As of last week, The Union is Netflix’s highest-grossing film worldwide, but now we know the scale of what we’re dealing with. And it’s not a small film.

In its first three days on the air, August 16-18, The Union was watched for 60 million hours, according to Netflix’s own statistics, which equates to 33.1 million complete views.

This makes it the third most successful debut of an English-language Netflix film of the year, behind Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (80 million hours) and Damsel (64.8 million). If we include non-English-language films, it slips to fourth place, behind the shark sensation Under Paris (70.9 million).

Damsel became the seventh most popular Netflix movie of all time, garnering 138 million views in its first 91 days on the air. Could The Union also just make it into the top 10 of all time?

The Union Reviews

Reviews suggest this is not the case, but that has never affected the popularity of Netflix original films.

The Union currently has a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 26% rating from audiences. It’s not just critics who are scorning a decent but entertaining action film.

In The Union, Mark Wahlberg plays a classic everyman with a normal job. But his ex Roxanne, played by Halle Berry, draws him into the role of secret agent.

The concept is unremarkable, the kind of nerve-wracking wish-fulfillment story that’s not exactly in vogue right now. However, many of the leading critics actually found The Union satisfying, as is often the case with better action films made for streaming.

“For the first time, two veterans of the genre are working together,” says the Deadline review. “It’s really in a class of its own and just pure entertainment.”

The Guardian’s 3-star review states: “It at least exceeds expectations” and “maintains a pleasant rhythm of information, missions, combat and flirtation despite increasingly eye-rolling plot twists.”

The Times’ 3-star review comes to a similar conclusion: “This is not the kind of movie you talk about in film club. Still, there’s a lot to enjoy about this deeply silly action dramedy.”

But yes, you can find plenty of reviews suggesting that The Union is just trashing Netflix if you look for them.

According to other Netflix chart news, the two Kingsman films also attracted a lot of attention and are currently in second and third place on the charts in their second week of streaming.

The biggest hit is the original Kingsman: The Secret Service. And 15.2 million views in just one week for a ten-year-old film from 2014? That sounds pretty good to us.