rotten apples movie reviews

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Love Lies Bleeding Link to Love Lies Bleeding
Problemista Link to Problemista
Frida Link to Frida

New TV Tonight

Nolly: Season 1
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon: Season 1
The Long Shadow: Season 1
3 Body Problem: Season 1
Palm Royale: Season 1
Alice & Jack: Season 1
X-Men '97: Season 1
Davey & Jonesie's Locker: Season 1
Photographer: Season 1
Top Chef: Season 21

What to know

Critics Consensus

Apples explores human identity from a surreal and often humorous perspective, with peculiar yet ultimately thought-provoking results. Read critic reviews

Rate and review.

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Step 2 of 2

How did you buy your ticket?

Let's get your review verified..

AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New

Cinemark Coming Soon

We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

Regal Coming Soon

Theater box office or somewhere else

By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Apples photos.

Amidst a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities. Prescribed daily tasks on cassette tapes so he can create new memories and document them on camera, Aris slides back into ordinary life, meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a woman who is also in recovery. Through images deadpan, strange and surreal, Greek writer-director Christos Nikou posits a beguiling reflection on memory, identity, and loss, exploring how a society might handle an irreversible epidemic through one man's story of self-discovery. Are we the sum of the images we compile and display of ourselves, or are we something richer, and deeper?

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Christos Nikou

Producer: Iraklis Mavroidis , Angelos Venetis , Aris Dagios , Mariusz Włodarski , Christos Nikou

Writer: Christos Nikou , Stavros Raptis

Release Date (Theaters): Jun 24, 2022 limited

Runtime: 1h 31m

Distributor: Cohen Media Group

Cast & Crew

Aris Servetalis

Sofia Georgovassili

Anna Kalaitzidou

Argyris Bakirtzis

Kostas Laskos

Babis Makridis

Christos Nikou

Screenwriter

Stavros Raptis

Iraklis Mavroidis

Angelos Venetis

Aris Dagios

Mariusz Włodarski

Nikos Smpiliris

Executive Producer

Bartosz Świniarski

Cinematographer

Yorgos Zafeiris

Film Editor

Critic Reviews for Apples

Audience reviews for apples.

There are no featured audience reviews for Apples at this time.

Movie & TV guides

Play Daily Tomato Movie Trivia

Discover What to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

In the greek film 'apples,' a mysterious condition leaves people without memories.

Justin Chang

Aris Servetalis plays a man who inexplicably loses his memory in Apples. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group hide caption

Aris Servetalis plays a man who inexplicably loses his memory in Apples.

I first watched Apples about two years ago, several months into COVID lockdown. At the time, the movie felt eerily of the moment, since its story takes place during a pandemic. In this pandemic, however, people aren't spreading a deadly virus; they're inexplicably losing their memories.

We see this happen in the opening scenes, when an unnamed middle-aged man (played by Aris Servetalis) leaves his Athens apartment one day, gets on a bus and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he can no longer remember his name, where he lives or where he was going.

He isn't carrying any ID, and so he winds up in a hospital where doctors examine him and wait for family members or friends to come and identify him. But no one shows up, and so the man is enrolled in a government program designed to help him and the many others like him cope with their amnesia.

He's placed in an apartment and given money for expenses. Each day he plays a cassette tape — the movie seems to be taking place pre-internet — and listens to a voice assigning him a specific task like "ride a bicycle" or "go watch a horror movie," in hopes that these experiences will help jog his memory. He's instructed to take Polaroids of these experiences and keep them in a scrapbook, which comes to resemble an extremely analog Instagram account.

It all sounds bizarre on paper. But Apples , the first feature from the director and co-writer Christos Nikou, unfolds with an understated deadpan wit that makes even its weirder touches seem plausible, even logical. At times it reminded me of some of the brilliant absurdist satires, like Dogtooth and Attenberg , that have put Greek cinema on the map over the past two decades.

But Nikou has a gentler, more melancholy touch. The script leaves a lot to the imagination: We learn no more about the cause or the outcome of the pandemic than we do about the avian attacks in Hitchcock's The Birds . We also don't learn much about the main character's background; there are no flashbacks to his earlier life and there's no voiceover narration, either.

But while the character is quiet and emotionally reserved by nature, Servetalis, the actor playing him, is a mesmerizing screen presence. Sometimes Nikou shoots him in close-up, and sometimes from a distance, creating a ghostly, disorienting effect. You can't stop watching him, whether he's walking the streets of an eerily underpopulated Athens or slicing and eating apples, his favorite fruit.

