• Netflix has produced some of the most captivating and divisive shows of 2024.
• It hooked viewers with a mystery in "Fool Me Once," and stoked controversy with "Baby Reindeer."
• Here are the nine most talked-about shows on Netflix in 2024.

2024 has been a huge year for Netflix, with the streamer's shows sparking huge conversations.

Here are the nine most talked-about shows on Netflix in 2024.

"Fool Me Once"

Harlan Coben's binge-worthy thrillers, with their twist-filled storylines, are a constant favorite among Netflix subscribers, and "Fool Me Once" was no different.

Released in January, the series followed ex-soldier Maya Stern (Michelle Keegan), who spots her dead husband on a nanny cam inside her house. As she tries to find the truth, she reexamines her time in the military, as well her sister's murder, which took place before her husband's death.

Audiences couldn't get enough, and flocked to social media to unpack the story's plot holes and identify filming locations.

According to Netflix, it was one of the streamer's most-watched shows of all time, racking up 98 million views.

"American Nightmare"

In 2024, Netflix released several buzzy docuseries, starting with "American Nightmare."

The three-part series examines the kidnapping of Denise Huskins, which police in Vallejo, California claimed she faked with her boyfriend.

The show charts how the media hounded Huskins and her partner, Aaron Quinn, as a result of the accusations, and also details her horrific kidnapping.

It got subscribers making comparisons to "Gone Girl," and talking about how the media sometimes portrays victims.

"Baby Reindeer"

"Baby Reindeer" is arguably the most talked about show of the year. The show follows Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd), an aspiring comedian, who is stalked by an older woman called Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning), after he serves her at the pub where he works.

The semi-autobiographical drama was partly based on Gadd's experiences of stalking and sexual assault. The show was presented as a true story, which turned audiences into armchair detectives as they searched for the real people the characters were based on.

From there, the real story only got more twisted as a woman named Fiona Harvey came forward as the person Scott is based on. She is suing Netflix for defamation, and the case goes to trial in 2025.

"The Man with 1000 Kids"

The streamer continued to explore unbelievable true stories with "The Man with 1000 Kids." It followed families from different countries who discovered they used the same sperm donor, a Dutchman named Jonathan Jacob Meijer.

The series highlighted the risks of prolific sperm donors, and Meijer's insistence that what he did wasn't wrong. Many viewers were particularly shocked at the allegation that Meijer mixed his sperm with another donor's, something he denied.

Meijer said that the number of children he's fathered is actually 550, and has threatened to sue Netflix for defamation.

"Dancing For the Devil"

"Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult" exposed the darker side of fun dance videos on TikTok. Its main focus is Melanie Wilking, a content creator and dancer, who claims that Miranda Derrick, her sister, was brainwashed by a cult-like organization called the Shekinah Church.

The religious group is run by pastor Robert Shinn, who also runs a talent management company for content creators and dancers. In the docuseries, Wilking claimed its members cut ties with their loved ones after joining the church.

In a statement on social media, Derrick denied that Shekinah was the reason for her family troubles, which only fueled further discussion. In 2022, Shinn has denied the accusations of abuse made against both himself, and Shekinah church.

"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story"

"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" was bound to cause controversy after the families of victims accused its creator, Ryan Murphy, of not contacting them before using their stories in season one: "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story." Murphy said he contacted them but they didn't reply.

The second season of the "Monster" anthology series tells of how the brothers murdered their parents, alleging they experienced years of abuse. It caused uproar over the depiction of the Menendez brothers, including a moment that suggested the siblings were in a sexual relationship.

However, it also ignited sympathy for their case and opened up the possibility that the pair could be released from prison.

"Nobody Wants This"

Most of the other entries on this list got viewers talking because of controversies, murder, and mayhem. But subscribers flocked to watch "Nobody Wants This" partly because it's so wholesome.

The rom-com follows Joanne (Kristen Bell), a sex-positive podcaster, and Noah (Adam Brody), a rabbi, as they navigate their vastly different lives while dating.

Viewers were particularly enamored by Noah's emotional support of Joanne. But the moment when he kisses her while holding her face had everyone swooning.

"The Perfect Couple"

"The Perfect Couple" follows Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), as she prepares to marry her boyfriend Benji Winbury (Billy Howle) at his family's lavish home on Nantucket.

When her best friend is found dead on the morning of the wedding, Sacks' life is turned upside down.

Aside from Nicole Kidman's frosty performance as Greer Winbury, the family's steely matriarch, the murder mystery's opening sequence surprised viewers because of its fun, flashmob-style dance to Meghan Trainor's "Criminals."

"Black Doves"

"Black Doves" didn't spark controversy, nor did it dive into a horrifying true crime story. But it did feature Keira Knightley as Helen Webb, a badass spy out to avenge her lover's death, which was enough to grab viewers' attention.

