Netflix’s Below Breaks a Record: 11 Things to Know About Josh Hartnett’s Sea-Creature Hit

By the Filmoria News Desk

Below (2026). Key art © Netflix, via the official trailer.

Below, Netflix’s six-episode Newfoundland thriller starring Josh Hartnett as a fisherman fighting a sea creature, drew 17 million views between its release on Thursday 8 October and Sunday 11 October 2026, which Netflix says is the most-viewed debut ever for a Canadian title on the service. It went straight to No. 1 on Netflix’s global English TV chart for the week of 5 to 11 October, and all six episodes are streaming now on Netflix in the UK.

This is a ranked list of the eleven things to know about Below‘s record-breaking Netflix debut, from the viewing numbers themselves to the cast, the Newfoundland history underneath the monster story, the reviews and what the ending means for a second season.

The items are ordered by significance to the news: the record and the chart context first, then what the show is and who made it, then the critical response, and finally what happens next. Every figure comes from Netflix’s own Top 10 data or from trade reporting, and anything not officially confirmed is labelled as such.

1. A Record Debut: 17 Million Views in Four Days (2026, Netflix)

What makes it stand out: No Canadian-made title has opened bigger on Netflix, according to the streamer itself. Key data: 17 million views and about 69.3 million hours viewed from Thursday 8 October to Sunday 11 October 2026, enough for No. 1 on the global English TV list. Why it matters: It turns a mid-budget genre show with no franchise behind it into one of Netflix’s breakout series of the autumn.

Netflix measures “views” by dividing total hours watched by a title’s runtime. Do that sum with the hours figure reported by What’s on Netflix and you get a running time of roughly four hours for the whole series, which tells you something useful straight away. Below is short. Six episodes of around 40 minutes is a single evening for a determined viewer, and Netflix’s own marketing leaned into that, with several outlets pitching it as the perfect one-night binge.

That matters for the numbers. A short show converts sampling into completed viewing very quickly, and completed viewing is what fills the views column. It’s one reason a four-day total of 17 million is so strong: those aren’t people who watched a trailer and drifted off. They’re people who got through hours of it inside a long weekend.

Deadline, which first reported the record, framed it simply: the limited series “baited” 17 million views in its first four days. The more interesting word in Netflix’s statement is “Canadian.” It’s a narrower record than “biggest debut of the year,” and we’ll come back to what that label means in item 11. But narrow or not, it’s a real milestone, and it arrived for a show that most people outside Canada hadn’t heard of a month ago.

2. How It Stacked Up Against the Rest of Netflix’s Top 10 (Week of 5 October 2026)

What makes it stand out: Below beat a heavily promoted prestige drama in its second week by more than four million views. Key data: Below 17 million views at No. 1; East of Eden 12.6 million at No. 2 in its second week; on the English film list, Ben Affleck’s Animals opened at No. 1 with 23.8 million and Doing Life was No. 2 with 18.2 million; Doctor X: Mafia in White topped non-English TV with 4.6 million. Why it matters: It shows a mid-sized genre series outdrawing a star-led literary adaptation in a busy week.

The East of Eden comparison is the one people will make, and it’s worth being fair about it. Zoe Kazan’s Steinbeck adaptation, with Florence Pugh, opened to 6.5 million views across its first four days and then nearly doubled to 12.6 million in its first full week. That’s a healthy word-of-mouth climb. Our East of Eden review gave it four stars. But it’s a seven-hour period drama about family and morality, and Below is a four-hour creature thriller. They aren’t really competing for the same evening.

Here’s the comparison that hasn’t been made much. Animals drew 23.8 million views as a single film, and Below did 17 million as a series of roughly four hours. In raw hours, the series wins comfortably: 69.3 million hours is a lot more time spent than a feature can rack up in the same window. Netflix’s views metric tends to flatter films, because their runtimes are short. On hours, Below was arguably the most-watched new title on the service that week.

Daily FlixPatrol rankings from 9 to 13 October also had Below and East of Eden leading the TV charts, so the shape of the next weekly list isn’t likely to be very different.

3. What Below Is Actually About (Six-Episode Netflix Limited Series)

A frame from the Below teaser trailer. Image © Netflix.

What makes it stand out: It’s a monster story told through a dying fishing community rather than a blockbuster set piece. Key data: Set in the fictional Newfoundland outport of Snook’s Arm; Netflix’s logline describes a hard-bitten fisherman who must fight to protect his family, his community and his vanishing way of life when the town is terrorised by a mysterious sea creature. Why it matters: The mix of genre hook and real-world grief is what most reviews single out.