At one point he befriends a woman, played by Sofia Georgovassili, who's also trying to recover her memory through the government program. An attraction forms, but then quickly dissipates; their amnesia is more of a hindrance than a bond. Without their memories and their identities, it's hard for these two lonely, drifting souls to get on the same wavelength.

Speaking of memory: Watching Apples for the second time in two years, I was startled by how vividly I remembered much of it. In particular, I haven't stopped mentally replaying one extraordinarily moving scene in which our hero goes to a crowded dance club and begins doing the twist, losing himself in the music and the moment. Is he suddenly remembering how he used to dance, or is he blissfully surrendering himself to his amnesia? It's not immediately clear, and it's also not the only such ambiguous moment .

At times, our hero seems to experience flashes of clarity. He remembers his old address. He recognizes a dog from his old neighborhood. Is his memory coming back? But if so, why doesn't he share this good news with anyone, almost as if he preferred to stay in the dark? Is there some other explanation for what's going on?

I won't give anything away, especially since I'm not entirely sure myself. But as it unfolds, Apples seems to become a story about romantic loss as well as memory loss. Sometimes it suggests a lower-key version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , and like that tale of lost love, it asks whether some memories are best left forgotten.

As strange and singular as Apples is, its protagonist's condition hits on something universal. It's about how we deal with grief and loneliness, especially when memory becomes more of a curse than a blessing.

Review: Memory and identity vanish in soothing Greek existential drama ‘Apples’

A man sits on a child's bicycle in the movie "Apples."

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

Memory, by choice or by accident, fails the aching characters in director Christos Nikou’s unassumingly superb first feature “Apples,” executive produced by Cate Blanchett , in which an epidemic of sudden amnesia sweeps across Greece.

Set in a nondescript past before smartphones became ubiquitous and analog technology still reigned (presumably the late 1990s, based on a movie referenced), the quiet film unfurls in a boxy aspect ratio and submerged in an opaque color palette of grays and light blues. The aesthetic choices exude a visual serenity that matches the story’s overall restrained tone.

For your safety

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the CDC and local health officials .

Expressionless, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) seems to be the latest victim of the unexplained affliction. Found on the bus sans documentation and with no family to claim him, he becomes an unidentified patient and begins a series of tests to determine what, if anything, he can recall. Like him, many others can’t remember who they were.

The illness not only removes all personal details from a person’s mind, but most information on how the world operates and its social norms. However, in Aris’ case, his predilection for the titular apples appears to suspiciously have been spared in the process.

To deal with those in his situation, the government has set up a program to help them start anew. Via cassette tapes, Aris receives a list of quintessential life experiences and skills he must pursue and document with a Polaroid camera. Some, like riding a bicycle or driving rely on muscle memory, while others push Aris out of his interpersonal comfort zone.

There’s a humorous absurdity to the tasks that seems to comment on our modern obsession with registering every moment with a camera. In a photo album, all these printed images of Aris’ new, forcefully constructed life accumulate like a tactile Instagram profile.

Aris Servetalis in a still from Christos Nikou's "Apples."

Greek film ‘Apples’ explores the role of memory in human existence

‘Could it be that we are the things we don’t forget? Because in a way, we are our memories,’ asks director Christos Nikou.

Jan. 12, 2021

One night at the movie theater, he comes across Anna (Sofia Georgovassili), another amnesiac also completing these pillars of the human condition to build a new identity. As a friendship develops between them, more questions emerge about who Aris and Anna are.

Gentle in their narrative approach, Nikou and co-writer Stavros Raptis play it close to the vest, letting the subtext and small shifts in the performance relay nods to its ideas on loss and reinvention. In their impeccable screenplay, one line of dialogue can inconspicuously but intensely expand our understanding of the offbeat premise and of Aris’ motivations.

There are other lyrical touches transmitted in thematically relevant imagery: Aris dresses up as an astronaut for a costume party, reaffirming in an unspoken manner the desire one can feel to leave behind all that you know, to explore new ground, to see one’s life from the outside in, like leaving the planet and looking back at it from outer space.

Even if one considers “Apples” part of the so-called Greek Weird Wave, such a subtly thoughtful and soothing approach to probe at existential concerns, rather than being predictably cynical or violent, makes it stand out.