Some noticed that it's the latest in a string of spy shows set in London, following "Slow Horses," "The Agency," and "The Day of the Jackal."

But "Black Doves" stands out largely because of Knightley's ferocious performance and her killer outfit choices as a spy masquerading as the wife of a UK government minister.

• Dr. Michael Roizen is a longevity expert who claims to have reversed his age by 20 years.
• There are a few bare minimum things you can do to live longer, he said.
• These include getting vaccinated, playing brain-training games, and eating salmon.

It can be tough to find the time to take care of our health. But a doctor who claims to have reversed his age by 20 years said that focusing on six basics could help us stay healthy for longer.

Dr. Michael Roizen, 78, the chief wellness officer at Cleveland Clinic, told Business Insider his "biological age" is 57.6, based on the health of his organs and his risk of chronic disease. (There's no agreed definition of biological age or how it can be measured).

Roizen is all about finding lifestyle changes that can help people live healthily for as long as possible. But he said "there are small things and easy things to do that make a big difference" to longevity, even if people can't overhaul their lifestyles.

Below are the six things he thinks everyone should do to live longer.

Walk more

Roizen tries to do 10,000 steps a day as part of his weekly workout routine, and thinks that everyone should "try to walk a little more."

To add movement to his commute, for instance, he parks his car as far away from his work as possible and walks the rest of the way.

Walking fewer than 10,000 steps — a somewhat arbitrary number with its origins in marketing — still has benefits. One 2023 study by researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, found that people who walked 75 minutes or less a week had a lower risk of dying from any cause or developing cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Eat avocado, salmon, and olive oil

BI previously reported on the seven foods Roizen eats for longevity. But just eating three of these — avocado, salmon, and olive oil — will still merit health benefits, he said. Studies have linked all three to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Have strong relationships

Nurturing friendships is a "fun" way to boost your health and longevity, Roizen said. Plus, "it's always better to do things with other people," he said.

Rose Anne Kenny, professor of aging and lead researcher on The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing at Trinity College Dublin, said that having strong social connections is just as important for longevity as a healthy diet and getting enough exercise, BI previously reported.

Play speed of processing games

Roizen recommended playing speed of processing games, which are brain-training games that research suggests might help improve how quickly your brain works. Roizen recommended two: Double Decision and Freeze Frame.

Referencing a 2017 study published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, Roizen said that practicing these games could reduce the risk of dementia. The study found that older adults who played 10 sessions of these games over an initial six-week period, and then did top-up sessions 11 and 35 months later, had a 29% lower risk of dementia after 10 years.

Roizen recommended playing these games for two hours a week for five weeks to try to replicate the study results.

Take a multivitamin

Research is mixed on whether taking multivitamins is beneficial for longevity.

Roizen cited studies that found that the risks of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia were reduced in people who took multivitamins for years.

But, recent research has suggested that these findings aren't necessarily indicative that multivitamins are as effective outside study conditions. For example, a large study on over 390,000 people published in JAMA Network Open earlier this year concluded that taking a multivitamin wasn't linked to longevity. And the US Preventive Services Task Force doesn't recommend the general public take multivitamins because there's not enough evidence to show that it has any benefit.

Roizen said that he takes a multivitamin anyway to keep the overall levels of vitamins in his body stable.

Get your flu shot

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone aged six months and above should get a flu vaccine every season.

But Roizen also takes it for the potential healthy aging benefits. A 2022 review of studies published in Ageing Research Reviews suggested that vaccinating older people against the flu could also help prevent dementia, possibly because it decreases inflammation in the brain.

• The top researcher for a major study on guaranteed basic income says the findings are "nuanced."
• The study, backed by Sam Altman, gave $1,000 a month to 1,000 low-income participants.
• Elizabeth Rhodes says while the study showed benefits, it's not a quick fix for economic insecurity.

The lead researcher for Sam Altman's basic-income study says guaranteed no-strings payments are not a silver bullet for issues facing lower-income Americans.

Elizabeth Rhodes, the research director for the Basic Income Project at Open Research, told Business Insider that while basic-income payments are "beneficial in many ways," the programs also have "clear limitations."

Universal basic income, or UBI, typically refers to making recurring cash payments to all adults in a population, regardless of their wealth or employment status, and with no restrictions on how they spend the money.

Rhodes headed up one of the largest studies in the space, which focused specifically on those on low incomes rather than making universal payments to adults across all economic demographics.

The three-year experiment, backed by OpenAI boss Altman, provided 1,000 low-income participants with $1,000 a month without any stipulations for how they could spend it. The study aimed to explore how unconditional cash payments influence various aspects of recipients' lives.

The initial findings, released in July, found that recipients put the bulk of their extra spending toward basic needs such as rent, transportation, and food. They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group.

