience habits as major family animation, prestige television, and seasonal favorites battle for dominance across the increasingly crowded digital landscape.