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Though relatively new on the Hollywood scene (its first original film was released in 2019), Apple TV+’s slate of original films has included not just charming indies, but award-winning prestige pictures. CODA was Oscar’s best picture just a couple of years ago (the first film from a streaming service to claim the honor), and the streamer’s movies earned it 13 nominations for 2023, even if it got nothing for 2024. (We all have off years.) It’s not all prestige, though! Apple also has some delightfully disposable films, such as the globe-trotting new Guy Ritchie movie.
Given the complexities of film financing today, you might be excused for believing that many of these movies were typical theatrical releases—but, strictly speaking, these are all Apple TV+ originals. Sometimes they’re only available through the app, but other times they have small (or significant) theatrical releases built in to their distribution model, if only to ensure they’re eligible for major awards like the Oscars.
Echo Valley (2025)
Julianne Moore is joined by Sydney Sweeney in this twisty thriller that also includes Domhnall Gleeson, Kyle MacLachlan, and Fiona Shaw. Moore plays horse trainer Kate Garrett, living on a farm in southern Pennsylvania dealing with a recently deceased wife and also a deeply troubled daughter, Claire (Sweeney) who mostly only shows up when she sees money. This time around, she’s brought a sketchy boyfriend and a drug dealer to whom she owes money. Without giving too much away: Someone winds up dead, but not the person we’re expecting, and it quickly starts to look like Claire isn’t quite the timid, damaged soul she appears to be. Moore is fab, as usual. You can stream Echo Valley here.
Fountain of Youth (2025)
A glossy and fun (if middling) entry in the Guy Ritchie oeuvre, Fountain of Youth plays as a diverting Indiana Jones pastiche, with some more overt fantastic elements in the style of National Treasure or its closest analogue, The Librarian series. John Krasinski stars as Luke Purdue, a roguish disgraced archaeologist not above stealing art treasures that he and his team (including Domhnall Gleeson’s wealthy backer Owen Carver) believe contain clues as to the location of the title’s mythical fountain—which is, perhaps, not a myth. Luke’s sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) gave up the action-archaeology lifestyle in favor of a job as a curator at the British museum, but is soon convinced to jump into the adventure. It’s full of the kind of spry globe-trotting action that’s thoroughly diverting, even if you’re unlikely to give it much thought when it’s over. You can stream Fountain of Youth here.
Fancy Dance (2023)
Lily Gladstone follows up her Oscar-nominated performance in Killers of the Flower Moon with an equally impressive turn from Seneca-Cayuga filmmaker Erica Tremblay, making her feature directorial debut. Gladstone plays Jax, a queer Cayuga woman living on an Oklahoma reservation with her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson). Jax’s sister (and Roki’s mother) disappeared weeks ago, but neither tribal police nor the FBI are willing to take it seriously, given the family’s troubled history. Child protective services tries to place Roki into the custody of her estranged white grandfather and his second wife, an arrangement that neither of the young women is comfortable with. The two set out on a dangerous journey to the tribal powwow in Oklahoma City—the FBI that wouldn’t take their concerns seriously before are suddenly very interested in finding the two, who are also forced to evade local law enforcement and even ICE. It’s not an entirely joyful narrative, but there is a powerful message about the power of community and family in the face of even the most oppressive external forces. You can stream Fancy Dance here.
Deaf President Now! (2025)
A key moment in the disability rights movement, and an absolute thunderstroke for the Deaf community, the Deaf President Now! movement at Gallaudet University in 1988 isn’t always discussed or well-understood outside of Deaf circles. And so, like the movement it chronicles, this documentary’s time has definitely come. Gallaudet was founded in 1864 to serve Deaf students, but for the first 124 years of its existence the school had been overseen by hearing presidents, chosen by a board of trustees made up almost exclusively of hearing people. When that board chose yet another hearing leader—the well-meaning and largely qualified Elisabeth Zinser—students decided they’d had enough. While it’s easy to look at the moment as a triumph given the outcome, the rather brilliantly done doc follows the events moment by moment, focusing on four very different students and an extremely turbulent week during which the campus was locked down in the face of opposition from the board and its chair, who never seemed to understand why Deaf people would want a Deaf president. You can stream Deaf President Now! here.