The Jaws comparison is unavoidable, and Collider’s review headline leans right into it, saying the show subverts its Jaws-style horror with deeper themes. There’s a creature in the water, a town that depends on that water, and officials who’d prefer the problem quietly went away. But the officials in Snook’s Arm aren’t worried about a summer tourist season. They’re overseeing the town’s resettlement, and the creature arrives just as the community is deciding whether to give up and leave.

That gives the show its tension. Calvin Penney isn’t only fighting a monster. He’s fighting the idea that his town’s time is up. Netflix kept the creature’s identity under wraps in the marketing, and the series holds back on showing it for a long time, which one critic complained about: the main gripe in a more sceptical review was that there just isn’t enough of the creature.

Without spoiling the specifics here (see item 10 for that), the creature is a giant squid. The show treats it less like a villain than like another living thing being pushed out of its home.

4. Josh Hartnett Leads as Calvin Penney (Star and Executive Producer)

What makes it stand out: Hartnett carries the whole series on screen, and he’s also one of its producers. Key data: Hartnett plays fisherman Calvin Penney and executive produces; Netflix announced his casting when it ordered the series in February 2025. Why it matters: The record cements a career resurgence that started with Oppenheimer and kept going through Black Mirror and Trap.

Hartnett has spent the last few years quietly rebuilding. He played Ernest Lawrence in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in 2023, starred in the Black Mirror episode “Beyond the Sea” the same year, and headlined M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap in 2024. Below is a different kind of test: a weathered, grieving, stubborn working man, carrying a whole series on his shoulders.

Variety’s review called the show an exhilarating thriller with Hartnett leading it, and Rotten Tomatoes’ first-reviews round-up said he gives a standout performance as a fisherman who protects his community. Slate’s critic loved the whole thing so much that the review’s headline compared it to kissing a dead fish and taking a shot, which, if you know Newfoundland’s “screech-in” ritual, is a compliment.

Production wasn’t entirely smooth for him. In the early hours of 25 September 2025, Hartnett was a passenger in an SUV that collided with a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary patrol vehicle in St. John’s, CBC reported. Police described the injuries as minor. He was checked over at hospital, released and cleared to return to work, his representative told People.

5. The Supporting Cast: Davis, Heaton, Stokes and a Very Local Ensemble

What makes it stand out: Netflix surrounded its lead with recognisable genre faces and with Newfoundland performers who make the town feel real. Key data: Mackenzie Davis plays marine biologist Dr. Fonda Howander of the Seal Cove Ocean Science Center; Charlie Heaton plays Calvin’s son Wade; Ruby Stokes plays his daughter Mary; Rohan Campbell plays youngest son Jay; Willow Kean plays Calvin’s sister Ruth, the harbourmaster; Natasha Henstridge recurs as the town’s Resettlement Liaison Officer. Why it matters: The family dynamics carry the drama between the creature attacks.

Davis is the most interesting piece of casting. She’s best known for Halt and Catch Fire and HBO Max’s Station Eleven, the latter produced by Jessica Rhoades, who’s an executive producer here too. Her scientist is the person who wants to understand the creature rather than kill it, which sets up the show’s central argument.

Charlie Heaton, Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things, plays Wade, the son who stayed. Ruby Stokes, from Bridgerton and Lockwood and Co., plays Mary, who comes home with a boyfriend in tow. Rohan Campbell, from Halloween Ends, is the youngest Penney, the one who got out.

Then there’s the local flavour. Willow Kean is a Newfoundland actor, and CBC covered her landing a lead role in the series. Netflix’s own listing also names Mary Walsh, a much-loved Newfoundland comedian best known in Canada for This Hour Has 22 Minutes. And Species star Natasha Henstridge plays the official managing the town’s relocation. Netflix’s cast guide spells her character’s surname Hickey; other listings have it as Hicks.

6. The Creative Team Behind It (Jesse McKeown, Pacesetter U.K.)

A frame from a Below trailer. Image © Netflix.

What makes it stand out: A largely Canadian writing room with serious prestige-TV directors attached. Key data: Created by showrunner Jesse McKeown, a writer on The Umbrella Academy; written with Karen Walton (Orphan Black), Perry Chafe (Saint-Pierre) and Natty Zavitz (Edging); directed by Jamie Childs (The Sandman, His Dark Materials), Helen Shaver (The Penguin, Station Eleven) and Stephen Dunn (Closet Monster, Queer as Folk). Why it matters: The people who made it explain why it looks more expensive than a mid-budget genre show.

