Apple TV+ review: Great entertainment, and increasingly more of it

Price When Reviewed

$4.99/mo when reviewed, current price is $6.99/mo (7-day free trial available)

Best Prices Today: Apple TV+

When Apple TV+ launched in November 2019, I called it cheap entertainment, but I also said there wasn’t very much of it. The price of a subscription has changed from $4.99 to $6.99 per month since then, so it’s still cheap entertainment, but there’s a lot more content on offer today.

Apple TV+’s launch content didn’t light many fires, but the programming Apple has developed and acquired in the intervening years has formed an enviable library, and the service itself has evolved into an entertainment powerhouse.

Apple TV+ now has enough good and great content to rank as a top-tier streaming entertainment service.

What kinds of entertainment does Apple TV+ offer?

There’s a fine collection of water-cooler shows like Ted Lasso, Severance, and Shrinking; a selection of original films like the Oscar-winner CODA and Joel Coen’s magnificent The Tragedy of Macbeth; great Peanuts content—including the beloved Charlie Brown/Snoopy holiday specials — and Friday Night baseball.

You can also now stream some licensed older entertainment, similar to Amazon Prime’s “Included with Prime” offerings. As of this writing, paying subscribers can stream five “Historical Action” titles, including Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, 300, and Troy, at no additional cost. There’s a ubiquitously huge library of movies and shows available for rent or purchase (keep your eye out for sales: 99-cent rentals and $4.99 purchases). Purchased movies can be streamed or downloaded for offline viewing and archiving.

The entertainment offerings on Apple TV+ spans the gamut of genres and styles, including comedies, drama, sci-fi, fantasy, kids’ shows, musicals, war stories, animals, music, sports, and more. You’ll encounter very few outright stinkers; even the widely-panned Chris Evans/Ana de Armas juggernaut Ghosted earned a massive number of views. Scroll down to read my top recommendations.

How much does Apple TV+ cost?

A 7-day free trial is available, while buying an Apple device nets you a three-month free subscription. Unfortunately, the days when Apple rewarded device buyers with 1-year subscriptions are over.

While the cost of an Apple TV+ subscription has risen to $6.99 per month, it now costs the same as the cheapest Netflix tier. And unlike Netflix, Apple doesn’t subject viewers to ads (at least not yet).

There are two ways to knock a little off the price of an Apple TV+ subscription: First, you can pay $69 annually (saving you $14.88 over a year’s time compared to paying monthly). Alternatively, if you use other Apple services, you can purchase them in an Apple One bundle that includes Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and iCloud+. Apple One prices start at $16.95 per month for an individual (with 50GB of iCloud storage) and $22.95 per month for a family of up to six (with 200GB of iCloud storage).

What’s the Apple TV+ user interface like?

Like most Apple products, the Apple TV+ interface is smooth, attractive, and intuitive, even on the iPhone, where each option looks like a colorful piece of candy ripe for the plucking. The Apple TV app first loads in a “Watch Now” setting, which includes Apple TV+ content, your own library of purchased movies and shows, and other content available for rental or purchase. The other settings include “Apple TV+,” “Movies,” “TV Shows,” “Library,” and “Search.” Selecting “Apple TV+,” of course, brings you to the streaming service.

You’ll see a series of slides offering a selection of promoted material, with new stuff, older stuff, and sometimes trailers of upcoming content, such as the documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated. Selecting a series offers more choices: “Play,” “Watch Trailer,” or “Add to Up Next.” Viewers can choose whatever episode is next or scroll through several windows and manually choose. Arrowing down gives more choices, including bonus/behind-the-scenes content for certain programs, trailers, similar or related content, and a cast list (clicking on a cast member brings users to the Apple Store).

Viewers can add shows and movies to their “Up Next” list, which is similar to Netflix’s “queue.” The list contains your “want-to-see” picks, but it also contains everything you’ve watched lately, even if you only clicked on it for a few seconds. Fortunately, it’s easy to edit the list from a computer or iPhone.

Once “Play” is pushed, depending on your device and internet speed, it can take a few moments for content to begin; but once it does, the visuals have a crisp, lustrous quality, and the audio is clean and clear, with many soundtracks available in Dolby Atmos immersive sound. Since Apple loves a simple, uncluttered interface, viewers might have a hard time finding things like subtitles or audio options. Once a show is playing, pressing the “enter” button merely displays “pause” and “play” buttons, and a timeline for the show or movie they’re watching. Pressing “up” opens a box that provides more information about the show, plus instructions to hold down the “enter” button for more options. These options include subtitles in various languages, audio tracks in various languages, and choice of speakers.

