Netflix has a new hub page for what’s trending right now. It’s the latest dedicated destination to launch on the service, just a week after the KPop Demon Hunters fan hub, and it arrives as Netflix reworks how its rows and playlists are put together.
A new page now sits at netflix.com/browse/genre/83112341 and will feature on your TV and mobile devices. It has a large orange “HOT” wordmark across the top and a stack of rows below, all built around one idea: what people are watching on Netflix right now expanding on the top 10 rows which have been present on Netflix since 2020 (although it began testing back in 2019).
You won’t find hand-picked themes or mood-based collections here. Most of the rows come from popularity data, like the Top 10s, regional hits and genre charts. The few rows that aren’t straight charts, such as “Buzzing Now,” are still clearly about momentum.
What’s inside the What’s Hot hub?
The hub has a bunch of different rows but here’s how it looked on November 12th in the US (which is the only region currently displaying the test, we’re told):
- Buzzing Now: A mix of new releases and older shows getting a fresh push, including The Hunting Wives (new season, coming soon), Lupin (new episodes), Gossip Girl (recently added), Yellowjackets, Heroes, Best of the Best, and Victoria, which carries a “Leaving Soon” tag.
- Top 10 Films in the US Today: Led by Reminders of Him, The Gospel of Christmas, Funny Money: The Dane Cook Story, Carolina Caroline, A Dog’s Perfect Christmas, The Croods, and The Day After Tomorrow.
- Top 10 Series in the US Today: Taken: Natalee Holloway, Black Doves, From, The Body, Nobody Wants This, Power, and The Neighborhood.
- Hits From Around the World: Anaesthesia, Below, Godzilla Minus One, 100 Days of Deception, One Year to Live, Buy a Man, Doctor X: Mafia in White, and Where the Mask Ends. Several of the K-dramas show “New Episode” labels for their weekly drops.
- Popular in Horror: Stranger Things, Interview with the Vampire, Midnight Mass, Haunted Hotel, Hannibal, Frankenstein, and Teen Wolf, which is leaving Netflix after only a year.
- Popular in Romance: Bridgerton, A Discovery of Witches, Sweet Magnolias, Voicemails for Isabelle, Sullivan’s Crossing, My Life with the Walter Boys, and Ransom Canyon.
- Popular in Documentaries & Reality: Mostly presidential docuseries (Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Grant), plus Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed and Miracle: The Boys of ‘80.
- Popular in Anime: One Piece (new season, coming soon), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Detective Conan, The Apothecary Diaries, The Ramparts of Ice, Steel Ball Run: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2.
- Top 10 Kids Shows: Doozie’s Doghouse, Danny Go!, Ms. Rachel, Gabby’s Dollhouse, Salish & Jordan Matter, and more.
- Top 10 Kids Movies: Rounds out the page.
Picture Credit: What’s on Netflix
What’s driving the new hub?
The most interesting thing here is how little curation there is. Every row is driven by popularity in some way, whether that’s the daily US Top 10s, what’s “popular” in each genre, or what’s “buzzing.”
That means the hub mixes Netflix Originals and licensed titles more evenly than most of the homepage does. Victoria, Gossip Girl, Heroes, Hannibal, Power, and The Neighborhood all get the same billing as the big Netflix shows. The “New Season,” “New Episode,” “Recently Added,” and “Leaving Soon” labels also do a lot of work here.
It also lines up with what Netflix is testing on TVs. The new TV design test leans on what Netflix calls “modules,” which are special rows like the Top 10s and seasonal categories. A hub made almost entirely of those modules looks like a natural companion albeit we’d like to see this expanded either with numbered lists in each genre or flags or some kind of feedback on the global hits to know exactly where they’re popular.
Part of a bigger push into hubs
This is the second dedicated hub in about a week. Last Thursday, Netflix launched KPop Demon Hunters: For the Fans! (direct link). That hub collects the movie, the sing-along version, lyric videos, choreography breakdowns, and the new HUNTR/X Backstage Pass stop-motion series in one place.
Branded hubs aren’t new on Netflix. Shondaland and Ryan Murphy have had them for years and Netflix’s many and sometimes unhinged genres have been long documented. Still, two new destinations in quick succession, alongside a reshuffle of its playlists, suggests Netflix wants to move browsing away from the endless homepage scroll and toward pages built for a specific purpose with the main goal of finding you something to watch.
Have you found the new What’s Hot hub on Netflix yet? Will you actually use it, or do you stick to the homepage? Let us know in the comments.