Lulu Is a Rhinoceros (2025)
An adaptation of the children’s book by the father-daughter writing duo Jason and Allison Flom, Lulu stars Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana) in the title role. Whenever Lulu looks in the mirror, she sees a rhinoceros, and feels like a rhinoceros—but everyone else sees a bulldog. With a bit of help from her bestie Hip Hop the bunny (Utkarsh Ambudkar) and Flom Flom the tickbird (Dulé Hill), she begins a journey of self-acceptance, and of learning not to always rely on validation from others. Leland provides the cute and catchy songs for this 47-minute movie for preschoolers and their families. You can stream Lulu here.
The Gorge (2025)
Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Sigourney Weaver star in this sci-fi/action/romance that became Apple TV’s most-streamed movie launch ever upon its February release. Teller and Taylor-Joy play snipers tasked by a mysterious woman (Weaver) with guarding two sides of the title’s gorge: He’s a former U.S. Marine with symptoms of PTSD, she’s a Lithuanian covert operative with a dying father. The two are to stand watch for a year in complete isolation to ensure that nothing comes out of the gorge. Things get complicated when the bored snipers start sending each other messages, increasing their communication until they start to question just what it is that they’re meant to be guarding. You can stream The Gorge here.
Bono: Stories of Surrender (2025)
Filmmaker Andrew Dominik (Killing Them Softly, Blonde) documents Bono’s 2023 one-man show at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. That show included selections from his memoir, alongside performance of newly arranged U2 songs to complement the text. As a means of telling the performer’s life story, this is far more dramatic, and cinematic, than a typical documentary—Bono has the same flair when reading as when singing, and director Dominik’s rather gorgeous cinematography is easy on the eyes. There’s also a fully immersive version if you’re an Apple Vision Pro user. You can stream Stories of Surrender here.
Fly Me to the Moon (2024)
The sort of goofy rom-com that they don’t make anymore (or so it’s said), Fly Me to the Moon rides on the strong chemistry between leads Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, as well as a premise so outrageous that it just about works. Tatum is Cole Davis, a (fictional) NASA launch director during the Apollo 11 era. He finds himself saddled with Johansson’s Kelly Jones, a slightly unscrupulous marketer publicly charged with helping to sell the public on the importance of a Moon landing. But she has a secret mission as well: She’s charged with preparing a fake landing video to air if the real one fails. These two lock horns as the actual launch approaches, with Kelly coming to question her methods in the face of true-believer Cole. Director Greg Berlanti, best known for about a million DC Comics TV shows, follows up 2018’s Love, Simon. You can stream Fly Me to the Moon here.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Though it didn’t take home Oscar gold (let’s put Lily Gladstone in more movies, please), Martin Scorsese’s latest has more than proven that the octogenarian filmmaker hasn’t lost a step. A story of creeping dread and existential terror in the American west, it chronicles the injustices that follow the discovery of oil on Osage tribal land in the 1920s. A good thing quickly goes bad when white political leaders plot a string of murders to keep the wealth staying where they think it belongs. The film might have gone deeper in presenting the true story from its natural Indigenous perspective, but the finished product still represents an important and harrowing story well told. You can stream Killers of the Flower Moon here.
The Bloody Hundredth (2024)
A tie-in to Apple’s Masters of the Air miniseries, this documentary from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, with Hanks narrating, is refreshingly unflashy. The narration, though, is buoyed by current and archive interviews with historians and survivors, as well as by an impressive array of contemporaneous footage. The documentary is perfectly effective if you haven’t watched Masters of the Air (it’s a history doc, not a making-of), but it’s fascinating seeing the real places and people portrayed in the miniseries. You can stream The Bloody Hundredth here.
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
Joel Coen’s sole (thus far) solo directing project represents a bold choice: a beautiful, strikingly minimalist adaptation of the Scottish play—lean and mean in its production and its impact. Only a director of Coen’s confidence would mount a production like this without feeling the need to reinvent the wheel, letting Shakespeare dialogue and the performances of Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand do the heavy lifting. During the 2021/22 awards season, it received far more nominations than wins, but still stands as one of the best cinematic takes on Macbeth since Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. You can stream The Tragedy of Macbeth here.
Blitz (2024)
British director Steve McQueen (Hunger, 12 Years a Slave, Widows) takes on the Blitz in this historical drama that’s rousingly old-fashioned while also being revisionist in its willingness to upend our notions of the fighting spirit of British civilians during World War II. Saoirse Ronan plays Rita, single mom to a biracial son—her Grenadian partner was hounded by racists until he was forced to leave the country. She’s a factory worker and a singer, struggling to survive in London’s East End, where the poor are offered less protection than those in better-off parts of the city, and a single mother with a biracial child is treated a bit less well than that. It’s not an entirely downbeat movie, and it’s full of uplifting moments, but it’s also not afraid to suggest that the Blitz of 1940 wasn’t all “Keep Calm and Carry On.” You can stream Blitz here.
