Netflix's New R-Rated Fantasy Series With 7.14 Billion Minutes Watched & Rare Rotten Tomatoes Score Keeps Major Trend Alive
Netflix's lineup of fantasy releases has been paying off for the streaming service year after year, and it could not be any different in 2026, thanks to projects like this recent TV-MA series. While Stranger Things has largely dominated the conversation when it comes to Netflix's most popular genre shows over the last decade, and it is sci-fi, fantasy is booming at Netflix.
After all, what is easily one of the biggest masterpieces on the streaming service, the Netflix animated series Arcane, came from the fantasy genre and got a lot of viewers who had no prior knowledge about the League of Legends world invested in it. Other noteworthy fantasy releases on Netflix include The Witcher, Shadow and Bone, One Piece, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and more.
That said, for anyone looking at genre offerings on the streaming service, I would also recommend checking out Netflix's foreign series. There are so many great hidden gems on the streamer, as well as mega hits that nationwide viewers might become fans upon giving them a chance. One of those just so happens to be a recent release that has racked up impressive numbers.
From Westeros to Middle-Earth to the Continent · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Fantasy TV? “The night is dark and full of terrors.”
🪨Game of ThronesWinter is coming
👑Rings of PowerOne ring to rule
🗡️The WitcherToss a coin
⚢Wheel of TimeThe Pattern weaves
👻The SandmanLord of Dreams
01
HBO’s Game of Thrones — the pop-culture juggernaut that made fantasy TV prestige — premiered with the episode “Winter Is Coming.” Across eight seasons it picked up a record 59 Emmy wins. In which year did its first episode air?
✓ Correct! 2011 — April 17, to be exact. The unaired pilot was so notoriously poor (after a friends-and-family screening, novelist George R.R. Martin reportedly told showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss they had a real problem) that nearly all of it was reshot before broadcast. The retooled premiere immediately became HBO’s biggest hit since The Sopranos. The series ran 73 episodes across eight seasons through 2019.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2011. 2009 is when the original pilot was filmed (and largely reshot). 2013 is when Season 3’s Red Wedding episode aired. 2014 is when Season 4’s “The Watchers on the Wall” reset what TV could do with effects. GoT debuted April 17, 2011.
02
Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon and the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are all adapted from the sprawling A Song of Ice and Fire universe. Name the author whose unfinished novels (the next book has been pending since 2011) underpin every adaptation.
✓ Correct! George R.R. Martin (born 1948). The first ASOIAF novel A Game of Thrones came out in 1996; the most recent in the main sequence (A Dance with Dragons) in 2011. The Winds of Winter is now over 13 years overdue. Martin has remained heavily involved in the HBO universe through House of the Dragon, the upcoming A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026), and an in-development Aegon’s Conquest series.
✗ Wrong. The answer is George R.R. Martin. Brandon Sanderson is the Cosmere/Stormlight Archive author (and the writer Robert Jordan’s estate hired to finish Wheel of Time). Patrick Rothfuss is the Kingkiller Chronicle author with his own infamous-publication-delay reputation. Joe Abercrombie writes the First Law series. ASOIAF is Martin’s.
03
Netflix’s The Witcher (2019–) adapted Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels with a lead actor who’s a famously hardcore fan of the source material — he wore the white wig, did much of his own swordplay, and personally pushed back against Lauren Schmidt Hissrich’s scripts before departing after Season 3. Name him.
✓ Correct! Henry Cavill. He played Geralt of Rivia for three seasons before exiting in 2022 over creative differences with the show’s writers’ room (the books-vs-show approach being the open wound). Liam Hemsworth was announced as his replacement and takes over from Season 4 (2025). Cavill’s exit was widely treated as a major moment of fan-vs-streamer tension and contributed to the late-2022/2023 Netflix-fantasy-slate scrutiny.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Henry Cavill. Liam Hemsworth replaces him as Geralt from Season 4 (2025) onward. Aidan Turner played Kili in The Hobbit films. Sam Heughan is Outlander’s Jamie Fraser. The Witcher’s original Geralt is Henry Cavill, through Seasons 1–3.
04
House of the Dragon — the Game of Thrones prequel chronicling the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons — is set how long before the events of the original series?
✓ Correct! Approximately 200 years before A Game of Thrones (172 years before Robert’s Rebellion, more precisely). The series adapts material from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood (2018), a fictionalised in-universe history of the Targaryen dynasty. House of the Dragon premiered in August 2022, drew 9.99 million viewers across HBO’s simultaneous-platform debut and Season 2 followed in 2024 with the Battle of Rook’s Rest as its climactic setpiece.
✗ Wrong. The answer is ~200 years. The Targaryen kings featured (Viserys I, Aegon II, Rhaenyra) reign during the Dance of the Dragons (129–131 AC), which is roughly 172 years before Robert’s Rebellion in the original series. Martin’s Fire & Blood is the in-universe history that the show mines for source material.
05
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — reportedly the most expensive TV series ever made, with a five-season commitment from its streamer at well over $1 billion total budget — is set in Middle-earth’s Second Age, thousands of years before The Hobbit. Which streaming service is it on?
