Apple Original Films announced a ]new untitled feature film about the life of actor and advocate Michael J. Fox. Photo: Apple TV+
Most folks would recognize actor Michael J. Fox from his memorable roles in movies like Back to the Future and TV shows like Family Ties. But many also know him from his long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Apple said Wednesday it has a new nonfiction film about Fox’s remarkable life in production — but as of yet untitled — with an Oscar-winning filmmaker at the helm.
Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes will star in The Essex Serpent on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
The first trailer for the upcoming historical drama The Essex Serpent dropped Tuesday. It gives a preview of a very complicated relationship between characters played by Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. Also, there might or might not be a giant sea serpent involved.
Adam Scott won a Webby for his work on "Severance" on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
No stranger to racking up awards, Apple TV+ has now won its first for the unsettling hit drama Severance. Adam Scott, who plays Lumon Industries employee Mark S. on the show, will get The Webby Awards nod for best actor at a ceremony in New York City on May 16.
The Staples Singers appear in "1971: The Year that Music Changed Everything" on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ won its very first BAFTA TV Awards Sunday for two documentaries, 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room and 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything.
Each year the BAFTAs honor the best British programs and productions in addition to honoring films, such as CODA on Apple TV+, with separate awards.
Jon Stewart is back behind the anchor desk on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Comedian Jon Stewart, host of The Problem With Jon Stewart on Apple TV+, won the Mark Twain Prize for humor for his long stint hosting The Daily Show and his activism on behalf of veterans and 9/11 responders.
Stewart received the award at a ceremony Sunday at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
"Slow Horses" on Apple TV+ features Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, plus a lot of muttered words and phrases you might need help understanding. Photo: Apple TV+
There’s nothing like discovering a truly rich and deep source of entertainment — like a darkly amusing TV series that you find out is made from a whole lineup of engrossing books that you at least aspire to read. Such is the case with Slow Horses on Apple TV+, adapted from a series of spy-thriller novels by Mick Herron.
The dozen books and subsequent TV show rise from a complex world of spy circles with Cold War underpinnings leading into and out of MI5. That’s the U.K.’s primary security agency, sort of like the FBI in the U.S. In the story, a dysfunctional team of MI5 agents relegated to “Slough House” become embroiled in matters of national security, often at odds with M15 first-stringers.
Even if you’ve got a good ear for U.K. and European accents, you may still find yourself baffled by the in-jokes, shop talk and slang coming out of the characters’ mouths. Good thing there are helpful reference materials out there, like a whole glossary of terms.
River Cartwright (played by Jack Lowdon) searches for a crucial piece of evidence. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ spy series Slow Horses gets ready for the climactic showdown between MI5, Jackson Lamb’s misfit spies at Slough House and the kidnappers. Lamb hatches a plan to acquire some crucial evidence, but it involves subterfuge, bombs and the music of The Proclaimers.
Are these guys as clever as they pretend to be? The penultimate episode of season one delivers high highs and no lows — everything an hour of TV should be.
A massive earthquake leads to death and despair in this week's unusual episode. Photo: Apple TV+
Pachinko, the stellar Apple TV+ series about the fortunes of a Korean family across decades and generations, takes time away from its main storyline to tell the story of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which killed tens of thousands of people in Japan.
The episode isn’t a full stylistic break, but it’s a very different animal from the rest of the season. It offers a harrowing look at one person’s struggle to survive before and after a disaster that forever changed the face of Japan and the Koreans who lived there.
Apple TV+’s WeCrashed is finally done, which means we can finally stop looking at the hollow eyes of Jared Leto as WeWork CEO Adam Neumann. The company can’t go public while Adam remains CEO. But Adam doesn’t ever want to not be CEO.
He left WeWork in terrible shape before the board kicked him to the curb, and the only solutions are expensive ones. If you’re still invested in this story, god bless. But the time for some of these people to face consequences was long, long ago.
The four-part docuseries puts legendary basketball player Earvin "Magic" Johnson under a microscope. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+’s latest documentary series is They Call Me Magic, a look at the life and legacy of one of the greatest and most flashy basketball players the game ever saw.
Director Rick Famuyiwa gives us a guided tour of Earvin “Magic” Johnson Jr.’s game, the illness that took him out of professional sports, and the family members — both professional and blood — who made his life hard but worth living. The documentary’s form is digestible and the story is a necessary window into living memory, to see at once how far we’ve come and how little we’ve changed.
"The Big Conn" is a four-part Apple TV+ documentary series and podcast coming May 6. Photo: Apple TV+
Former eastern Kentucky lawyer Eric C. Conn is notorious for committing the largest-ever Social Security fraud, bilking the U.S. government and taxpayers out of $550 million. Plus, he partied with porn stars and opened a brothel before leading authorities on a major chase.
Apple TV+ covers the whole sordid affair like a blanket, judging by the new trailer for upcoming documentary series and podcast, The Big Conn.
Idris Elba will star in Hijack, a thriller series on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ landed Hijack, a thriller starring Idris Elba set on a plane that’s been hijacked. It will be a seven-episode series covering seven hours of action, so it’ll be told in real time — a technique that should be familiar to fans of 24.
Apple’s streaming service loves thrillers, and already has quite a few of them, with more on the way.
Prehistoric Planet will make the Jurassic Park movies look about as scientifically accurate as a Bug Bunny cartoon. Screenshot: Apple TV+
What might be the most visually stunning and scientifically accurate dinosaur documentary in a generation will soon premiere on Apple TV+. The first full trailer for Prehistoric Planet shows it’ll explore many parts of the world of the dinosaurs, from the Arctic to the oceans.
