30 of the Best Movies to Watch on Apple TV+
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When it comes to the streaming wars, Netflix is miles ahead of the competition, attracting more revenue and subscribers than the rest. It was the first, the standard to which all aspire. But what the streaming service has not yet done, perhaps to its chagrin, is garner the ever-elusive best picture award at the Oscars (though, it has certainly offered worthy contenders). This distinction, as of now, solely belongs to Apple TV+, a feat achieved when CODA, a film about a deaf fishing family in Massachusetts, took top honors at the 94th Academy Awards.
Indeed, what Apple TV+ excels at is creating prestige films, the kinds of films that delve into the human condition, that asks audiences to question how they view the world around them. There’s a level of beautifully made introspective stories, particularly the slew of coming-of-age dramas, that is unique to the platform. But this doesn’t mean it is lacking in comedies, melodramas, action flicks, Hollywood classics, and all genres of movies.
Sure, other streaming services offer the same shebang, but if you’re a fan of Apple, here’s a selection of stellar films for your next night in.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Set in 1920s Oklahoma, Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the “Reign of Terror,” a period when members of the Osage Nation were being murdered after the group struck oil and became wealthy. The heart of the film is Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman who marries Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), her grief growing as she buries members of her family and her tribe. Ernest is the nephew of William King Hale (Robert Deniro), the deputy sheriff and mastermind behind the massacres, whose nefarious deeds eventually attract the attention of the FBI. Killers of the Flower Moon is the latest gangster flick by Martin Scorsese, this one set in the sweeping America heartland. It is an epic that, like so many Scorsese films, examines greed and systemic corruption, and how justice is seldom served to the just.
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CODA (2021)
In Gloucester, Massachusetts, Ruby Rossi is a 17-year-old student who works mornings to help her family’s fishing business. She’s the only member of the family, which includes her parents and a brother, that isn’t deaf (CODA is an acronym for “child of deaf adults”). She eventually joins the school choir, falling in love of music and singing. But she suppresses her aspirations, understanding how her family relies on her to communicate and keep their business afloat. CODA is a story of resilience, of overcoming adversity, of love, all told through the lens of an underrepresented community. It is a story that won the hearts of audiences of critics, and won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards, effectively putting Apple TV+ on the proverbial map.
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The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
A Coen brother reimagines Shakespeare’s Macbeth? And it stars Denzel Washington in the titular role? When it comes to the unexpected, this film version of the famous play takes the cake. The age-old story of the Scottish lord and his ambitious wife (Frances McDormand) is truly electrified by the superb art direction, cinematography, and (no surprise) the standout performances by some of the acting greats.
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The Godfather (1972)
Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is the head of an Italian mafia family in the 1940s, supported by deputies and sons in their goal to keep power in New York’s volatile crime syndicate. The youngest of his brood, Michael (Al Pacino), is reluctant to join the family business, but is ushered into the ongoing cycle of treachery and violence, eventually becoming one of most sinister and complex characters in film. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather, based on Mario Puzo’s novel of the same name, is the first part of a trilogy that recounts immigrant struggles, the ties of familial bonds, and ultimately the pursuit of success and the American dream.
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Sidney (2022)
Sidney Poitier was a pioneer. His long career in Hollywood was a testament to perseverance and his talent. But unlike Armstrong, Poitier was at the forefront of the civil right movement, strongly advocating for racial equality. His influence, his legacy—as vocalized by Harry Belafonte, Spike Lee, and Morgan Freeman—surpasses his profession. It is part of the fabric of America, which this documentary illustrates.
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It Happened One Night (1934)
Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night is no mere film about a meet-cute, starring the two of the biggest names of Hollywood at the time. It is one that essentially promoted the prevalence of a whole genre: the romantic comedy. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a heiress who seeks to escape the control of her domineering father. On the run, she meets Clark Gable’s Peter Warne, a newspaper reporter who is down on his luck. The relationship is initially contemptuous, but they eventually fall head over heels for one another, both hesitant to express their feelings outright. Andrews then feels betrayed by Warne’s actions later in the flick, causing a rift, before both ultimately realize how much they love each other.
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Clueless (1995)
Clueless, based on Jane Austin’s Emma, centers on Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone), a stylish, uber-wealthy high school busybody from Beverly Hills whose mission is to pair up everyone she comes across—sometimes to disastrous results. She takes new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) under her wing, instructing her on the school’s pecking order, trying to match her with Elton, one of the cool kids. Horowitz’s meddling eventually gets the best of her, leading to self-evaluation, which includes her realizing that she’s in love with her stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd).
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A Star Is Born (2018)
Country crooner Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) spots Ally (Lady Gaga), a waitress with big dreams of stardom, at a nightclub, starting a conversation that leaves him smitten. He invites her on his tour and encourages her talent, coaxing her into the spotlight. But as her career takes off, their relationship begins to crumble as Maine deals with his deep-rooted depression.