That Nikou began his career as an assistant director to Yorgos Lanthimos on “Dogtooth,” while Servetalis appeared in that director’s 2011 film “Alps,” might inflate those assumptions about the collective bizarreness and deadpan humor that appears to characterize most of the Hellenic productions that reach our shores.

Late in the picture, in one of the film’s most surprisingly poignant scenes, Aris dances with abandon at a bar as if he has, for a moment or forever, forgotten about shame, reveling in a blissfully uninhibited state. It’s then that Nikou suggests the benefits of becoming a blank slate, unlearning fear and all other imposed social burdens. If no one knows who you were, not even you, then you can be a truer version of yourself.

Yet, what makes “Apples” a delicately affecting gem not to be missed is that the more its layers peel away, the more that apparently inconsequential facts like one’s favorite fruit gain importance as we examine who we become when we no longer have our baggage, both the beautiful and the sorrowful.

There’s a comforting benevolence to not recalling the pain once felt. If we could, we might agree to have all trauma wiped away, and have selective memory only treasuring the good parts of the past. But in reality, we tend to cling vehemently to what no longer is, because joy and suffering are often intertwined, components of a continuum that gives us meaning.

Forgetting can be a blessing, but perhaps the hurt that comes with not letting go is the price for having had a life worth remembering.

In Greek with English subtitles Not Rated Running time: 1 hours, 31 minutes Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica; Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena

Review: ‘Io Capitano’ captures the harrowing plight of African migrants in all its extremity

Feb. 23, 2024

Chilean doc Eternal Memory reminds true love endures even after recollections fade

Feb. 14, 2024

Review: ‘Tótem,’ a haunting drama about a family at a turning point, will stay with you forever

Feb. 1, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Entertainment & Arts

Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend sues actor alleging defamation, battery a year after his arrest

March 19, 2024

STORMY -- Pictured: Stormy Daniels -- (Photo by: Peacock)

‘Stormy’ filmmakers say they wanted to show how the justice system failed Daniels

March 18, 2024

Taylor Swift in a bedazzled leotard and matching boots strutting on a stage while holding a microphone

Taylor Swift’s L.A. fans made SoFi concerts shake, shake, shake, Caltech-UCLA study says

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Po, voiced by Jack Black, in a scene from DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 4." (DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures via AP)

‘Kung Fu Panda 4,’ ‘Dune: Part Two’ continue atop box office as ‘Arthur the King’ lags

March 17, 2024

Rotten Apples

You’re watching..

As featured in

Stay in the loop on all things rotten apples..

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

Apples review – splendidly poignant and creepy pandemic drama

An outbreak of amnesia unfolds in an ahistoric, analogue Athens in Christos Nikou’s stylish tale – a fitting opener for Venice film festival’s Orizzonti sidebar

O n the opening day of the Venice film festival, the arrivals are struggling to get their bearings. Things don’t work the way they did in the past. There’s a booking system to contend with and a mask policy to observe. We don’t know the names of many directors on the programme. We can’t recognise our friends and colleagues behind their myriad face coverings. It’s the 77th edition but it almost feels like the first. The new normal is weird; it’s going to take some getting used to.

If the Venice selectors were looking for a fitting film to open this year’s Orizzonti sidebar, they could hardly have done better than Christos Nikou’s splendidly poignant and creepy Apples. As luck or fate would have it, this is a pandemic drama of sorts, spotlighting an outbreak of amnesia that afflicts the people of Greece. With a neat stylistic flourish, Nikou sets his tale in an ahistoric, analogue Athens, modern on the surface yet seemingly in thrall to cassette decks and instant cameras. At a time when memories are wiped and histories erased, physical media perhaps provide a crucial link with the past.

The latest patient to be admitted to the “Disturbed Memory Department” is Aris (Aris Servetalis), aka Number 14842: a gaunt, bearded man who looks like Daniel Day-Lewis playing the role of Vincent Van Gogh. Aris is initially told to sit tight and wait for his family to claim him. But as the days tick by, the suspicion grows that his family has forgotten him just as completely as he’s forgotten them. Slowly, steadily, the city appears to be losing its connective tissue. Cases are increasing; the people are being rubbed clean.