If you can’t imagine a Tyranosaurus Rex being loving or nurturing, then you really need to watch this.
Sadly, Mythic Quest will have to get along without F. Murray Abraham (left). Photo: Apple TV+
F. Murray Abraham reportedly won’t be in season 3 of Mythic Quest. The Oscar-winning actor was an important part of the ensemble cast for the first two seasons while playing quirky writer C.W. Longbottom.
Why the iconic actor is leaving the series is unknown. One possibility: he’s 82 years old.
Bilingual thriller "Now and Then" premieres on Apple TV+ May 20. Photo: Apple TV+
There are youthful indiscretions, and then there are youthful indiscretions. When a celebration among college besties ends up with someone dead, and everyone figures they can escape blame, well, that’s something that might come back 20 years later to haunt … everyone.
Along those lines, Apple TV+ shared a roughly 2-minute peek Tuesday at its new bilingual thriller Now & Then. The eight-episode series is scheduled to debut on the streaming service May 20.
Hang ten with some of the top surfers in the world. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ released the first trailer Monday for Make or Break, a new seven-part documentary series that delivers behind-the-scenes access to the world’s best surfers. The series follows them as they battle for the world title at the World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour (CT).
In the trailer, you get to briefly meet a bunch of the world’s best surfers and get a taste of the huge challenges they face.
And dude, you can’t unsee the surfboard with the big shark-bite taken out of it.
Apple TV+ might score a touchdown with NFL Sunday Ticket. Concept: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Apple might be about to put down billions to intercept NFL Sunday Ticket, which would allow it to stream out-of-market games every week of future football seasons.
Cook during a previous commencement address. Photo: George Washington University
Gallaudet University confirmed Saturday that Apple CEO Tim Cook agreed to deliver its commencement address next month. Cook responded to a student’s invitation via Twitter to speak at the school’s 152nd Commencement on May 13.
Gallaudet, located in Washington, D.C., calls itself the only university in the world where Deaf, deaf-blind and hard-of-hearing students live and learn bilingually in American Sign Language and English.
Apple and the university have close ties, with Gallaudet serving as an Apple Campus. Incoming students are equipped with a MacBook Pro or an iPad Pro. And the school praised Apple TV+ Oscar-winning film CODA for its realistic portrayal of a deaf family.
Apple is still hard at work on a HomePod/Apple TV combo with a FaceTime camera. Graphic: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The next HomePod reportedly won’t be a replacement for the full-size smart speaker. Apple is instead working on a combination Apple TV, HomePod and FaceTime camera.
The device supposedly will be the heart of Apple’s smart home strategy.
Apple is managing to stand out in the streaming market in Q1 2022. Photo: Cult of Mac
More streaming viewers watched the drama CODA on Apple TV+ than any other movie or series during the first three months of 2022, according to a ratings tracker. And the thriller Severance on Apple’s streaming service came in third place overall.
That means Apple TV+ streamed two shows with more viewers than anything on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or Disney+.
It's a week of surprises on Pachinko. Photo: Apple TV+
This week, Pachinko rewinds to Solomon’s upbringing, the birth of a false hope, and the dying days of a wayward daughter. The Apple TV+ series brings out some big guns to connect the trauma of the past and present. And as usual, the cast, crew and writers are up to the task.
The developments this week are soapy and tug on your heartstrings as everyone does their best to make this material stick in your mind week to week. When you’re building a story out of little moments of heartache, it’s tough to keep them all equal. But this crew has done an amazing job with this material.
Things turn deadly serious this week, but thankfully there's still room for humor in this spy series. Photo: Apple TV+
Slough House’s Slow Horses are on the run in this week’s installment of the Apple TV+ dark comedy about rogue failed spies working at the bottom of the British intelligence circus.
Slough House chief Jackson Lamb makes a Faustian bargain with Standish. River can’t help but check on Sid. Min’s crush on Louisa deepens. Struan gets picked up. Ho is in the wind. And everyone’s afraid of Taverner.
It’s another cracking potboiler of an episode this week as the noose tightens around everyone.
Aren't these toxic lovebirds just adorable? Photo: Apple TV+
WeWork is finally going public in this week’s installment of Apple TV+ series WeCrashed. But is it too late for the company? Is it too late to save Adam and Rebekah’s marriage? And are any of these truly pertinent questions in a show about the waste of millions of dollars, aired during an economic crisis?
The show goes long on the emotional connection and dreams of these characters at a time when interest in them — after six episodes of watching them behave like spoiled children — is at an all-time low.
Nicole Kidman stars in the standout episode of this anthology series. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+’s newest series is Roar, an anthology series based on the short story collection by Cecelia Ahern. Shepherded by Glowshowrunners and playwrights Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, the show is a collection of vignettes shot and presented in roughly the same style.
Each takes on a different facet of womanhood. And each contains some element of magical realism. The first season, which debuts Friday, seems like a mixed bag, to put it delicately. But the high points of these “feminist fables” prove high indeed.
Makur Maker is the focus of in The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
A docuseries about an NBA hopeful determined to take control of his journey premieres on Apple TV+ on April 22. The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball tells the story of how Makur Maker, a five-star NBA prospect, ended up at Howard University.
A new trailer for the upcoming series gives an early look at his inspirational story.