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Causeway (2022)
Jennifer Lawrence, in what is perhaps the star’s most underrated performance, plays Lynsey, a soldier who’s struggling at home in New Orleans after suffering from a brain injury on tour in Afghanistan. While going through rehabilitation, she befriends James (Brian Tyree Henry), a mechanic who is coming to terms with his own mental trauma after a car crash on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, an accident that killed his nephew.
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Citizen Kane (1941)
Citizen Kane is a seminal work of art, one that changed how stories are told on the silver screen. When the American Film Institute released its ranking of the 100 greatest films, the first masterpiece directed by Orson Welles took top honors. And it’s not hard to see why. The dialogue, the pacing, the editing, the cinematography: All the film’s facets contribute to the telling of the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, a roman à clef of William Randolph Hearst, a story about the pitfalls of power.
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Working Girl (1988)
With big hair, big shoulders, and big dreams, Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is a secretary in the late ’80s trying to climb the ranks of corporate finance, all while trying to circumvent blatant misogyny. She finds a mentor in her new boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), but eventually discovers that the executive is trying to pass off McGill’s savvy business tip as her own. McGill then takes matters into her own hands when Parker is bedridden from a ski injury, enlisting the help of an investment broker (Harrison Ford) to bring her idea into fruition. Sparks fly between the couple, and so does Parker’s temper when she returns.
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Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021)
At a young age, Billie Eilish has achieved a level of fame that takes others decades to achieve. She’s a hit-maker and style-blazer, but as director R. J. Cutler showcases, she’s a true artist, pouring her heart into her work. She also doesn’t shy away from her hardships, opening up about having tourette syndrome.
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Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
Practically flying under the radar for most movie audiences, Cha Cha Real Smooth centers on Andrew (actor, writer, and director Cooper Raiff), a recent college graduate who moves back home to New Jersey. While bringing his young brother to a bat mitzvah, he encounters Domino (Dakota Johnson), a mother of an autistic daughter, who is the subject of rumors in the neighborhood. Their friendship blossoms throughout the film, with each divulging their struggles to one another.
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House Party (1990)
Ah, the high school house party, a scenario immortalized on the silver screen countless times. Reginald Hudlin’s film, however, takes audiences away from the conventional white suburban backdrop and centers on Peter “Play” Martin and Christopher “Kid” Robinson, two Black teenagers, outfitted in the most eye-catching of early-’90s fashion and hairstyles, who plan the be-all, end-all of house parties when Play’s parents are away. But when Kid gets grounded after a school fight, his ability to join the hip-hop extravaganza—where his crush Sydney (Tisha Campbell-Martin) is going to be attending—is met with a whole lot of hurdles.
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Casablanca (1942)
When it comes to movies, the types of black-and-white cinematic spectacles that many remember of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Casablanca tops most lists. The film takes place in Casablanca, Morocco during World War II, primarily at Rick's Café Américain, an establishment owned and operated by American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), who tries to remain neutral in the war. One night, ex-lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Begrman) walks into the nightclub, asking the pianist to play “As Time Goes By,” a song that infuriates Blaine, causing him to remember how Lund broke off their relationship in Paris years prior. She’s been married to Victor Laszlo, a fugitive of the Czechoslovak Resistance leader, who needs Blaine’s connections to help him escape Nazi-occupied Casablanca.
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Boys State (2020)
Since the 1930s, the American Legion has hosted Boys State, a weeklong summer program in Texas that invites over a thousand teenage boys entering their senior year of high school to form their own representative government. Directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss document each step of the process, illustrating the importance of democracy and civic duty.
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Girls State (2024)
Like their previous film Boys State, directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss follow a group of incoming high school seniors during a weeklong program that asks them to build their own government. But instead of boys in Texas, this sequel of sorts follows girls in Missouri. Also different is the fact that most political seats, especially that of the U.S. president, have historically gone to men. This is just one subject, along with the importance of fair representation, at the core of Girls State.
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Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues (2022)
Jazz musician Louis Armstrong, the GOAT of the genre, may be most famous for singing “It’s a Wonderful World,” but his career wasn’t so delightful. As director Sacha Jenkins chronicles, Armstrong had to face adversity, struggling to overcome systemic racism. Yes, he broke barriers, but some argue, as the film shows, that he didn’t do enough for the civil rights movement. Through clips, recorded conversations, and photographs, this documentary paints a picture of Armstrong’s complicated life, one that the general public has never seen before.
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All About Eve (1950)
Glamor, wit, and an underlying subtext of feminism best characterize All About Eve. The Academy Award-winning film, written and directed by wordsmith Joseph L. Mankiewicz, tells the tale of Margo Channing, played by Bette Davis, an aging Broadway actress (she was only 40!) whose larger-than-life personality elicits both delight and derision from her close circle of theater friends. One night after a performance, she encounters Eve Harrington, a fan who charms her way into the Channing’s coterie. Channing hires Harrington as her secretary immediately, but unbeknownst to all parties, save for theater critic Addison DeWitt, Harrington is duplicitous, scheming her way to achieve stardom.
