12 movies on Netflix that critics hate but audiences love – from Spenser Confidential and Angel Has Fallen, to Coffee and Kareem

Netflix said in its first-quarter earnings report that 85 million member households had watched its original movie Spenser Confidential. With a 38 per cent Rotten Tomatoes critic score (and a 56 per cent audience score), it's the latest Netflix movie with poor reviews to gain popularity.

Netflix has a history of touting the popularity of some movies that critics hate. But now it doesn't need to say anything for people to notice how popular those movies are. In February, Netflix introduced daily top 10 lists of its top titles right on the service for all to see (Netflix counts a view if an account watches two minutes of a show or movie, which is how it calculates the lists).

The streaming search engine Reelgood has been providing Business Insider weekly lists of Netflix's most popular movies, based on the streamer's daily lists, for the past four weeks. From Spenser Confidential to Coffee and Kareem, it's clear that viewers can't get enough of critically panned Netflix movies.

But it goes beyond originals. Licensed titles like M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender and The Roommate, both shunned by critics and audiences upon their initial releases, have appeared on the top lists.

We compiled a list of the most “rotten” movies to appear on the weekly lists over the last month and ranked them from bad to worst. A movie is “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes if it has a critic score below 60 per cent. We broke any ties with audience scores (and 10 of the movies also have rotten audience scores).

Below are the most popular bad movies on Netflix, according to critics. 

12. Outbreak (1995)

Netflix description: “When a deadly virus spreads throughout a small town, a team of army doctors works to contain it before the military can execute an extreme alternative.”

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 59 per cent