Andor was most‑watched Star Wars

Star Wars is still a giant streaming machine — but the interesting part of today’s data drop is which corner of the franchise pulled hardest. It wasn’t just lightsabers, nostalgia, or Baby Yoda. It was Andor. Nielsen’s Star Wars Day snapshot says U.S. viewers spent 33 billion minutes with Star Wars in 2025, and Andor finished as the most-watched live-action Star Wars series of the year. ### What actually landed today? The new thing is the Nielsen breakdown released for May 4, 2026. It puts a hard number on how much Star Wars people watched in 2025 — 33 billion minutes, or about 550 million hours. That total covers movies, series, animation, and documentaries, and it shows the franchise is still pulling mass attention even when there isn’t a new movie in theaters. ### Why is Andor the headline? Because Andor didn’t just perform well for a prestige spinoff. It led the live-action series field. The clearest figure floating around the Nielsen breakdown is 7.4 billion minutes for Andor in 2025, with season 2 giving it a big lift during its spring run. It also tells you this wasn’t just critic bait, people actually showed up. ### Wasn’t The Mandalorian supposed to own this lane? That’s what makes this notable. The Mandalorian has been the broadest mainstream Disney+ Star Wars hit for years. But this batch of data suggests Andor won the year among live-action shows, while Skeleton Crew and The Mandalorian followed the franchise’s biggest live-action series draw for 2025. ### What does the bigger franchise mix look like? Movies still did most of the heavy lifting. Live-action films made up the biggest share of Star Wars viewing time, ahead of live-action TV and animation. A New Hope was the most-watched film in the set, with The franchise where the films still dominate habit viewing. ### Why does Rogue One keep showing up here? Because Andor and Rogue One now work like a bundle. If people finish the series, a lot of them roll straight into the movie. Rogue One ranking so highly in the movie stack fits that pattern. That’s an inference, not a direct Nielsen claim, but it lines up with how prequel viewing usually works when the handoff is this tight. ### Is Cassian actually coming back again? Yes — but not in a new live-action show, at least not from what’s been announced. Marvel already has a Rogue One 10th-anniversary one-shot focused on Cassian Andor, set between the end of Andor and the start of Rogue One, a character with momentum right now, not one whose story just ended on TV. ### Why does this matter beyond fandom trivia? Because it tells Disney something useful. Star Wars viewers still love the old movies, but they also rewarded a denser, less toyetic series in huge numbers. That widens the franchise playbook. Andor looks less like an acclaimed exception now, and more like proof that Star Wars can win big without chasing the same tone every time. ### Bottom line? Today’s update turns Andor from “the Star Wars show critics love” into something bigger — the live-action series that actually won 2025 on viewing time. And with Cassian already moving into new canon stories this week, Disney looks very aware that this corner of Star Wars still has real pull.