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The 20 Best Movies on Apple TV+ Right Now

The 20 Best Movies on Apple TV+ Right Now

When it comes to originals, Netflix and Amazon have the deepest libraries of prestige movies. But ever since CODA won the Best Picture Oscar, it’s become clear that some of the best movies are on Apple TV+.

As with any streaming service, not every film on the roster is a winner, but from Billie Eilish documentaries to Sundance darlings, Apple’s streaming service is building up a strong catalog to run alongside its growing slate of beloved TV shows.

Below are WIRED’s picks for flicks you should prioritize in your queue. Once you’re done, hop over to our list of the best movies on Netflix and the best movies on Disney+. If you’re feeling a little more episodic, our guide for the best shows on Amazon might be just the ticket.

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Mad Max: Fury Road

When Mad Max: Fury Road came out in 2015, it was three decades late and right on time. Released 30 years after mastermind George Miller released the last Mad Max movie—Beyond Thunderdome—it was a jolt to moviegoers who were otherwise being treated to rehashes like Fantastic Four and Terminator Genisys. Easily one of the best postapocalyptic films ever, it’s all style but not devoid of substance. It also introduced Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, a crusader for the women being subjected to the tyranny of Immortan Joe. Fury Road will be on Apple TV+ until the end of April—just enough time for you to watch it again before its follow-up, Furiosa, hits theaters in May.

Napoleon

OK, so Napoleon didn’t exactly get critics’ pens flying, but sometimes you’re just in the mood for a big, prestige-y Ridley Scott historical drama, you know? This one stars Joaquin Phoenix as the title character, following his quest to conquer, well, as much as he possibly can. However, rather than being a sprint to the Battle of Waterloo, this pic gives attention to the French emperor’s emotionally rocky relationship with his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais (Vanessa Kirby). What happens when a man can conquer most of Europe but not his own feelings? Watch and find out.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Just in time for awards season, Killers of the Flower Moon is finally available to stream starting January 12. Martin Scorsese’s epic film is based on David Grann’s 2017 book about a member of the Osage Nation, Mollie Burkhart, who sought to get to the bottom of the deaths in her family. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, a time when many Osage were being killed for the money made from oil on their land, Scorsese’s film follows the relationship between Mollie (played by Lily Gladstone, who won a Golden Globe for her performance) and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and what happens when the FBI comes to investigate the Osage deaths. When WIRED named it one of 2023’s best movies, we called it “a feel-bad masterpiece,” and we stand by that.

Fingernails

Can technology determine whether you’ve found The One? Probably not, but in the latest from writer-director Christos Nikou, an institute run by Duncan (Luke Wilson) claims that it has found the formula for true love anyway—and Anna (Jessie Buckley) wants to figure out if it’s real. The institute, you see, has determined that Anna and her boyfriend Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) are a match, but has doubts. While working at the institute, though, she meets Amir (Riz Ahmed) and finds someone who actually might be her match.

Flora and Son

Remember Sing Street, that charming indie about a kid in Dublin who starts a band as an escape from his complicated home life? What about Once, that charming indie about a pair that spends a week in Dublin writing songs about their love? If you enjoyed either of those—or if they just sound like something you might enjoy—let us suggest Flora and Son, a charming indie about a mother in Dublin trying to connect with her son through song. Like Sing Street and Once, Flora and Son comes from director John Carney and has all of his signature moves, plus something else: Eve Hewson, who plays the movie’s titular mom. She’s a force, and she hits all of her musician notes perfectly. Makes sense, she’s Bono’s daughter.

The Beanie Bubble

Here it is, the question everyone will ask when you’re writing about Apple TV+’s new original movie: Do you remember Beanie Babies? If you were born after 2000, the answer is likely no, unless you have a retro toy collector friend or a goofy aunt who has a few of them lying around. The good news is that The Beanie Bubble is for those fans and everyone else too. It’s about a toy salesman named Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis) who stumbles into the biggest success of his life after he teams up with three women to develop the kind of plushies people just can’t get enough of. Critics have been mixed, but thanks to performances from the likes of Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, and Sarah Snook (proving there’s life after Succession), it’s the kind of sweet dramedy that’s perfect for a night in.

Stephen Curry: Underrated

Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry might be one of the most beloved players in American basketball—and he is definitely one of the best players, if not the best player, in the league. He’s been named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player twice and has won four championship rings. He also has more career three-pointers than anyone in the league. But in the late aughts, he was a kid at a small school, Davidson College, just trying to live up to the potential his coaches saw in him. Underrated, directed by Peter Nicks (Homeroom), chronicles that journey, showing how Curry bested the predictions of his own NBA draft (many said he didn’t have the size necessary for the league) to become one of the greatest to ever play the game. For basketball fans, it’s a must-watch.