The streamlined remote control that comes with Apple’s set-top streaming box can be frustrating to use, given that it’s small and thin and the buttons are ill-defined. (It’s meant more for touch than for sight.) Preferences may vary, but there’s nothing quite like a beefier remote that fits squarely in the hand. The older Apple TV remotes use disposable button batteries, but the more recent ones can be charged with a Lightning cable and the newest models with a USB-C cable.

The best TV series on Apple TV+

The Afterparty

A hilarious murder mystery about a high-school reunion gone bad, The Afterparty presents each episode in a different genre. One episode is animated, and another is a musical—with three great songs, no less! Dave Franco is the murder victim, a pompous actor/pop star, and Tiffany Haddish is the detective who interviews each suspect. Season Two is on its way.

Dickinson

One of Apple TV+’s flagship shows, this full-blooded series—which lasted three seasons—gives us a fierce Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) who struggles with love, fame, family, and the times in which she lives. Dickinson is presented in period costume, but with anachronisms, modern dialogue, and music. Unlike many costume pieces, this one is funny, prickly, and alive.

For All Mankind

The alternate-history drama For All Mankind begins with the excitement of the 1969 moon landing; only this time, it’s not the Americans making history—it’s the Russians. Over the subsequent years and decades, the space race continues, changing things in a radical, progressive way. This one was another Apple TV+ flagship show, currently spanning three seasons and with a fourth on the way.

Mythic Quest

A workplace comedy set in the videogame industry, Mythic Quest is about the egomaniacal creator of a wildly popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney), and his various clashes with all the people unlucky enough to work with him. This one has also been renewed for a fourth season.

Severance

Mark (Adam Scott) gets a job at a company called Lumon and agrees to a procedure that will separate his memories of the workplace from his memories of his personal life. Of course, something deeply sinister is afoot. Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, and John Turturro are among the cast of this amazing-looking sci-fi series. Severance has also racked up an impressive number of Emmy nominations.

Shrinking

Co-created by Brett Goldstein of Ted Lasso, the very funny, touching Shrinking involves therapist Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) who is grieving the loss of his wife and trying to navigate his work and home life. Jessica Williams and Harrison Ford anchor the show with their superb performances as Jimmy’s co-workers.

Ted Lasso

Discovered by many during lockdown in 2020, this unlikely comedy became Apple TV+’s most talked-about hit. Even though it was based on a silly character created by Jason Sudeikis and intended only for short skits, it thrived on sharp humor and a bracing human kindness that seemed missing, especially during that turbulent year. Subsequent seasons only deepened the characters, and fans found themselves weeping as often as laughing. There won’t be fourth season, but rumor has it there’s a spin-off in the works.

Other strong Apple TV+ shows include the mysteries series Bad Sisters, Black Bird, and Home Before Dark; the musical Schmigadoon!; the sci-fi Silo, and the British spy drama Slow Horses.

The best original movies on Apple TV+

Causeway

Brian Tyree Henry received an Academy Award nomination for his performance as an auto mechanic who forms an unlikely friendship with Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence), a soldier undergoing rehab for a devastating brain injury. While the story of Causeway (2022) is fairly routine, the two exceptional performances give it a measure of gravity and grace.

CODA

Apple TV+’s lovable Academy Award winner for Best Picture (as well as Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay), CODA (2021) tells the story of Ruby (Emilia Jones), the only hearing child of a deaf family. She dreams of being a singer, but feels obligated to stay with her family and help them navigate the pitfalls of the hearing world. Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin are superb as her goofy, lovey-dovey parents.

Greyhound

Tom Hanks adapted the screenplay and plays Captain Krause, assigned to protect a convoy of ships carrying supplies and troops from the United States to England. They must survive “The Black Pit,” a stretch of ocean too remote for aircraft to reach, so the ships are on their own when a German U-Boat attacks. Greyhound (2020) is a bit talky overall, but it’s also compact and entertaining.

On the Rocks

One of the great unsung treasures of Apple’s streaming service, Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks (2020) has such a light, delicate touch, that it can be easy to forget how much skill went into making it that way. Rashida Jones plays Laura, a New York woman who begins having doubts about her marriage to Dean (Marlon Wayans). Her lovable goofball father (Bill Murray) tries to help her, using some offbeat methods.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Joel Coen, working without his brother Ethan for the first time, takes on Shakespeare’s play with a severe set design, stark, slashing black-and-white cinematography, and towering performances by Denzel Washington in the title role and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. Stage performer Kathryn Hunter is absolutely eerie playing all three of the witches that change Macbeth’s fate. The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) achieves a kind of artistry rarely seen in modern movies.