But Rhodes says the research reinforced how difficult it is to solve complex issues such as poverty or economic insecurity, and that there is "a lot more work to do."

The Altman-backed study is still reporting results. New findings released in December showed recipients valued work more after receiving the recurring monthly payments — a result that may challenge one of the main arguments against basic income payments. Participants also reported significant reductions in stress, mental distress, and food insecurity during the first year, though those effects faded by the second and third years of the program.

"Poverty and economic insecurity are incredibly difficult problems to solve," Rhodes said. "The findings that we've had thus far are quite nuanced."

She added: "There's not a clear through line in terms of, this helps everyone, or this does that. It reinforced to me the idea that these are really difficult problems that, maybe, there isn't a singular solution."

UBI and Silcion Valley

Universal basic income has garnered significant support within Silicon Valley.

The programs have long been a passion project for high-profile tech leaders, including Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla chief Elon Musk. Some argue advancements in AI, which could pose a threat to some worker's job security, have made the conversion more urgent.

Like many of his tech contemporaries, Altman has long supported UBI and even suggested an idea that involves sharing compute of a future iteration of an OpenAI GPT model, something he referred to as "universal basic compute."

Rhodes first applied for the lead researcher job in 2016 after seeing a blog post from Altman, then the president of Y Combinator, in which he announced his plan to support a study of universal basic income. At the time, she was just finishing up her Ph.D. and had never heard of Altman or Y Combinator.

"I started working on this with Sam in 2016 and at that time, so I was finishing up graduate school in social work and political science, and very outside the California Bay Area community," she said. "There was not much going on in this space, in the US. Basic income or cash transfers were still somewhat of a fringe idea."

The global interest in the study's results was somewhat surprising, Rhodes said, as the team never saw the experiment as a policy suggestion.

"It was never designed to be a policy referendum on UBI or any specific policy. It was an opportunity to really ask the sort of big, open-ended questions, you know, what happens when you give people unconditional cash to better understand the lived experiences of lower-income Americans and the challenges they were facing," she said.

The bald eagle is now officially the national bird of the U.S. after President Biden signed into law legislation amending a code to formally recognize the previously unofficial American emblem.

Why it matters: "The Bald Eagle has symbolized American ideals since its placement on the Great Seal in 1782," per a statement from Preston Cook, co-chair of the National Bird Initiative for the National Eagle Center after Congress passed earlier this month the bill that was sent to Biden's desk.

• "With this legislation, we honor its historic role and solidify its place as our national bird and an emblem of our national identity," added Cook, who spearheaded the legislative effort with Minnesota Reps. Brad Finstad (R) and Angie Craig (D) and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).

Zoom out: The bill officially recognizing the bird of prey was among some 50 bills Biden signed into law on Christmas Eve.

The big picture: The bald eagle has unofficially been the national bird since its appearance on the Great Seal, which symbolizes the sovereignty of the U.S. as a nation.

• The bird also features on the president's flag, the mace of the House of Representatives, military insignia and "billions of one-dollar bills," per a Department of Veterans Affairs post.
• However, it had never been legally designated as the country's national bird until now.

Fun fact: Founding father Benjamin Franklin objected to the bald eagle's appearance in a letter to his daughter describing it as "a bird of bad moral character," per the Franklin Institute.

Go deeper: U.S. bald eagle population has quadrupled since 2009

• The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to $1 billion ahead of a Christmas Eve drawing.
• If someone wins on Tuesday, they will score the seventh-largest prize in the game's history.
• The lump sum cash option is about $448.8 million, according to the Mega Millions website.

One lucky lotto player could wake up to a billion-dollar Christmas morning this year.

The Mega Millions jackpot hit an estimated $1 billion on Tuesday ahead of the Christmas Eve drawing, according to the Mega Millions website.

If someone does score a six-number winning ticket on Tuesday, the jackpot would be the largest prize ever won in December and the seventh-largest in the game's history.

Choosing the lump sum cash option would cut the prize money in half to about $448.8 million, according to the Mega Millions website. Winners can also choose annual payments over time. Mega Millions winnings are subject to state and federal income taxes.

Nobody has won the jackpot since September, when a Texan nabbed $810 million. The pot has continued to climb in the previous 29 drawings.

Several of the largest-ever lotto jackpots have happened in recent years.

A California man won a whopping $2.04 billion Powerball — the largest-ever lotto prize — in 2022. Earlier this year, a different California man claimed a $1.7 billion Powerball prize.

The largest Mega Millions prize, meanwhile, went to a Florida winner last year who won a $1.6 billion jackpot.

The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are about one in 302,575,350, according to the Lotto website.

If someone wins on Tuesday, they wouldn't be the first Christmas Eve Mega Millions winner. A $68 million jackpot was won in 2022, but nobody ever claimed the prize, ABC News reported.