Netflix’s Most-Watched Show of 2025 So Far Is This Unforgettable Crime Drama

Earlier this month, Netflix revealed streaming data from the first half of 2025, including its top series in that timeframe.

That’s when we learned that Netflix’s most-watched show of 2025 so far is Adolescence, a harrowing four-part miniseries.

With an astounding 98 percent rank on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems poised to take home several TV awards in the next few months.

If you’ve never seen the series or if you’ve already sampled it, Watch With Us is sharing the reasons why you should watch Adolescence (again).

Owen Cooper Is Mesmerizing As Jamie Miller

Adolescence is the first role for teenage actor Owen Cooper, and it looks like he’s going to have a long career ahead of him. Cooper plays Jamie Miller, the boy at the heart of this series who is accused of murdering his classmate, Katie Leonard (Emilia Holliday). The brilliance of Cooper’s performance is how believably he slips into the roles that Jamie is playing.

Jamie seems like an ordinary kid when he’s arrested, but the way his proverbial mask slips is breathtaking. In the third episode, Cooper seems truly aggressive and menacing while also attempting to win over the support of a forensic psychologist, Briony Ariston (The Crown‘s Erin Doherty). Those are perhaps Jamie’s most genuine scenes in the series, as he exposes the things he believes in and reveals more about himself than he intended. That episode alone may propel Cooper to an Emmy win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries.

The Performances and Production Are Outstanding

One of the most ambitious aspects of Adolescence is that director Philip Barantini put together each episode as one continuous take in real-time. That’s an extremely difficult feat to pull off, and it relies on actors being able to complete all of their lines and actions without any breaks in the middle of each take.

Stephen Graham is also up for an Emmy for his performance as Jamie’s father, Eddie Miller. In many ways, this show is as much about Eddie as it is about his son, since he has to live with the guilt and the questions of what he could have done differently. Ashley Walters plays DI Luke Bascombe, one of the lead investigators in Jamie’s case, and he also scored a nomination in the same category as Cooper. But it would be a monumental upset if Walters beats his costar for that award.

Doherty also earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries for her performance opposite Cooper in episode 3. Rounding out the performing nominations for this show is Christine Tremarco, who plays Jamie’s mother, Manda Miller. Manda is going through a lot of the same soul-searching and anguish as her husband, and Tremarco is great in the role. She may have the edge on Ariston in the Emmy race simply because she has a larger role.

‘Adolescence’ Sparks Some Conversations That Need to Happen

Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, we can say that Adolescence examines the murder of Katie Leonard and everything that led up to it. Katie made some bad decisions, but nothing she did justified what was done to her. This series takes the time to explore what radicalized Jamie and shaped his attitudes towards women.

It’s not an unfair characterization to say that Jamie was radicalized by the so-called “manosphere” and the darker elements of social media. This is a very real phenomenon that society hasn’t really come to grips with yet. It doesn’t always lead to tragic outcomes, but things aren’t going to get any better unless parents and children can actually talk to each other about what’s happening online.

The way that Adolescence has brought these issues into the mainstream may be its greatest accomplishment. But we can’t rely on fiction to solve our problems for us. This is still something that everyone needs to collectively come together to deal with, or else it’s only going to get worse.

Adolescence is streaming on Netflix.