Come From Away (2021)
A full cinematic adaptation of this musical about the events that unfolded at a rural airport on 9/11 was in the works before the pandemic put a stop to them. Thus, a special stage production was mounted using members of the original cast, filmed before an audience of 9/11 survivors and frontline workers. While it’s impossible to know what that other version might have been like, this one is probably better. The musical, which opened on Broadway in 2017, takes place in the Newfoundland town of Gander following the 2001 attacks. Gander had once been a major refueling hub, but that changed over time, leaving the town with an enormous airport and relatively little traffic—until airplanes were diverted there in the wake of the terrorist attacks. The stranded plane passengers briefly more than doubled the town’s population, and Gander leaders and residents pulled out all the stops to care for the unexpected guests. Based on a true story, the show has a smart sense of humor and, while it’s not cynical, it never succumbs to schmaltz either. You can stream Come From Away here.
Wolfs (2024)
Jon Watts steps away from Marvel’s Spider-Man movies to direct this action comedy led by George Clooney and Brad Pitt; it’s still a little hard to process that we’re in a world where two A-list stars would get paired with a director whose grosses are in the multiple billions, and yet we’re direct-to-streaming (technically, this did get a one-week pro forma theatrical release). Regardless, the finished product is quite fun: Amy Ryan plays Margaret, a Manhattan District Attorney who meets a young man in a bar who ends up dead(-ish) in her hotel room. She contacts a fixer (Clooney) to help clean up the mess and keep her out of trouble. Meanwhile, the hotel’s owner (voiced by Frances McDormand) witnesses much of what went on, and has brought in a person of her own (Pitt) to protect her hotel from blowback. The two very solitary fixers are forced to work together, and, naturally, things get increasingly complicated: The dead young man isn’t entirely dead, as it happens, but was involved in shenanigans that include drugs and the Albanian mafia. You can stream Wolfs here.
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues (2022)
Sacha Jenkins does an awful lot right in this biographical documentary about the American jazz legend, starting by offering new and archival interviews with musicians who’ve been influenced by Satchmo and his art: Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, Amiri Baraka, Ossie Davis, etc. But what he really gets right is in allowing Armstrong to tell his own story—the legend kept shelves worth of diaries on reel-to-reel tape, and it’s quickly clear that there’s no one better suited to tell his story, his instantly recognizable voice offering frank insights that no one else could. It’s a love letter to the jazz giant—one that, smartly, doesn’t try to smooth out the rough edges. You can stream Black & Blues here.
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
You might have missed Cooper Raiff’s 2020 indie Shithouse, a movie that earned great reviews on a $15,000 budget but couldn’t overcome its unfortunate title. His follow-up, Cha Cha Real Smooth, got a bit more attention. Andrew is a bar/bat mitzvah party planner who falls for Domino, a mom 10 years his senior (Dakota Johnson). It’s occasionally cloying, but Raiff’s complex script and range of characters make for a charming movie from a filmmaker to keep an eye on. You can stream Cha Cha Real Smooth here.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023)
The easy route would have been a tearjerking portrait of an inspirational figure—a one-time Hollywood golden boy bravely facing life with a debilitating illness. There’s a bit of that in this documentary, but whenever that mood does overtake the film, it feels earned. Director Davis Guggenheim documents Fox’s life with a thematic narrative through-line (an actor who could never be still in body or mind now struggles to do just that), even as it refuses to shy away from the knocks and bruises that attend any life with Parkinson’s, nor from Fox’s own complicated personality. The film works best when dealing with the overlaps, and disconnects, between Fox as a person and Fox as a public face of Parkinson’s. You can stream Still here.
CODA (2021)
While I’m not sure it was the most worthy Best Picture Oscar winner, that doesn’t detract from CODA as a charming and altogether likable film about Ruby (Emilia Jones), a young musician who is the only hearing member of her family. She struggles with the demands of the family’s fishing business even as she discovers a passion for singing and a new boyfriend. The premise involves a worn and silly trope about Deaf people not understanding music, but it also depicts its characters as capable, complicated community leaders with actual sex lives. Emilia Jones is great in the lead, as are Marlee Matlin and Oscar-winner Troy Katsur as her parents. You can stream CODA here.
