Summary

Identity Thief, a Melissa McCarthy comedy from 2013, is now a Top 10 hit on Netflix. Despite being critically panned upon its release, the movie was a financial success, earning $175.4 million at the time. Identity Thief has now landed at No. 9 on the Netflix Top 10 English-language movies chart with 3.9 million views and 7.3 million hours viewed

The 2013 Melissa McCarthy comedy Identity Thief is now a Top 10 Netflix hit. The movie follows Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman), who tracks down a woman named Diana (McCarthy) after she has stolen his identity in order to bring her to justice and clear his credit. The movie was a financial success, earning $175.4 million off its budget of $35 million, but it was critically panned upon its release. At the time of writing, it has a Metacritic score of 35 out of 100 and an even lower Rotten Tomatoes score of 19%.

Netflix has now calculated their Top 10 most-viewed English-language movies for the week of October 2 through October 8. Identity Thief is No. 9 on the chart thanks to 3.9 million views, which accumulated a total of 7.3 million hours viewed. The ten-year-old movie has joined a list that also includes contemporary Netflix hits like their new thriller Fair Play, starring Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor and Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Alden Ehrenreich.

Melissa McCarthy’s Career Has Changed A Lot Since Identity Thief

There are likely a multitude of reasons why Identity Thief has become a hit on Netflix despite its rotten reputation. The pair of stars at the helm would most likely be the core draw. Bateman has proven a reliable draw for Netflix thanks to his hit crime show Ozark, which recently ended, but McCarthy has also had a career transformation since the movie originally premiered.

At the time in 2013, McCarthy was just two years out from her Oscar-nominated turn in Bridesmaids. However, theaters were becoming saturated in Melissa McCarthy comedies, and critics tended to spend the next few years dismissing any movie of hers that didn’t feature her reuniting with Bridesmaids director Paul Feig, such as The Heat (66%), Spy (95%), and Ghostbusters (74%). Her non-Feig movies were not received so well, with Identity Thief dipping about as low as her other titles Tammy (24%) and The Boss (22%).

Related: Every Melissa McCarthy & Paul Feig Movie Ranked

However, since then McCarthy has branched out into movies outside her typical comedy realm. This includes her dramatic role in the 2018 biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which earned the star her second Oscar nomination, and her recent villainous turn as Ursula in the 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Now that audiences have gained some distance from her 2010s run of comedies, it seems that interest in her earlier movies like Identity Thief has been revitalized despite the negative critical reaction.

Source: Netflix