The executive producer list runs to McKeown and Hartnett, plus Jessica Rhoades through her company Pacesetter U.K., Chris Hatcher, Jamie Childs, Louise Sutton and Sharon Hall. Rhoades has produced Black Mirror and Station Eleven, and Childs directed big chunks of Netflix’s The Sandman. That’s a team that knows how to do scale on a television schedule.

Perry Chafe is worth a mention. He co-created Republic of Doyle, the St. John’s detective series, and Saint-Pierre, so he brings a Newfoundland writer’s ear to the dialogue. Karen Walton, meanwhile, co-wrote the cult werewolf film Ginger Snaps as well as Orphan Black. Genre and place are both well covered in that room.

McKeown and the producers also clearly didn’t fake the big moments. Speaking to What’s on Netflix at TIFF, the creators said “we actually sunk a house” for one sequence, the kind of practical effect that reads on screen in a way digital water rarely does.

7. Newfoundland and the Resettlement History Underneath the Monster

What makes it stand out: The plot draws on a real and still painful chapter of Newfoundland history. Key data: Filmed in and around St. John’s, Newfoundland, in autumn 2025; the story draws on the province’s resettlement programmes, which moved families out of remote outport villages; McKeown told the Canadian Press about how many families were affected. Why it matters: It’s the reason many critics took the show more seriously than a creature feature usually gets taken.

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, government resettlement schemes moved thousands of Newfoundlanders out of small coastal communities and into larger “growth centres,” often with financial incentives tied to the whole community agreeing to go. Whole villages were abandoned. Some families famously floated their houses across the water rather than leave them behind. For many people in the province, it’s living memory.

Below takes that history and places it in the present. Snook’s Arm is weighing whether to accept relocation, Henstridge’s liaison officer is pushing the process along, and the arrival of the creature, along with a collapsing fishery and strange movements in the ice, keeps forcing the question. Rotten Tomatoes’ critics’ summary noted that most reviewers felt the show offers pertinent criticisms about resettlement and climate change.

Slate’s critic went further, saying the best thing Below has to offer is its location. Hard to argue. Newfoundland on screen still feels rare, and the series makes the rocks, the fog and the cold grey sea do a lot of work. For UK viewers, it’s a reminder that Newfoundland was a British dominion until it joined Canada in 1949, and the accents, place names and music still carry a strong echo of the West Country and Ireland.

8. What the Critics Said: Strong Reviews, Cooler Audiences

A frame from the official Below trailer. Image © Netflix.

What makes it stand out: There’s a real gap between what critics and viewers think. Key data: Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score reported at 81 to 82%, with the audience score at 62%; positive notices from Variety, RogerEbert.com, The Hollywood Reporter, Slate and Collider. Why it matters: A 20-point gap usually means the marketing and the show are promising slightly different things.

The critics mostly liked it. Variety called it exhilarating and perfectly paced. RogerEbert.com’s review headline called it one of the year’s best. The Hollywood Reporter summed it up as a fun sea-creature series. Collider praised how it moves past its Jaws template. The sceptics, and there were a few, objected to the pacing and the shortage of creature, with one review calling the show a treat for the eyes and ears and not much else.

Our read on the audience gap: Below was sold as a monster thriller, with trailers built around something huge in the water. What viewers actually get is closer to a family drama about a town dying slowly, with a monster attached. People who came for the second thing seem to love it. People who came for the first may feel a bit short-changed, and that’s the group dragging the audience score down.

It’s a pattern Netflix has seen before with “elevated” genre series. It doesn’t seem to have hurt the viewing numbers at all. If anything, a short runtime and a hook that sounds simple are exactly what pulls people in, and the reviews give them a reason to finish.

9. The Accent Debate: Did Hartnett Nail the Newfoundland Voice?

What makes it stand out: It’s the one thing almost every review talks about. Key data: Variety called Hartnett’s accent the show’s one weak point; Slate reported that Newfoundland Reddit users found most of the cast’s accents passable but Hartnett’s the least convincing; showrunner Jesse McKeown said Hartnett prepared by listening to Newfoundland radio, including call-in and talk shows. Why it matters: In a show that’s so invested in place, the voice matters more than it would in a generic thriller.

The Newfoundland accent is famously hard. It’s a mix of English West Country and Irish influences, with vocabulary and rhythms that vary from bay to bay, and locals are understandably protective of it. Getting it wrong on a global platform isn’t a small thing in a province that’s used to being either ignored or mocked on screen.