Beastie Boys Story

One of the pioneering groups in hip hop, the Beastie Boys have a story like no other. For this “live documentary,” filmmaker Spike Jonze filmed Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) as they told a crowd at Brooklyn’s Kings Theater about their rise to stardom. Complete with old footage, photos, and stories from the group’s decades-long career, the doc captures just how influential the Beasties have been since they started playing music together as kids in New York City in the late ’70s and early ’80s. It also features some wonderful memories of their third member, Adam “MCA” Yauch, who died in 2012 following a battle with cancer.

CODA

This is the one that put Apple TV+ on the map. The movie’s title is an acronym for “child of deaf adults.” It’s the story of Ruby, the only hearing person in a family that includes two deaf parents and one deaf sibling. When Ruby discovers a love of music, she’s forced to reconcile her own aspirations with those of her family, who run a small fishing business and often need her to help communicate. Warm and gripping, CODA is the kind of movie that will have you cheering and crying at the same time.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

In 1985, Michael J. Fox was one of Hollywood’s biggest names as the star of a hit TV show (Family Ties) and the year’s highest-grossing movie (Back to the Future). Just a few years later, at the age of 29, Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In Still, Oscar-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim offers a poignant portrait of Fox’s personal and professional life, and his journey from teen idol to advocate for a cure.

Swan Song

Mahershala Ali stars alongside, well, Mahershala Ali in this romantic-sci-fi-drama. Yes, it’s all of those things. Cameron (Ali) is a loving husband (to Naomie Harris) and father who, after learning he has a terminal illness, must decide just how far he’ll go to protect his family from having to know the truth, or deal with the devastating aftermath.

Sharper

Sharper is one of those movies where the less you know about it going in, the better. Just know that no one is what they seem or who they say they are in this neo-noir starring Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, and John Lithgow. This twisty little thriller flew largely under the radar when it was released in theaters for a half-second in early 2023.

Ghosted

If you’ve read the reviews, you know this movie isn’t exactly good, per se, but if you want to see Captain America (Chris Evans) and a future John Wick–franchise badass (Ana de Armas) fall in love as part of the goofiest premise possible—He’s a farmer! She’s a secret agent!—this is for you. Give this movie a go(sted).

The World’s a Little Blurry

By now, thousands of pop music fans know the Billie Eilish monomyth: Young, slightly punk, slightly goth teenager starts making songs in her brother’s bedroom, puts them online, and becomes one of the biggest pop stars in the world. It’s a great story, but that’s only about a quarter of the tale of Eilish’s ascent to superstar status. The World’s a Little Blurry fills in (some of) the blanks. Director R. J. Cutler got amazing access for this film, which chronicles everything from Eilish’s songwriting process with her brother Finneas to her frank talk about her Tourette’s. It’s the kind of music documentary that redefines the music documentary.

Cha Cha Real Smooth

“Sundance hit starring Dakota Johnson”s are almost a dime a dozen, but this one, about a young bar/bat mitzvah party-starter is the, ahem, real deal. It also proves that Cooper Raiff—who writes, directs, and stars in the movie—is one to keep your eye on.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Yes, most people already know the story of Macbeth—Scottish lord with an eye toward ruling his country—but not everyone has seen it through the eyes of director Joel Coen. Shot entirely in black and white and starring Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand as his powerful wife, the film was nominated for three Oscars and brought a very new twist onto a classic Shakespearean tale.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues

Above all else, Louis Armstrong is known as one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time. But he was also a figure in the struggle for equality in America—albeit a complicated one. As director Sacha Jenkins illustrates in this documentary, while Armstrong broke racial barriers in entertainment he also faced accusations that he didn’t stand up as much for civil rights as other performers of his era. Jenkins got access to scores of photographs, clippings, and even recordings Armstrong made of his own conversations for this documentary, and that access provides a much fuller picture of the legendary musician than the world has ever had.

Tetris

One of the most popular video games of all time, Tetris was a phenomenon for Nintendo Game Boy owners in the 1980s. But Tetris (the movie) is the story of the people who made the game and brought it from the then-Soviet Union to the rest of the world. Part historical dramedy, part espionage flick, the movie doesn’t always hit its marks, but if you’ve never heard the story of how Tetris got out from behind the Iron Curtain, it’s worth a watch.

Causeway

Causeway kind of came and went when it was released in 2022, but that’s also the sort of movie it is. Focused on a soldier (Jennifer Lawrence) who returns home after suffering a brain injury in Afghanistan, the film from director Lila Neugebauer is about trauma and how people lean on each other to get through it. A worthy watch for the times when you have your own stuff to work through.