✓ Correct! Amazon Prime Video. Amazon paid $250 million just for the rights from the Tolkien Estate in 2017, then committed to a five-season run with reported per-season budgets of $400–$465 million on Season 1 alone. Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay were given access to the appendices of The Lord of the Rings (specifically the Second Age material) but not The Silmarillion proper, leading to many adaptation choices that have divided Tolkien purists.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Amazon Prime Video. Netflix has The Witcher and Sandman. HBO Max has Game of Thrones and HotD. Apple TV+ has Foundation. Rings of Power is Amazon’s flagship original drama and reportedly its single biggest production-budget bet.
06
Amazon’s The Wheel of Time (2021–) is adapted from a 14-novel epic fantasy series running from 1990 to 2013. The series’ original author died in 2007 after completing only 11 of the planned books; Brandon Sanderson was hired by the estate to finish the final three. Who was the original author?
✓ Correct! Robert Jordan — pen name of James Oliver Rigney Jr. He started The Wheel of Time in 1990 with The Eye of the World and worked on the series for 17 years before dying of cardiac amyloidosis in 2007 with three books left to go. His widow Harriet McDougal hired Brandon Sanderson, then a young Mistborn-era novelist, on the strength of a eulogy he wrote for Jordan; Sanderson finished the series across The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney Jr.). Terry Brooks wrote the Shannara saga. Raymond E. Feist wrote the Riftwar Saga. Terry Pratchett wrote the Discworld series. The Wheel of Time is Jordan’s, with Brandon Sanderson finishing the last three books from his notes.
07
Netflix’s The Sandman (2022–) adapts a beloved 75-issue DC/Vertigo comic that ran 1989–96 about Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, and his troubled siblings — the Endless. Whose comics is the show based on?
✓ Correct! Neil Gaiman. The 75-issue Sandman ran at DC’s mature-readers Vertigo imprint from 1989 to 1996 (with later spinoffs Sandman: Overture, etc.) and is widely cited alongside Watchmen and Maus as proof of comics’ literary potential. Gaiman’s direct involvement was central to the Netflix show’s development. Note that ongoing public controversies around Gaiman from 2024 onward have shaped the show’s future and Season 2’s framing.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Neil Gaiman. Alan Moore wrote Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. Grant Morrison wrote Doom Patrol, The Invisibles and All-Star Superman. Mike Mignola is the creator of Hellboy. Sandman is Gaiman’s.
08
Netflix’s Shadow and Bone (2021–23) wove together the Shadow and Bone trilogy (Alina Starkov, the Sun Summoner) with the Six of Crows duology (Kaz Brekker’s Crows heist crew). Both source novel series are set in the same imagined Tsarist-Russia-coded fantasy world. Whose books are they?
✓ Correct! Leigh Bardugo. Her Grishaverse spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy (2012–14), the Six of Crows duology (2015–16), the King of Scars duology (2019–21) and various short fiction. Netflix’s adaptation merged plotlines from the two main series simultaneously and was cancelled after two seasons in 2023, with a Six of Crows-focused spinoff that had been in development at one point also abandoned.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Leigh Bardugo. Sarah J. Maas writes the Throne of Glass and ACOTAR series (the latter has a Hulu show in development). Cassandra Clare writes the Shadowhunters Chronicles (which also got a TV adaptation, on Freeform 2016–19). Marie Lu writes Legend and Warcross. The Grishaverse is Leigh Bardugo’s.
The Maester’s Verdict · Final Tally Your Realm Standing
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Lord of the Realm — or smallfolk in the keep?
The East Palace is one of the many South Korean hits that have come to Netflix over the years, joining a stacked roster of shows that includes Squid Game, All of Us Are Dead, and more. Despite having arrived on Netflix only on July 17, less than a month ago, the dark fantasy series has already become a global sensation, and its viewership continues a fantasy trend.
The East Palace Is One Of Netflix's Major 2026 Fantasy Hits
According to FlixPatrol, The East Palace is no longer on Netflix's global TV shows top 10, with that chart being led by My Life with the Walter Boys season 3. That said, according to Netflix's official data, the South Korean fantasy series has had one of the most exciting runs for a Netflix show over the last month. After its debut on July 17, The East Palace went on to appear on Netflix's top 10 most-watched non-English shows chart for the four weeks that have passed since its release.
Over that period, Netflix's The East Palace racked up a whopping 119 million hours watched around the world, translating into a massive 7.14 billion minutes viewed on Netflix. The last time it appeared on the official Netflix chart, during the week from August 3 to August 9, The East Palace ranked 10th, adding another 10.4 million hours watched, and being a top 10 show on Netflix in 13 countries, with most of them coming from Asia, including South Korea. The East Palace's consistent performance was certainly helped by a perfect 100% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix's Fantasy Releases Are Soaring In 2026
The East Palace's official numbers at Netflix help the TV-MA fantasy series continue a positive trend for the streaming service in 2026. That comes down to how Netflix fantasy movies and shows have amassed excellent viewership numbers this year. The biggest example of that was the animated movie Swapped, which starred Michael B. Jordan and Juno Temple. At the time of writing, Swapped is Netflix's 8th most-watched movie of all time, racking up 144.9 million views, which consist of its 246.4 million hours watched divided by its 102-minute runtime.
In terms of Netflix fantasy shows, there have been other high-profile releases in 2026 so far. For instance, the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 has passed the mark of 1 billion minutes watched, while One Piece season 2 had noted 1.62 billion minutes in just its first week of release prior to that. As such, The East Palace's streaming performance continues Netflix's winning streak when it comes to fantasy series in 2026.