Nikou previously worked as an assistant director on Yorgos Lanthimos’s Dogtooth and he clearly came away infected. Apples, his debut feature, has the same deadpan sensibility and a similar line in mordant black comedy. Its action, moreover, unfolds across a series of unglamorous non-spaces (abandoned swimming baths; forlorn city parks) that might have already cropped up in Lanthimos’s 2011 film Alps. At one stage Aris rides a bus to the end of the line, right into the hinterlands, because he can’t remember his home address.

I’ll admit to having a low resistance to – or perhaps a high tolerance for – the so-called Greek Weird Wave , with its reams of affectless dialogue, its unexplained absurdities and its depiction of a planet a shuffle-step removed from our own. But what prevents Apples from becoming a simple Lanthimos copycat is its comparative kindness and its abiding direction of travel. At the neurological hospital, the patients are eventually coaxed on to the “New Identity” programme, installed in fresh homes and encouraged to construct a kind of flat-pack personal history. Where a lesser director might have been tempted to point his tale towards darkness, Nikou – to his credit – adopts a more tender approach.

Paired up with Anna (Sofia Georgovassili), a fellow amnesiac, Aris duly embarks on a stumbling route through an accelerated second childhood. This in turn is followed by a whistle-stop adolescence. If Nikou never quite liberates them from the shackles of the movie’s high-concept premise, he at least makes them care about these people and the new lives that they’re building. Apples aid memory. Music throws a lifeline.

Towards the end of the film, Aris and Anna set forth on a jaunt out of town. They’re side-by-side and briefly happy – fumbling for the words of a song they can almost recall, at the wheel of a car that might even be theirs.

Venice film festival 2020
Drama films
Venice film festival

More on this story

Feminist drama Poor Things wins Golden Lion at Venice film festival

Auteurs and workers’ rights spotlit at a less starry Venice film festival

‘Very difficult to watch’: Priscilla Presley on new film about her life with Elvis

Makeup artist who created prosthetic nose for Bradley Cooper film apologises

Venice film festival: T-shirts replace red carpet glitz as striking stars lie low

Comandante review – fun, if you ignore the voice in your head telling you it’s wrong

‘We knew we would face insults’: Venice film festival’s Alberto Barbera on including Polanski and Allen

20 greatest Venice film festival Golden Lion winners – ranked!

Sex and the smackdown: the crazy world of wrestling cult comic Andy Kaufman

Venice film festival 2023: our critic’s picks of 10 to watch

Comments (…), most viewed.

Best Shows on Netflix
Best Movies on Netflix
F1 Live Stream
Stranger Things Season 5
Best New Movies
Most Popular Movies on Netflix
Best Shows on Disney+
UFC Live Stream
Best Movies on Disney+
Entertainment

Apples review: Accidental COVID allegory is Lanthimos Lite

Any film about a mysterious malady sweeping the globe is bound to look timely through the lens of the here and now. But the droll, Greek, half-comic Twilight Zone allegory Apples wears its topicality unintentionally. Shot slightly before the global outbreak of COVID-19, this first feature from writer-director Christos Nikou operates through pure, unhappy accident as a premonition of how life with the virus has turned out, two-plus years into a pandemic with no end in sight. It captures, eerily and specifically, the way that so much of the world has almost resigned itself to the viral threat, accepting it as a new normal.

The fictional disease of Apples attacks only the mind. It’s transmissible amnesia, robbing the infected of long-term memories. Early on, we see a man sitting on a curb, the door to his nearby car wide open. “Wait here,” a bystander tells him when he confesses ignorance about how he got there. It’s an instruction everyone’s become used to issuing — the official protocol when you stumble upon someone afflicted with this bad case of forgetfulness.

Aris (Aris Servetalis), bearded and haunted, awakes on a bus to find himself among the cognitively rebooted. His name, his occupation, where he lives — it has all disappeared into the mental ether. Unclaimed by any loved ones and in possession of no identifying documents, Aris is assigned a number and remanded to the custody of the Disturbed Memory Department, a wing of the so-called Neurological Hospital. Here, he’s enrolled in a program designed to, essentially, reteach him how to live. Through a series of cassette tapes with daily instructions, like “ride a bicycle” or “go to a strip club,” he’s offered substitutions for the memories he’s lost. If our identity is shaped by our experiences, can a new one be forged through a bucket list of tasks?

