A 3-year-old Netflix movie is suddenly one of the biggest hits on the streaming service in Germany – but why?

On October 30, 2020, Banden von Marseille, starring Jean Reno in a supporting role, came to Netflix worldwide and, like many Netflix titles, was watched with interest. In the US, the French action thriller even briefly ranked third in the Netflix charts, which at the time made no distinction between films and series, behind “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Holidate”. But as so often the initial interest was gone after a few days. Since then, hardly anyone seemed to be interested in “Marseille gangs”. But that is now changing – at least in Germany.

With the Netflix charts just released for the entirety of last week “Banden von Marseille” ranks third in Germany – behind the current Netflix action hit “AKA” and the family movie “Peter Hase 2”. If you call up Netflix at the time of this article, you will find the film already in second place in the daily charts for the past week. The film is currently being viewed more than ever in this country.

Incidentally, this is quite a German-speaking phenomenon. In Austria, “Band von Marseille” also ranks third on the official weekly charts, in Switzerland it ranks at least ninth. We couldn’t find the film in the top 10 in any (!) other country in the world, although it is widely available. Even in his native France, he does not appear on the official Netflix rankings. Of course that begs a question…

Why are people suddenly watching “Gangs of Marseille”?

First of all: unfortunately we cannot tell you with certainty why “Banden von Marseille” suddenly became so popular some three years after its release and only in Germany.

But the logical assumption is, because “AKA” starring ex-football star Eric Cantona is such a huge success and has been topping the movie lists for two weeks now, people are interested in more dark action crime from France, maybe the algorithm has many even suggested the movie from 2020 directly ahead.

Gangs of Marseilles

starting date
October 30, 2020
|
1 hour 56 minutes

By
Oliver Marchell

Of
Lannick Gautry,
Stanislaus Merhar,
candle

User review

3.2

In flow

But Of course, that still doesn’t answer the question why it is such a purely German-language phenomenon. Does the Netflix algorithm only recommend “gangs of Marseille” after “AKA” in the so-called DACH region? But what’s in the other countries instead? Incidentally, we also looked, there was no other surprising film that washed up there. The German-speaking public is therefore an exception. Do people in Germany, Austria and to a lesser extent Switzerland want to watch another French action thriller immediately after seeing a French action thriller?

Questions above questions…