Top 10 Most Watched YouTube Videos Ever (All Time)

What is the most-watched YouTube video of all time?

"Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong holds the top spot, making it the most-viewed YouTube video ever.

How many views does a YouTube video need to be on this list?

Every video on this ranked list has surpassed several billion views.

When was this top 10 list last updated?

This list reflects view counts as of 2026.

Are music videos the only type of video in the top 10?

No — the list mixes music videos, children's nursery rhymes, and viral cultural moments.

## What is the most-watched YouTube video of all time?

As of the latest figures, "Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong holds the #1 spot on YouTube's all-time most-viewed list, having surpassed every other video on the platform.

## Which video was the first to reach 1 billion views?

"Gangnam Style" by PSY was the first YouTube video to cross 1 billion views, a milestone no one expected a K-pop single to set.

## Are children's songs really bigger than music videos on YouTube?

Yes. Several nursery-rhyme and kids' learning channels — including Pinkfong, LooLoo Kids, Miroshka TV, Masha and the Bear, and Cocomelon — consistently out-stream major-label music videos on the all-time list.

## How often does the top 10 most-watched YouTube list change?

The top positions move very slowly. Videos in the top 10 typically gain millions of views per month, but reshuffling happens over years rather than weeks.

## Where can I see the live, updated rankings?

YouTube maintains a public, real-time view count on every video page, which is the source the rankings on this list are based on.

Half of this list is nursery rhymes and toddler programming, and that's not a coincidence of taste — it's a function of how young children watch video. A pop song gets watched once or a handful of times by any given fan; a toddler's favorite clip gets replayed on a loop, sometimes dozens of times a day, for months, often on autoplay while a parent hands over a phone or tablet. That repeat-viewing pattern is what let 'Baby Shark Dance' overtake a decade of accumulated pop-video views, and it's why children's content keeps out-viewing music videos with far bigger initial cultural moments.

'Gangnam Style' becoming the first video to reach 1 billion views, in December 2012, was treated at the time as a near-unrepeatable milestone — YouTube even had to update the view counter's code because it wasn't built to display a number that high. Barely a decade later, a billion views doesn't even crack this top ten; every video here has several times that. The shift reflects a much larger global YouTube audience, autoplay and recommendation algorithms that keep videos circulating years after release, and a generation of viewers, especially very young ones, for whom rewatching a favorite clip is the default way to watch anything at all.