Each week, Netflix drops a list of the top 10 films and TV shows dominating the platform, and for the week of Aug. 4, two Gerard Butler films appear in the US Top 10 list: 2016’s Gods of Egypt and 2023’s Kandahar. Butler is a reliable movie star whose career is filled with action and adventure films (and the kid-friendly How to Train Your Dragon franchise), but I didn’t realize that his name carried so much weight — and that he was this prolific — until I noticed he stars in six films currently available on Netflix right now (and has starred in 10 films in the last five years alone).
Those two new releases on Netflix are vastly different: Gods of Egypt is a fantasy action film set in a version of ancient Egypt in which Egyptian deities exist among humans, while Kandahar is a realistic action thriller about a CIA operative (Butler) on a mission in Afghanistan who finds himself hunted by enemy forces after his cover is blown.
Both films’ popularity seems to defy logic when you compare them with what they’re up against. In the past month, huge box office movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, Jaws and Jurassic Park dropped on the platform, and yet none of these traditional blockbusters charted after they were added to the movie library. Meanwhile, Kandahar, which grossed just $5 million at the US box office, debuted at No. 6 in the Top 10 last week (and currently sits at No. 2 this week), and Butler is easily the film’s most notable star. (On the other hand, Gods of Egypt is a pretty star-studded affair, co-starring Chadwick Boseman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Geoffrey Rush and Rufus Sewell, though the film is considered one of 2016’s biggest “box office bombs” for reportedly losing Lionsgate $90 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.)
Butler’s other films currently on the platform include Plane (2023), London Has Fallen (2016), Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (2025), and Last Seen Alive (2022). According to Netflix’s public top 10 lists, every one of these films entered the Netflix Top 10 when they first arrived on the streamer.
While some things about Netflix’s algorithms and trends can be a mystery, it seems that one thing is certain: Gerard Butler, no matter what he’s in, is a sure bet.