Sidney

Sidney Poitier died in 2022, the same year Apple TV+ released this documentary looking at the actor’s long-running career—In the Heat of the NightGuess Who’s Coming to Dinner—and impact on American culture and politics. With interviews ranging from Spike Lee and Morgan Freeman to Harry Belafonte, the film goes beyond his time in Hollywood, starting with his upbringing in the Bahamas and ending with his massive impact on the civil rights movement and elsewhere.

It’s Not Easy Running a Geeky Business

It’s Not Easy Running a Geeky Business

Carol Pinchefsky has written almost 2,000 articles about geek culture for outlets such as Forbes.com, Playboy.com, and Syfy.com. Over the past 20 years, she’s watched fantasy and science fiction grow from a niche interest to a massive cultural force.

“There used to be a point where I knew everything there was to know about geek culture because it was contained within a few spheres,” Pinchefsky says in Episode 504 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “But now there’s such a proliferation that it’s a little overwhelming. I actually can’t keep up. And that’s sad for me, but also incredibly exciting.”

As a freelancer, Pinchefsky knows firsthand how hard it is for science fiction geeks to make a living doing what they love. “The market is hot as a geek writer, but it’s not as lucrative as I would like it to be,” she says. “So what I’ve been doing recently is using geek references in business writing. I’ve written articles on ‘Doctor Who and Change Management,’ and I’ve written articles on ‘Security and Star Wars: Rogue One,’ and I’ve written, ‘Game of Thrones and Project Management.’ So I’m able to be geeky and get paid.”

Pinchefsky’s first book, Turn Your Fandom Into Cash, teaches geeks how to monetize their hobby without drawing the ire of their favorite creators. “I went to New York Comic Con, and I looked around the dealer’s room and I saw tens of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands—of dollars exchanging hands every hour, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of potential IP infringement going on,’” Pinchefsky says. “So that’s what really got me thinking I should write a guide, to make sure people do what they love and yet respect IP law.”

For the book, Pinchefsky interviewed dozens of writers, artists, cosplayers, convention organizers, and executives. She says that the biggest weapon any geek has in their arsenal is the supportive community of fellow fans. “The idea that there’s a solo entrepreneur making their way in the world, blazing a trail, it’s just completely false,” she says. “You will need help, and you will get help because you are surrounded by people and friends and community, and we tend to help each other.”

Listen to the complete interview with Carol Pinchefsky in Episode 504 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Carol Pinchefsky on growing up geeky:

I was raised in Bergen County, New Jersey. I was smart, I was small, I was completely non-athletic. I wore big glasses—and when I say “big glasses,” we couldn’t afford new glasses, so I had my mother’s glasses, so they were really big for my face. I was constantly picked on, and I’m sure I didn’t make it easy for myself, but I was the girl who always raised her hand whenever there was a question because I always knew the answer. School was so easy for me that I kind of slept my way through it. I didn’t interact with anybody. Looking back, had I been a little more self-aware, I would have tried to on-board other people and said, “Hey, let’s talk books.” But instead I just kind of kept to myself, and that made me a target.

Carol Pinchefsky on Weird Tales:

I was an editorial assistant under Darrell Schweitzer and George Scithers, which was quite an experience. We got all sorts of amusing mail … [In one story] an old woman was sitting in her chair and suddenly a man leaps out and stabs her. The end. I read the envelope, and I didn’t recognize the return address. I said, “Well, this is very strange,” and someone said, “How so?” And I said, “Oh, a guy just leaps out and stabs his mother, and I don’t recognize the address.” And the guy said, “Oh yeah, that guy. He’s a prisoner, and every week he sends in a story which is a variation on a man suddenly killing an older woman, usually his mother. Sometimes it’s defenestration, sometimes it’s decapitation, but there’s always a murder and it’s always a woman.” And I said, “Not only am I not going to write the rejection letter, I’m going to make sure your name is on the rejection letter, Darrell.”

Carol Pinchefsky on travel:

[My husband] is from England, I’m from the United States, and so we earned all of these air miles during our courtship. So we had enough air miles to go to Japan during our honeymoon. We went to a shrine in Kyoto. You got to choose your fortune—you picked up a stick, and you handed it to the man behind the counter, and he would find a fortune for you. My fortune said I would have good luck but I would lose things. And then when Peter’s fortune came around, it said he would have excellent luck and he would find lost things. The man was reading this in Japanese, and he just started laughing and laughing. I think we made his day because it seems that our fortunes were quite intertwined.

