Netflix Released ‘Heartstopper: Forever' And No One Seems To Notice

Heartstopper Netflix At one point, Heartstopper was one of the most talked-about series on Netflix with sky-high critic scores for the show about a love story between two teens. Now? We have gotten to a point where the series finale of the show, which instead is a two-hour movie, came and went largely without a whisper.

That is Heartstopper: Forever, a film adapting the final graphic novel of the series, the movie being released a week ago on Netflix. But if you didn’t know that, no one would blame you. The movie failed to chart on the US top 10 movie list at all, and was nowhere on the global chart. It briefly did well in the UK, but that was about it.

It’s a strange ending for a show that boasts one of the highest critic and audience score combinations in Netflix history, a 98% and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes respectively across three full seasons. And Heartstopper definitely did have stellar viewership for a time.

It’s not clear precisely why this decision was made back in 2025 to release the “final season” as a film instead. It’s possible that declining viewership led to Netflix questioning another full season, but not wanting to end such a good show abruptly with no true finale either.

The second consideration is its cast schedules. Stars Joe Locke and Kit Connor both said they wanted to return for season 4, and did return for this movie. But Joe Locke is now in the MCU as Warlock and has three upcoming projects. Kit Connor, meanwhile, is even busier, having a run on Broadway for Romeo and Juliet (I saw him, he was great!), and he is set to star in the extremely high-profile Elden Ring game adaptation from frequent collaborator Alex Garland.

Is Heartstopper: Forever bad? Nope, that’s not it. It has a 93% critic score and an 89% audience score, lower than the show but still great. I think the issue here is that this wasn’t promoted as an “event,” combined with a viewership drop-off over time. I also think many people may not have realized the show would end with a movie in the first place, as that generally doesn’t happen. I can’t really think of another instance of this taking place on Netflix, specifically.

So, a strange ending for one of Netflix’s best shows, but three seasons and a conclusive movie are now in Netflix’s catalog for anyone to watch. Check out the whole thing if you haven’t, it’s very good.