Aris, whose enduring taste for the titular fruit supplies the film its title, staggers through his regimen in a lobotomy-patient daze. The faint absurdity of the program, codifying spontaneous pleasures into a self-help routine, betrays that Apples isn’t quite set in the world as we know it. Where it really takes place is Yorgos Lanthimos Land, that alternate dimension of poker-faced absurdism governed by the warped mind behind The Lobster , The Favourite , and Dogtooth . Nikou served as assistant director on the last of those darkest of dark comedies, an experience that evidently proved quite influential. Carefully shot in the boxy 4:3 aspect ratio, his first stab at a movie of his own is essentially a kinder, gentler, sadder variation on his fellow Greek director’s twisted portraits of society’s cruel design.

The best shows on Apple TV+ right now (March 2024)
7 great Christmas movies you can watch for free
5 great movies on Hulu that are perfect to watch in the summer

At this point, Nikou lacks his mentor’s precision. His sensibility is a touch more sentimental, ballasting the awkward alien chitchat—here justified by the premise of personalities wiped completely clean—with an ever-present ruefulness. Still, what Apples is after is certainly in the same bizarro-world ballpark as Dogtooth and The Lobster : A satire of social conditioning, of the way our lives are shaped by rules or plans made by others. The film’s critique extends to a light jab at social media’s role in blueprinting existence. Part of the New Identity program, after all, is the insistence that Aris photographically document each new benchmark, snapping Polaroids of his progress like the quintessential head-damaged hero of memory-loss cinema, Leonard Shelby . Can we truly live if we’re always angling for the perfect shot, turning every day into an opportunity for selfies ?

Still, Apples is too subdued, too committed to its sustained note of sad-sack deadpan. to ever transform into a screed. The film takes its tonal cues from the foggy melancholia of its protagonist, a husk of a man by design. It’s hard not to wish, occasionally, for the film to break out of its dutifully maintained torpor, maybe to get at some feelings more volatile than a pod-person acceptance of going totally tabula rasa. Wouldn’t it make you angry and scared to entirely forget who you are, even if you didn’t know what you were missing about yourself? At a certain point, the emotional flatline of the film begins to feel like a failure of imagination, settling for a consistency of tragicomic mood over the messier possibilities of the conceit.

Nikou does have one complication up his sleeve — the question, again à la Memento , of just how involuntary Aris’s condition really is. As he begins to pal around with a fellow victim of the disease, the possibility of romance arising, evidence mounts that his memories may not be entirely gone. Are they recoverable? Or is there a more obvious explanation here, linked to the life Aris has lost? Maybe, depending on your circumstances, forgetting everything would be more of a gift than a curse. After the last couple of years of mass death and loneliness, that’s a notion many in the audience might find plenty persuasive.

Apples is now playing in select theaters . For more reviews and writing by A.A. Dowd, visit his Authory page .

Editors' Recommendations

What’s new on Apple TV+ this month (March 2024)
The best movies on Apple TV+ right now (February 2024)
What is Apple TV+? Pricing, features, how to get it, and more
The School for Good and Evil review: Middling magic
Slash/Back review: The kids are all right (especially when fighting aliens)

Director Karen Maine’s new comedy, Rosaline, works overtime to find a new perspective in one of the most well-known stories of all time. The tale in question? None other than William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, which remains so iconic that its influence continues to be felt today. As its title suggests, Maine's film does not place its focus on either of that play’s eponymous, star-crossed lovers, though, but rather on the woman who had originally captured young Romeo’s heart before he set his eyes for the first time on her cousin, Juliet.

In Shakespeare’s play, Rosaline is mentioned frequently but never given an actual line of dialogue. Here, the character is reimagined as a brash and determined young woman who refuses to simply accept Romeo’s change of heart. Instead, she sets out to win him back through any means necessary. The film, in other words, attempts to build a fairly common rom-com plot out of the most iconic love story of all time. Rosaline, to its credit, mostly succeeds at doing so, thanks in no small part to the fiery and charismatic performance given by its young lead.

Well, that's finally over.

Filmmaker David Gordon Green's revival of the Halloween franchise, which started out strong with 2018's Halloween before stumbling with 2021's Halloween Kills, wraps up with this year's appropriately titled Halloween Ends, a film intended to be the swan song for both his trilogy and original Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis' involvement with the franchise. And while Green's final installment manages to salvage some of the series' appeal, Halloween Ends ultimately falls short of realizing the trilogy's initial potential.

