Stranger Things Seasons 2 and 3 are among the top 10 most-watched Netflix shows, with their collective total view hours surpassing the billion mark.

Netflix released top 10 rankings for its most popular shows and movies by the metric of hours watched in the first month of their release. The retro sci-fi hit show Stranger Things occupies two spots on that list, with 13 Reasons Why and Money Heist (known as La Casa De Papel in its original Spanish) being the only other Netflix originals to accomplish such a feat. Stranger Things Season 3 is the most popular season of the show, clocking in at 582 million hours in the first 28 days since its release alone. Season 2 lags behind, being in the eighth spot with 427 million hours. However, the second season came out when Netflix had 100 million fewer subscribers than it has now, which makes its performance equally impressive. Added together, the beloved ‘80s-inspired show reaches more than 1 billion hours watched. This roughly translates to 114 millennia of Stranger Things.

Related: Netflix Teases Stranger Things Spinoff Projects

The most popular Netflix original is Season 1 of Bridgerton, with 625 million hours watched, although Netflix officials say it could soon be surpassed by the hit South Korean series Squid Game. Bridgerton is followed by Money Heist Season 4, Stranger Things Season 3, The Witcher Season 1, 13 Reasons Why Season 2, 13 Reasons Why Season 1, You Season 2, Stranger Things Season 2, Money Heist Season 3 and Ginny & Georgia Season 1.

Although Netflix didn't always publish such detailed figures about the popularity of its originals, it seems to be more liberal with releasing such information in the last few years. "We're trying to be more transparent with the market, with the talent, with everybody," Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos explained. The platform's audience stats have been the subject of criticism by parts of the TV industry for being unverified.

Related: Stranger Things Theory: Season 4 Will Reveal the Upside Down's Secret History

Traditionally, Netflix ranks the popularity of its shows based on how many people watch a title for at least two minutes in the first 28 days of release. This metric has been strongly criticized for not measuring how many people watched a program, but only how many people sampled it. Counting the viewing hours can be a better gauge of the enduring appeal of certain shows, as reflected by the reoccurrence of titles on the top 10 list. Even so, the metric is not without its drawbacks, since it clearly favors movies and shows with longer runtimes. For example, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, with its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, appears third on the popular movies list according to hours watched, but falls short of a spot in the top 10 based on how many accounts sampled it.

Stranger Things Season 4 is expected to debut in 2022.

Keep Reading: Stranger Things 4 Teaser May Have Revealed Another Cover-Up

Source: CNET