Other great movies you should watch on Apple TV+: Cha Cha Real Smooth, Palmer, Swan Song, and Tetris

The best documentaries on Apple TV+

Beastie Boys Story

Spike Jonze, who helmed the Beasties’ legendary “Sabotage” music video back in 1994, directs this 2020 documentary—based loosely on the massive coffee table book Beastie Boys Book from 2018—which simply features band members Adam Horovitz (“Ad-Rock”) and Michael Diamond (“Mike D”) telling their story onstage, accompanied by a slide show. (The third member of the band, Adam Yauch, or “MCA,” died while battling cancer in 2012.) Like a great Beastie record, this film is playful, brilliant, and a great deal of fun.

Boys State

This doc takes an inside look at a summer program sponsored by The American Legion in which 600 teens are split into two political parties and tasked to form their own governments, including electing their own leaders. Boys State (2020) takes place in Texas, and most of the participants are right-leaning, so it’s fascinating to watch when one teen, Steven Garza, the child of immigrants, uses his natural wisdom, maturity, and openness to out-power all the shouting and grandstanding.

The Elephant Queen

Apple TV+’s first feature-length movie, The Elephant Queen (2019), is a fascinating, and incredibly touching movie about a mother elephant making a dangerous journey across Kenya in search of water. She leads her entire family, including several small calves, who are alternately adorable and heartbreaking. Chiwetel Ejiofor provides the elegant, spellbinding narration, creating powerful drama to go with the beautiful pictures.

Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds

Werner Herzog and professor of volcanology Clive Oppenheimer co-direct this glorious 2020 documentary on meteorites, with Oppenheimer providing the facts of the situation and Herzog providing metaphysical, poetic narration in his familiar, mournful, German-accented voice. He makes the material seem cosmic, even comforting, as if looking up at the stars and pondering existence.

The Velvet Underground

Best known for his glittering dramas (Far from Heaven, Carol), director Todd Haynes brings an uncommon passion and thoroughness to this 2021 documentary on the cult rock ‘n’ roll band, one of the most influential that ever existed. Rather than stale talking heads, he creates images in a way that pays homage to the way the band created music. There’s lots of archival footage (some of it shot by Andy Warhol) and new interviews with surviving band members John Cale and Maureen Tucker.

Other great documentaries on Apple TV+: Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.

Other great entertainment on Apple TV+

Friday Night Baseball

Every Friday, Apple TV+ streams the complete games of whichever are playing that night. (You might have to wait a month or so before you’ll be able to catch your favorite team.) The service also offers recaps of great plays, and there’s lots of other MLB-related coverage.

Charlie Brown Holiday Specials

Apple TV+ offers a lot of Peanuts/Charlie Brown/Snoopy content, but the trilogy of holiday specials It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1965), A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973), and A Charlie Brown Christmas (1964) are the gold standards.

Spirited

If you’re in a Christmas mood, Spirited (2022) is great fun. It’s a full-blown musical with catchy, funny tunes, spectacular sets, and big laughs generated by Will Ferrell as a “Ghost of Christmas Past”-type spirit and Ryan Reynolds as a mean, Ebenezer Scrooge-like media consultant. Octavia Spencer is absolutely huggable as Kimberly, a love interest for Ferrell.

Is an Apple TV+ subscription a good value?

Apple TV+ has weathered its first 3-plus years spectacularly, thanks in part to canny decision-making and a little luck, with breakout hits like Ted Lasso and CODA. (A pandemic, which left people at home with time to stream, didn’t hurt either.) There’s now enough good and great content to rank Apple TV+ as one of the top-tier streaming entertainment services.

While you won’t find the same massive volume of content that Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu maintain in their libraries, Apple TV+ is still one of the least-expensive services of its kind. Apple isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, with big like Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon coming soon; new series featuring stars like Austin Butler, Colin Farrell, and Kristen Wiig; and even shows based on properties like Godzilla, Time Bandits, and Speed Racer.

An Apple TV+ subscription is certainly worth the price of admission.

Editors’ note: We originally reviewed Apple TV+ shortly after its launch in November 2019. This all-new review takes into account the service’s evolution since then and includes an entirely new verdict.

Best Prices Today: Apple TV+