Finch (2021)
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a dying engineer named Finch (Tom Hanks) works to build a robotic companion—not to serve as his companion, but to take care of his dog when he dies. Which is 1000% relatable, and more or less the extent of the plot. As end-time movies go, this one is surprisingly charming and family-friendly—Tom Hanks is a genial companion at the end of the world, and you won’t be surprised that a story of a man having adventures just to make sure that his dog has a friend is definitely going to make you cry. You can stream Finch here.
Napoleon (2023)
Sandwiched between 2021’s superior The Last Duel and Gladiator 2, Ridley Scott’s 2023 somewhat-accurate biopic about the one-time emperor of France proves his is the only name in town when it comes to historical epics. The shorter, theatrical version of this one is a slightly muddled affair, turning on a sly, subtly comedic lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix while also building to a number of massive, more traditional set pieces (Scott smartly doesn’t ask us to be overly enamored of the man himself). When it works, it offers up the old-fashioned thrills of a gorgeously designed period drama, with the types of grand battle sequences that we don’t get in a world where every movie fight involves superheroes and spaceships. The director’s cut (my preferred version), also on Apple TV+, is, surprisingly, sharper and funnier—but it adds nearly an hour to an already-long movie, so manage your time accordingly. You can stream the theatrical cut here, and the longer director’s cut here.
The Pigeon Tunnel (2023)
The great Errol Morris (Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) turns his camera on writer David Cornwell, better known as John le Carré, one-time spy and preeminent writer of espionage novels. The title comes from a memory from the author’s youth: visiting his father who was part of a pigeon-shooting concession—the pigeons were bred in captivity and then forced through a tunnel so that they’d be right in line for rich men to shoot them, at what seemed like their moment of freedom. The metaphor of an escape that’s actually a trap became a potent one in the author’s life and work, and Morris drives into that lifelong theme with his typical depth and style. You can stream The Pigeon Tunnel here.
Wolfwalkers (2020)
Robyn Goodfellowe is apprenticed to her father as a hunter, the two of them traveling to Ireland to wipe out the last of the land’s wolves. Going off on her own, she encounters a free-spirited girl who needs Robyn’s help to find her mother; the girl’s tribe is rumored to have the ability to change into wolves, and Robyn’s alliance with her new friends threatens her relationship with her father. This stunningly hand-drawn animated film received a well-deserved Oscar nomination, and follows a thematic trilogy that began with the same filmmakers’ The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014). They’re all independent of one another story-wise, but if you love this one, you’ll undoubtedly enjoy all three. You can stream Wolfwalkers here.
Hala (2019)
Most audiences seemed to overlook Apple’s first original narrative movie when it was released back in 2019, and that’s too bad. Written and directed by Minhal Baig, a native of Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, the movie has a distinctive sense of place, particularly for anyone who grew up in the Chicago area. But its primary strength is as a smart, sensitive coming-of-age story. Geraldine Viswanathan plays the title’s Hala Masood, a teenager from a strict Muslim family who falls for a non-Muslim boy at school, setting up a conflict that also brings a few family secrets out into the open. You can stream Hala here.
Swan Song (2021)
Writer/director Benjamin Cleary presents a poignant existential dilemma in this low-key science fiction drama starring Mahershala Ali as Cameron Turner, a husband and father suffering from a terminal illness. To spare his wife (Naomie Harris) and children from the trauma and pain of his impending death, he’s considering a new procedure offered by Dr. Scott (Glenn Close): He’ll continue to hide his illness from his family, and be replaced by a clone with all of his memories. He’ll spend his last months alone, but knowing his family won’t have to confront his loss. In the best sci-fi tradition, the film explores the questions of identity, meaning, and loss that such hypothetical technology raises—without feeling like an overlong episode of Black Mirror. You can stream Swan Song here.
The Velveteen Rabbit (2023)
It’s only around 40 minutes, so this blend of live action and animation is more of a short than a feature, but its length and refusal to belabor its own point are strengths, not weaknesses. Seven-year-old William (Phoenix Laroche) moves with his family to a new home, where he struggles to settle in and make friends. A Christmas gift of the titular rabbit sets William’s imagination free, and the boy’s love gives the rabbit a life of its own alongside the other toys in the playroom. When William gets sick, the Velveteen Rabbit has a tough choice to make and, if you know the story, this is approximately when the tears start welling up in your eyes. The animated segments use a variety of gorgeous animation styles, which really sells the complexity and variety of William’s imagination. You can stream The Velveteen Rabbit here.