Carol Pinchefsky on intellectual property:

I met someone who got a license to write a role-playing game, and he had zero experience. He was kind enough to let me use his IP application [in the book]. He just kind of wrote what he thought the company would like to see, and then eventually, after many years of chasing them down, the company eventually said yes. That was for a video game called Elite—that was the ’80s version—and now the modern version is Elite: Dangerous. And so he was able to get an IP license that way … Another person signed up for an IP licensing expo. She couldn’t get a single meeting, but just because she signed up, her name was on a list of creators, and someone found her, and now she has the IP license for an upcoming TV show.


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The Willy Wonka Event’s Lead Actor Speaks Out: ‘It Was Just Gibberish’

The Willy Wonka Event’s Lead Actor Speaks Out: ‘It Was Just Gibberish’

This is where the Unknown is revealed, so we have tension as well.

I arrived on the day. I was like, “So what’s going on with this tunnel?” What they’ve done instead of this incredible, magical starlit tunnel is basically just stapled up some chequered flags into a corridor and put some dirty mirrors that I think they must have found in, like, the toilet or something, just along the corridor. This was meant to be the Twilight Tunnel.

Yes, I saw the illustrations on the website.

You’ve probably seen the videos online. That’s where the infamous Unknown character appears from behind a mirror and starts unnecessarily scaring the kids. There’s no need! There is no need to scare the kids that much. They were scared enough.

Then we went through something called the Imagination Lab, which I think the point was that you’re supposed to imagine it was something better. That was where I was to hand out one jelly bean.

Where does the lemonade come in?

The next room was the Lemonade Room, which sounds amazing. It was just some cheap lemonade, in the bottles still, that was poured. You got a quarter of a cup of lemonade, if you were lucky.

That was the experience, me leading everyone through, just talking gibberish, slowly losing my grip on reality.

There’s something so hilarious to me about a single jelly bean. Why did they have you guys only giving out one?

They didn’t buy enough jelly beans! They didn’t even buy enough lemonade! We had to switch to limeade because we ran out! This is the thing that blows my mind. You know how many people are coming. One jelly bean per customer, that’s tight. Wonka’s a tight-fisted old man.

Can you explain to me what exactly is happening in the viral picture of the Oompa Loompa (sorry, Wonkidoodle)? What is she doing? What’s her purpose at that little desk?

I think she was asking herself the same question. It was meant to be a laboratory where the magical beans are made. She was actually doing science, you know, creating the magical beans.

Women in STEM, yeah.

Yes. I do know it looks like a meth lab, but you don’t know how magical beans are made, you know.

Where is the smoke coming from? What was that?

Something was probably on fire. No, I do think they had a smoke machine. But there was one point where we did smell burning and we were worried that something was on fire.

I kept saying throughout the day, “Someone’s going to get hurt.” There was a bouncy castle on a concrete floor! How no kid just went bounce [smack motion] is beyond me.

What was Coull doing during the event as this was all happening?

Walking in circles was all I kind of saw him do. He was just running around—he should have been the Unknown, actually, because he was pretty good at just, like, appearing out of nowhere, whispering in my ear like, “You’re spending too much time with the kids,” and then disappearing into the night.

Lots of People Make Money on Fanfic. Just Not the Authors

Lots of People Make Money on Fanfic. Just Not the Authors

Fanbinding has exploded in popularity in the past few years. Many fanbinders do adhere to a strict gift-economy stance in line with the writers they’re binding the work of, often limiting money they collect, if any, to covering material costs. But the people selling bound versions of popular fics for profit are cut from a different (book)cloth. As they make money off works the authors themselves cannot sell, they’re putting those authors—and, arguably, fanfiction itself—in an untenable position.

“Technically speaking, the reproduction right belongs to the author of the fic, because that’s the ‘copy right’: They are the only person with the right to make copies of the fic,” says Stacey Lantagne, a copyright lawyer who specializes in fanfiction and teaches at Western New England University School of Law. Even though she notes it “might be considered an unsettled question of law officially,” fic authors do hold the copyright to the original parts of their stories, though of course not the underlying source material.

Is it legal to bind someone else’s fic? “Here is a typical lawyer answer: it depends,” Lantagne jokes. She says “it is likely legal to print someone else’s fanfic for your own personal, noncommercial use,” adding that could likely extend to paying material costs for someone else to bind it, too. “Noncommercial” here is key. Like the legal status of fanfiction itself, the legality of fanbinding rests on fair use, the exception under US copyright law determined by factors like how transformative a work is, or if someone is profiting off it—and taking money away from the rights holder in the process.

