The most-watched YouTube videos of 2026 so far

We're not even halfway through 2026 and YouTube has already served up one of the biggest video moments in its entire history. So I thought it'd be fun to stop, take stock, and round up the videos that have pulled the biggest crowds this year.

Quick note on how I've ranked these. Trying to measure "most watched of the year" by total views mid-year is a bit of a mug's game, the counts are still climbing and the data is messy. So I've gone with the metric the industry actually reports and gets excited about: views in the first 24 hours. It's the cleanest way to see which launches truly broke through. Where a video didn't have a clean day-one figure, I've slotted it in by scale and said so.

Grab a brew. Here are the videos that owned 2026 so far, with each one embedded so you can watch without leaving the page.

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Official Trailer

18 Mar 2026718.6M viewsSearch trend

This is the big one. When Sony dropped the first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day in March, it racked up a frankly silly 718.6 million views across all platforms in 24 hours. That's the biggest trailer launch in history, comfortably past GTA VI's 475 million and Deadpool & Wolverine's 365 million. It then became the first trailer ever to cross a billion views, in four days. Whatever you think of superhero films, that is a marketing machine firing on every cylinder.

2. MrBeast, 30 Celebrities Fight For $1,000,000!

7 Jan 202630M+ viewsSearch trend

Proof that one bloke from North Carolina can still go toe to toe with the studios. MrBeast opened the year by stuffing 30 famous faces into one of his trademark elimination games, and it pulled more than 30 million views on day one. No franchise, no decades of IP, just relentless format craft. Anyone who works in content should watch how he engineers a thumbnail and a first ten seconds.

3. BTS, 'SWIM' Official MV

19 Mar 202633M viewsSearch trend

BTS made their long-awaited return with the album ARIRANG, and lead single SWIM was the music event of the year so far. It pulled 33 million views in its first 24 hours, making it the most-viewed and most-liked music video released in 2026 on day one, and the first K-pop video of the year to hit 100 million. The army never misses.

4. BLACKPINK, 'GO' M/V

26 Feb 202621.3M viewsSearch trend

Not to be outdone, BLACKPINK came back swinging with GO and stormed straight to No. 1 on YouTube's global chart, the biggest female-artist debut of 2026. The K-pop machine remains the most reliable view-generating force on the platform, and it's not particularly close.

5. aespa, 'WDA (Whole Different Animal)' feat. G-DRAGON

11 May 2026~20M viewsSearch trend

A team-up nobody saw coming. aespa joining forces with G-DRAGON gave us WDA, racking up close to 20 million views inside its first week. The collaboration play, two fanbases colliding for one launch, is one of the smartest growth moves in modern music marketing.

6. Avengers: Doomsday, 'The X-Men Will Return' teaser

6 Jan 2026~15M viewsSearch trend

Marvel spent the new year teasing Doomsday in instalments, and this X-Men reveal was the standout, now sitting around 15 million views. Drip-feeding a campaign across several short teasers rather than one big drop is a clever way to keep a film in the conversation for months. Take notes.

7. Avengers: Doomsday, Wakanda and Fantastic Four teaser

13 Jan 2026~10M viewsSearch trend

The same campaign, a different hook. This teaser leaned on the Wakandans and the Fantastic Four and has gathered close to 10 million views. One film, multiple fanbases, multiple bites of the apple. That's how you make a tentpole feel unmissable.

8. Shakira and Burna Boy, 'Dai Dai'

23 May 20268.2M viewsSearch trend

The official song of the 2026 World Cup brought Shakira and Burna Boy together and opened with 8.2 million views in 24 hours. Hitch your release to a global event and you borrow its audience. Simple, and it works every time.

9. NMIXX, 'Heavy Serenade' M/V

11 May 2026~10M viewsSearch trend

More K-pop firepower. NMIXX's Heavy Serenade tore past 10 million views within a few days of release, another reminder of just how deep the genre's bench is right now. Half this list is K-pop, and that's not an accident.

10. The Mandalorian and Grogu, Official Trailer

22 Sep 2025~13M viewsSearch trend

Rounding off the ten, Star Wars brought Grogu to the big screen and gave us one of the most-watched Star Wars trailers in a good while ahead of the film's May release. No tidy 24-hour figure was reported, but the launch was big enough to earn its spot.

What this tells us as marketers

A few things jump out when you line them all up.

First, the gap at the top is staggering. Spider-Man's 718 million in a day makes everything else on this list look like a warm-up, and it shows what's possible when a global IP, a coordinated fan-led rollout and perfect timing all land at once.

Second, music and trailers still rule YouTube's biggest moments, and K-pop in particular is a view-generating juggernaut. Five of these ten are music videos. If you want a masterclass in launch coordination, fandom and collaboration, watch how the labels do it.

Third, and most useful for the rest of us, you don't need a Marvel budget to play the same game. The tactics underneath these numbers, hitching to a global event, collaborating to merge audiences, drip-feeding a campaign, obsessing over the first ten seconds, all scale down to a brand channel on a sensible budget. The principles travel.

We help brands get more from video and YouTube every day at Clicky, from strategy to the unglamorous technical bits that actually move the needle. If you fancy a chat about making your video work harder in the back half of 2026, get in touch. 👊

Clicky™ / ClickyGroup™

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View figures are first-24-hour numbers as reported around each launch, except where noted. They'll have climbed since. Sources include Variety (Spider-Man trailer record), Soompi (BTS SWIM), allkpop (BLACKPINK GO) and Collider (Avengers: Doomsday teasers). Worth a sense-check against live counts before publishing.