The 2022 Norwegian monster film Troll has topped Netflix‘s chart for the most popular non-English film on Netflix. Released on the streaming service on December 1, 2022, the movie, which is directed by Roar Uthaug, has earned over 128 million hours of viewing.
Troll has remained in the top spot of Netflix’s Global Top 10 non-English films for two weeks now. It has surpassed the millions of viewing hours to surpass other foreign flicks like the 2021 German action horror thriller Blood Red Sky, which earned 110 million hours, the 2019 Spanish social science fiction horror film The Platform, which earned 108 million hours, and the 2022 epic anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front, which earned 101 million hours.
Director Roar Uthaug conceived the film using a Norwegian folklore-inspired idea he’d sat on for over 20 years. The film follows a group of eccentrics who come together to try and stop a gargantuan creature that’s been awakened in the deep Dovre mountains of Norway after being trapped for a thousand years.
Holding an approval rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.40, Troll has been praised for its performances, score, cinematography, direction, visual effects, and action sequences but criticized for its derivative plot.
The film’s cast includes relatively unknown actors such as:
- Ine Marie Wilmann as Professor Nora Tidemann
- Kim Falck as Andreas Isaksen
- Mads Sjøgård Pettersen as Captain Kristoffer Holm
- Gard B. Eidsvold as Tobias Tidemann
- Anneke von der Lippe as Prime Minister Berit Moberg
Although it’s still early to tell if the film’s success is adequate enough to warrant a sequel, producer Kristian Strand Sinkerud stated in an interview with What’s on Netflix:
[The crew] have ambitions to make a sequel and perhaps two sequels, but it all depends on how the audience are responding to [the film].
Director Uthaug followed up on this by saying:
right now we’re focused on one big entertaining movie and let’s see how the response is to that.
Speaking of popular Netflix shows, Wednesday’s run atop the streamer’s charts has resulted in it becoming the second most popular English-language series on Netflix, surpassing the previous record-holder, Dahmer, and coming close to Stranger Things Season 4.