Fanfiction communities have historically relied on good-faith communication when it comes to doing something else with someone’s fic. Nothing’s stopping you from translating, or remixing, or creating an audio version (known as podficcing), or, yes, printing and binding a version, but it’s nice if you ask first. Some writers post blanket permissions allowing any noncommercial engagement with their works, and some, especially in these hyper-popular corners of fandom, have specific guidance about fanbinding. Last year, a charity auction that garnered huge sums of money to bind others’ work led some writers—SenLinYu included—to modify their policies to allow personal, noncommercial fanbinding only.

While plenty of fans have respected their wishes, there is clearly demand for these books—and thus, continued supply. Lantagne says that since litigation is extremely expensive, the only recourse a fanfiction writer likely has in this situation is to file DMCA takedown notices, a very tedious process when there are multiple sellers on multiple sites. “This is what copyright holders have been complaining about ever since the DMCA was passed in the late 1990s—it’s a pain to have to file a DMCA notice everywhere copyright infringement crops up,” she says. “However, the alternative is something like YouTube’s Content ID being used to automatically block uploads, which we know is notoriously bad at accounting for fair use.”

Although illegal sellers obviously deserve a good portion of blame, that continued demand—regardless of fic authors’ wishes—speaks to the way both scale and money has been altering the fanfiction world in recent years. To be clear, there was never one singular “fanfiction community” or universal set of norms, but the widely accepted gift-economy framing has always been undergirded by the fact that many fanfiction readers are also writers, and stories are shared within fandoms, with all the structural ties they bring. Pulling-to-publish was often framed as a betrayal—we were all in this non-monetized boat together, and now you’ve jumped ship and cashed in.

Why Beyoncé’s ‘Texas Hold ’Em’ Has Taken Over TikTok

Why Beyoncé’s ‘Texas Hold ’Em’ Has Taken Over TikTok

In her delightfully cheeky Verizon Super Bowl commercial, Beyoncé swore to do one thing: Break the internet. As the commercial demonstrated, she could not—at least not in the literal sense. Instead, after the commercial ended, she did something else: She hacked the internet, dropping two new songs, “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” the former of which is already on its way to becoming TikTok’s viral dance song of the year.

This was always going to happen. Pretty much everything Beyoncé does—every album drop, every outfit—goes viral. That’s why her Verizon commercial didn’t look like a shallow attempt to astroturf hype. Moreover, “Texas Hold ’Em” is a big pop-country crossover track, and its rapid banjo riffs (from maestro Rhiannon Giddens) and lyrics about whiskey and taking it to the floor are perfect for line dancing. Line dances, which lend themselves to fun mimicry and interpretation, naturally do well on social platforms. It would have been weirder if TikTok hadn’t been flooded with new dances in the week after the song dropped. (If you’re looking for the video that best exemplifies this trend, check out this chart-topper from performers Matt McCall and Dexter Mayfield and then just follow the sound on down, down, down.)

Inevitability, though, isn’t the whole reason “Texas Hold ’Em” is currently the backing track to nearly 134,000 videos with millions of collective views. The song is boot-scootin’ its way onto TikTok at a time when a lot of music has been muted on the platform following a dustup between TikTok and Universal Music Group.

Back in January, after the two companies failed to come to terms on a licensing agreement for UMG music, the massive record company pulled songs that it owns the rights to from TikTok, including cuts from artists like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. That means any video using music from those artists now plays without sound. Beyoncé’s music is distributed by Columbia/Sony, a UMG rival, so “Texas Hold ’Em” now sits at Number 5 on TikTok’s Viral 50 list.

Now, like a shiny holographic disco horse, Beyoncé is atop the social web. When she announced her new album, Act II, and dropped “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” the internet was in a tizzy about the fact that Beyoncé was making what appeared to be a whole country album, a continuation of the country-infused “Daddy Lessons” from 2016’s Lemonade. (“She coming to put the cunt in country!!” went the replies on the @BeyLegion X account. “‘Daddy Lessons’ reloaded!” went another.)

On Tuesday, “Texas Hold ’Em” made Beyoncé the first Black woman to debut at number one on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. The song has currently been streamed nearly 20 million times.

TikTok sounds don’t count toward Billboard chart rankings, but there is no doubt that viral dances create the kind of hype that leads to song streams, album sales, and radio play. Beyoncé has no control over the TikTok/UMG situation (probably), and she had no way of knowing whether their licensing dispute would still be ongoing when her new music dropped (again, probably), but its existence has paved the way for her new song to be one of the biggest things happening with music on the platform right now. No doubt it would’ve hit these heights regardless, but with less competition, there’s nothing holding it back.