With its lush sets and perpetually probing camera, Decision to Leave looks and moves like any other Park Chan-wook film, but it reverberates with the same untempered passion present in Golden Age noirs like In a Lonely Place and Double Indemnity. Unlike those two films, though, which center their stories around a hot-tempered screenwriter and naïve insurance salesman, respectively, Decision to Leave follows another common noir archetype: the lovelorn detective (played here by Park Hae-il).

In the film’s opening moments, Hae-jun, the detective in question, lands a case involving the mysterious death of a recreational rock climber. The case, in typical noir fashion, leads to Hae-jun crossing paths with Seo-rae (a spellbinding Tang Wei), his victim’s gorgeous but eccentric widow. Perturbed by how disinterested she is in unpacking her abusive husband’s death, Hae-jun begins to tail and spy on Seo-rae, unaware that doing so will only further intensify his attraction to her. As far as noir plots go, this is about as familiar as it gets. With its nods to Hitchcock and lightly self-aware attitude, Decision to Leave makes it clear that it doesn’t mind treading the same narrative terrain as so many of the noir classics that have come before it, either.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, apples never fall.

There are a lot of missing and dead women on TV. It’s not just zombie shows or procedurals, the prestige series has long been in on the game with feminine corpses powering entire series. In Peacock’s missing-woman mystery, “Apples Never Fall,” the beloved and powerful Annette Bening even potentially dons the trope.

As Joy Delaney, she’s the matriarch of a competitive tennis family with four adult children—none of whom went pro, much to the patriarch’s dismay. When she goes missing, the siblings confront a mix of explicit and implicit intergenerational trauma, grappling with the possibility that their father Stan, a perfectly difficult Sam Neill , may have had something to do with it.

What unfurls is Faulkernesque as we see Joy via her family’s flashbacks. She powers the plot but does so mostly in her absence as we see her from others’ points of view. Thanks to these perspectives, we do get a strong sense of who she was—the rock, the one who held it all together but somehow was invisible to those closest to her. More than once, one of her kids exclaims “She saved me.” But, when she was there, they largely took her for granted.

There’s a particularly devastating revelation that on the day she disappeared she called each of her four children, and none of them bothered to pick up their phones. In fact, we see her loneliness in her attachment to Savanah (Georgia Flood playing both warm and conniving to much effect). As we see, Savannah’s a lost soul who worms her way into the Delaney home, mostly by listening to Joy and helping her around the house (what a thought!)—things her own family has neglected for decades. There’s a scene where Joy tells Savanah, “No one breaks your heart like your own kids,” and that could very well be the moral of this story. “Apples Never Fall” becomes a treatise on the ways we fail women, big and small, which shouldn’t surprise as it’s based on a book by Liane Moriarty of “ Big Little Lies ” fame.

As the series moves about its plot—with a compelling mystery that remains open until the last episode—two tragedies compete in its framework. There’s Joy’s disappearance and potential violent death. And there’s the fact that despite “saving” her kids, despite loving them fiercely, taking care of them even when it meant sacrificing her own piece of mind, none of them truly value her. She’s done women’s work and despite it being literally lifesaving (not to mention creating), they refuse to see her. Even outside of the domestic sphere, she doesn’t get credit from her family until is perhaps too late—she was also a competitive tennis player in her own right and ran the club with her husband, but it’s Stan’s career that gets the kids’ and thus our attention.

The cast does the work to make this tension relatable and fraught. Allison Brie as elder daughter Amy inhabits her character’s woo-woo beliefs, building distinct mannerisms that telegraph her inner struggles. Under her thoughtful care, Amy isn’t a caricature or a wounded spirit, she’s a woman struggling to find her place when she’s so different from those who raised her. After his turn as the ever-petulant newlywed in “ The White Lotus ,” Jake Lacy is cornering the market for rich assholes with Troy Delaney. Troy makes his fair share of mistakes but seems more hurt this time around, someone with a festering father wound and no idea how to heal it. Likewise, younger siblings Brooke (Essie Randles) and Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner) are all big, scared eyes—except for when they aren’t. Sometimes, even the most innocent Delaneys are the ones who lash out, unable to follow their mother’s example as it looms so small in their imagination.