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Beastie Boys Story (2020)
Before Jack Harlow, before Mac Miller, before Eminem, there was the Beastie Boys, the OG white boys of hip-hip, consisting of Adam "MCA" Yauch, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, and Michael "Mike D" Diamond. Director Spike Jonze chronicles their rise to stardom in the ’70s and ’80s, their influence on the music industry, and the passing of MCA.
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Stephen Curry: Underrated (2023)
Stephen Curry is one of the NBA’s biggest stars, a player whose legend will reverberate long past his days on the court. Indeed, it was only inevitable that the point guard for the Golden State Warriors, a team that Curry has remained loyal to since his draft, would get a documentary, one that is worthy of the sport’s all-time greats—which director Peter Nicks accomplishes.
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Seven Samurai (1956)
Akira Kurosawa is one of the greatest and most prolific filmmakers in movie history (no question), and Seven Samurai is considered to be his magnum opus. It is an epic, a cinematic wonder that visualizes a small mountain village in the Sengoku period of Japanese history that’s plagued by a group of bandits. A town elder suggests hiring a samurai to combat the assailants. They land on Kambei, an experienced rōnin, a type of wandering samurai, who steadily builds trust with the villagers, equips them with makeshift weapons, and teaches them how to fight. Kambei also recruits six other comrades-in-arms, ready to battle the raiders in a finale that will captivate any cinephile.
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Napoleon (2023)
In his latest film, Ridley Scott, master of the period epics, takes on Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix), documenting the life of one of history’s most notable figures. The saga traces his ascendancy from army officer to French emperor, his erratic temper, and his volatile relationship with his wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby).
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Blazing Saddles (1974)
Mel Brooks is a master of subverting classic cinematic genres, bringing his own slapstick, satirical signature to his films. In Blazing Saddles, the auteur takes on the Western, telling the story of Rock Ridge, a frontier town that’s about to be pummeled to make room for a railroad. Bandits are sent to rid the population, and their only line of defense is Bart (Cleavon Little), the town’s first Black sheriff, and Jim (Gene Wilder), an alcoholic gunslinger.
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Hala (2019)
Hala is a coming-of-age drama about the titular character (Geraldine Viswanathan), a 17-year-old Pakistani American Muslim girl, clashing with her culture and parent’s desires for her future. Their issues come to a climax when Hala develops a crush on Jesse, a boy from school, and expresses her anger over an arranged marriage to a Muslim man.
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Swan Song (2021)
Part romance, part sci-fi drama, Swan Song is a story about Cameron Turner (Mahershala Ali), a father and husband who learns that he has a terminal illness. He keeps his diagnosis under wraps as he decides whether or not he should replace himself with a clone, the caveat being that he can’t tell anyone. Turner must decide whether to live out his last moments with his wife, Poppy (Naomie Harris), and son, or choose the clone option and spare them the grief.
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Spirited (2022)
Starring comedy heavyweights and blockbuster draws Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, Spirited is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol—but with a unique twist. In this version of the holiday classic, Ferrell is Ebenezer Scrooge, the current Ghost of Christmas Present (!!), who makes it his mission to help Clint Briggs (Reynolds) see the error of his ways. Oh, and the film is also a musical.
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Tetris (2023)
Tetris might not have received the same kind of praise from critics and audiences, but lovers of the game will definitely appreciate how it was created. Tetris, the movie, sees American Hank Rogers (Taron Egerton) traveling to the Soviet Union in 1988, in the midst of the Cold War, to meet Alexey Pajitnov in the hopes of taking his invention from behind the Iron Curtain and into the hands of Nintendo Game Boy owners throughout the globe.
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Imitation of Life (1959)
In Imitation of Life, an adaptation of Fannie Hurst’s novel, Lana Turner, one of the premier blonde bombshells of the ’50s, stars as Lora Meredith, a white single mother with dreams of becoming a Broadway actress. Early in the flick, she befriends Annie Johnson, a Black widow who also has a daughter, Sarah Jane, who passes as white. Johnson is then hired to become the caretaker of Meredith’s daughter, Suzie. Over a decade later, Meredith achieves fame and riches, but the angst of Suzie and Sarah Jane, particularly the latter's struggle with her identity, causes conflict for both mothers. The film culminates in a tear-jerking gospel at a funeral (no spoilers!) by the legendary Mahalia Jackson.
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Fingernails (2023)
Love in the age of technology: Fingernails, directed by Christos Nikou, is a film that examines the idea of algorithms, and how relationships can be predetermined by design. Duncan (Luke Wilson) runs an institute that claims that it has found the formula. Couple Anna (Jessie Buckley) and Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) put this to the test, and are told they’re a match. But questions are raised when Anna meets Amir (Riz Ahmed).
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