McKeown’s account of Hartnett’s preparation suggests he took it seriously. Listening to call-in radio is a smart way to learn how people actually talk rather than how a dialect coach thinks they talk. The verdict from viewers who grew up with the accent is that he got close but not all the way, and that local cast members like Willow Kean do it effortlessly beside him.

Variety’s ending-explained feature tackled the accent directly alongside the icebergs and Season 2, which tells you how big a talking point it’s become. For UK viewers without a Newfoundland ear, it’s unlikely to get in the way. For anyone in St. John’s, it’s probably the first thing they’ll mention.

10. That Ending, Explained (Spoilers for the Finale)

What makes it stand out: The finale closes the creature story but opens a much bigger one. Key data: The creature is revealed as a mother giant squid and the iceberg as her nest; Calvin tows it out to sea to save her eggs from a planned airstrike; McKeown confirmed the creature dies; the final scene shows Calvin and Wade finding more icebergs; a baby squid remains in Dr. Fonda’s freezer. Why it matters: Every one of those last details reads like a hook for more episodes.

Stop here if you haven’t watched. Still with us? The emotional twist is that the creature terrorising Snook’s Arm was protecting its young. Calvin’s final act isn’t to kill it but to drag its nest away from the military, which puts him on the creature’s side at the last moment. McKeown confirmed the squid doesn’t survive, and executive producer Jessica Rhoades called that heartbreaking.

Then the last shot. Calvin and Wade find more icebergs heading for the coast. One outlet read it as a climate warning, quoting McKeown saying things are going to get worse. Hartnett has called the ending a reprieve rather than a true happy ending, which is about right. The town survives for now. The sea isn’t finished with it.

And there’s the baby squid in Fonda’s freezer, which the show leaves completely unresolved. It’s the clearest dangling thread, and it’s the one fans are already arguing about online.

11. Will There Be a Below Season 2? And What the Record Means for Netflix in Canada

A frame from the official Below trailer. Image © Netflix.

What makes it stand out: Netflix billed it as a limited series, but the ending and the numbers both point the other way. Key data: No Season 2 has been announced as of 13 October 2026; the series was ordered as a six-episode limited series in February 2025; Netflix’s record is specifically for a “Canadian title.” Why it matters: A renewal would turn a one-off into a franchise, and the “Canadian” label has a policy story behind it.

Let’s be clear: there’s no confirmed second season. TV Insider and Variety both asked the producers about it, and the answers were open rather than definite. But “limited series” has become a flexible label on streaming. Big Little Lies and The White Lotus both started life as limited series. A record debut, a short and therefore cheap-to-binge format and an ending full of open questions is a combination Netflix rarely ignores.

Our verdict, clearly labelled: we’d put a renewal as more likely than not, probably reframed as an anthology-style second chapter rather than a straight continuation. That’s our reading, not an announcement.

The “Canadian title” phrasing is worth a second look. Canada’s Online Streaming Act, passed in 2023, brought streamers into the country’s broadcasting system, and in 2024 the CRTC told large streaming services to contribute 5% of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content funds, a requirement the streamers have challenged. Every time a certified Canadian production breaks out globally, it strengthens Netflix’s argument that its own Canadian originals are doing the job.

It’s also a bit of a technicality. Plenty of shows shot in Canada, like Ginny and Georgia, whose third season opened to 17.6 million views in June 2025, aren’t counted the same way. So Below‘s record is real, but it’s a record within a category. That doesn’t take anything away from the show. It just tells you how carefully the headline was worded.

The Bottom Line

Below did something hard: it made a creature thriller about a specific, unglamorous place, and the whole world watched it. Seventeen million views in four days, nearly 70 million hours and a No. 1 spot ahead of Florence Pugh’s East of Eden is a genuine hit, whatever the small print on the record says. The reviews back it up, the accent debate keeps it in the conversation, and the finale has left Netflix with an easy decision to make.

If you haven’t started it yet, it’s four hours, it’s on Netflix UK now, and it’s the rare monster show that’s as interested in the people as it is in the monster. For more on what’s coming to streaming, read our guide to Blade Runner 2099 on Prime Video and our explainer on HBO’s Harry Potter series.

Sources: Netflix Tudum Top 10, week of 5 October 2026; Deadline; What’s on Netflix; Netflix Tudum cast guide; Variety review; CBC. Last updated: 13 October 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

📸 Follow us on Instagram for daily film, TV & gaming news: @filmoriauk