One of Netflix’s newest original series is earning rave reviews from critics and audience members alike, even scoring a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. Arriving on the streaming platform on Thursday, April 6 A24’s new dark comedy Beef, a Netflix original, has been dubbed “a prime cut comedy” and this year’s “best and most addictive new series” that is already garnering award nomination buzz.
Created by Lee Sung Jin, Beef centers around Steven Yeun’s Danny Cho, a failing contractor with a chip on his shoulder, and Ali Wong’s Amy Lau, a self-made entrepreneur with a picturesque life, whose lives begin to unravel after they become consumed in a road rage incident. The series also stars Joseph Lee as George Nakai, Young Mazino as Paul Cho, David Choe as Isaac Cho, and Patti Yasutake as Fumi Nakai, with Ashley Park, Mia Serafino, Remy Holt, Maria Bello, and more recurring.
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Although Beef is only a recent addition to the Netflix streaming catalog, it is proving to be the most buzzed-about. Beef currently holds a 94% audience score and a 99% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics consensus reads, “Ali Wong and Steven Yeun are a diabolically watchable pair of adversaries in Beef, a prime cut comedy that finds the pathos in pettiness.”
Writing for ABC News, Peter Travers said, “Polish up those Emmys for the year’s best and most addictive new series,” adding that the series “explodes with rule-breaking experimentation. Nobody who sees it is going to shut up about it.” Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com dubbed Beef “a tonally daring piece of television, one that vacillates wildly from comedy to drama to thriller and back again,” with Observer‘s Barbara Ellen writing, “Beef truly encapsulates modern rage, and all the different reasons for it.” Meanwhile, Melanie McFarland wrote for Salon, “One day in the future academics may view Beef as a convincing TV distillation of the early 21st-century’s collective mood, a lingering and worsening state of society-wide pandemic anger.” British GQ‘s Jack King said Beef is “unequivocally the best new series they’ve released since 2020’s Squid Game.”
With all of that high praise, it comes as little surprise that Beef is currently climbing the streaming charts, not just in the U.S., but worldwide. The series currently ranks No. 2 among TV shows in the U.S. behind The Night Agent, Beef beating out Love is Blind, Transatlantic, and Hoarders. It also ranks No. 2 on Netflix globally, per FlixPatrol data, which shows the hit series ranks in the Top 3 in countries including Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. At this time, Netflix has not released any viewership data for Beef, and the series has not yet been renewed for a second season.
