Alan Ritchson is an industry unto himself. The Reacher star launched a hit Prime Video series that’s returning next month with a spinoff in tow. Meanwhile, his upcoming revenge thriller Motor City already looks like a gritty cult classic. But it turns out that we may already know what Ritchson’s biggest success of 2026 will be.
According to data recently released by Netflix, this military sci-fi thriller drew 147 million views during the first half of 2026. Not only was it Netflix’s most-watched movie with 11 million more views than The Rip, but it also recorded 44 million more views than Netflix’s most-watched television series during that same time period. If you haven’t watched it yet, then now’s probably the time so you can see what all the fuss is about.
That’s right, the only thing bigger than Alan Ritchson’s biceps is War Machine’s absolutely staggering Netflix view count.
Co-written and directed by Patrick Hughes (The Hitman’s Bodyguard), War Machine stars Ritchson as a nameless soldier grappling with the trauma of losing his brother in the line of duty. Aliens invade the planet while Ritchson’s character, who’s given the candidate number 81, is participating in a training exercise as part of the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program. An alien craft — essentially a mecha — crashes into the woods where the exercise is taking place. What unfolds feels a lot like a stripped-down riff on sci-fi classics like Predator or Aliens as members of 81’s squad are picked off one by one. Survival means becoming scrappy and resourceful enough to outmaneuver an enemy that’s unlike anything they’ve faced before.
As Polygon’s Tasha Robinson wrote in her review, there’s a strong thread of “competence porn” running through War Machine. The soldiers are focused and efficient, the practical stunts have genuine physical weight, and the story moves with the stripped-down efficiency of one long chase sequence. “War Machine is a rip-roaring action movie that puts the stunt choreographers through their paces, whether 81’s squad is getting blown off a rocky cliff or trying to swim or rope-traverse actual Class V rapids,” she wrote. “Hughes’ focus on practical stunt work, location shooting, and real, physical environments gives the movie a gritty tactile feel, and Netflix’s marketing leans heavily on the shoot’s authentic physical demands.”
A big part of what makes War Machine so dang watchable is its star. The story is simple and straightforward, with its characters drawn in broad strokes, allowing Hughes to emphasize Ritchson’s hulking physicality more than in most of his other roles. It evokes a lost era of Hollywood action movies, when icons like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone smeared mud and paint across their faces before wandering into the wilderness against hopeless odds.
At this point, Ritchson’s appeal feels practically bulletproof. Put him in the path of an alien war machine, a corrupt conspiracy, or just about any kind of threat, and people will show up to watch him punch his way through it. I know I will.
War Machine is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix.