Adding to the show’s smart layering, the setting reflects the characters’ privileges and faults. Their Maimi is one of tennis courts and country clubs, boats, and fancy cars. The Delaney home isn’t quite Nancy Meyers nice—it’s lovely but it feels lived in and a bit cluttered (better to hide their secrets in). This aesthetic reeks of respectability and the rough-play sense of themselves the Joy Delaney sells when she talks about her family. Likewise, the siblings’ homes show their arrested development with Troy in spacious modern (he’s a jerk!), Amy in a shared bungalow (she’s a mess!), Logan in nautical practical (he’s a lay about), and Brooke in well-lit cozy (she has a good thing but is going to mess it up!).

These elements, combined with its smart script and editing, build upon each other so that “Apples Never Fall” avoids the problems of the missing-or-dead-woman-as-learning-device. Bening never lets Joy fade. She is powerful when she needs to be, vulnerable and pensive all at once. In her, we see a portrayal of a flawed and dynamic woman who’s happy with her choices if not her current stage in life. The recent Oscar nominee for "Nyad" is such an extraordinary star that here she’s able to portray a warmth that allows others to skip over her accomplishments and edge, even as it does them all a disservice. It’s an arresting portrayal that insists on Joy’s humanity even when her story is being told by those who would negate it.

And perhaps that’s the real lesson in “Apples Never Fall”: to respect the mothers, the women, the adults who protected us when we couldn’t protect ourselves. That work is hard and dangerous, and we should value it at the highest level. That we don’t is the tragic flaw of our social structure.

Now, go call your mother.

Whole series screened for review. Premieres on Peacock tomorrow, March 14th.

Cristina Escobar

Cristina Escobar is the co-founder of LatinaMedia.Co, a digital publication uplifting Latina and gender non-conforming Latinx perspectives in media.

Now playing

Drive-Away Dolls

Tomris laffly.

Peter Sobczynski

Knox Goes Away

Robert daniels.

Simon Abrams

Land of Bad

Brian Tallerico

Film credits.

Apples Never Fall (2024)

Annette Bening as Joy

Sam Neill as Stan

Jake Lacy as Troy

Alison Brie as Amy

Latest blog posts

SXSW 2024: Songs from the Hole, The Black Sea, Adrianne & The Castle

SXSW 2024: Sing Sing, Bob Trevino Likes It, Hood Witch

Netflix Dutifully Unpacks Memorable Cases in Overdone Homicide: New York

Becoming Other: Another Look at Under the Skin

Supported by

‘Apples Never Fall’ Review: A Drama Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Formula

This Peacock mini-series about a bitter family and a missing woman is TV’s latest adaptation of a novel by the author of “Big Little Lies.”

Share full article

A woman standing with a glass of wine looks suspiciously at a seated woman as a man looks away.

By Margaret Lyons

“Apples Never Fall,” premiering Thursday on Peacock, is the third Liane Moriarty book to be adapted for television, following HBO’s “Big Little Lies” and Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers.” But if you told me it was the 10th, I’d believe you, given how familiar it all feels. The seven-episode mini-series is so well-oiled and unsurprising, it just glides on by.

Annette Bening and Sam Neill star as Joy and Stan Delaney, pillars of West Palm Beach, Fla., who are, as the central couples in these kinds of shows always are, seemingly perfect but secretly damaged. They’ve just sold their tennis academy and are balking at the alleged freedoms of retirement, which Joy thought she’d spend with her four adult children.

However, the kids don’t want to hang out with their hovering mom and volatile, bitter dad; they want to have their own lives of not-very-quiet desperation. Troy (Jake Lacy) is the clenched-jaw rich brother, at the tail end of a divorce from a woman everyone else really liked. Amy (Alison Brie) is the “searcher,” as her mother puts it, an aspiring life coach who would be perfectly at home on any show set in California. Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner) wants to be beachy, not sporty, so he works at a marina and does yoga. Brooke (Essie Randles) is a high-strung physical therapist who is supposed to be planning her wedding but may be getting cold feet.

They probably would have kept on like that, except Joy has disappeared. And hmm, now that you mention it, there was that weird con artist, Savannah (Georgia Flood), who ingratiated herself into Joy and Stan’s life under very dubious circumstances. She couldn’t have something to do with it, could she? Well, we better bounce between two timelines to make sure: The days since Joy’s disappearance tick ahead in one timeline as we excavate all the mean family dinners from eight months ago in the other.

The show hits its steady simmer with tense competence and with some good lines. “I didn’t know how to fix it, so I broke it,” Troy says of his marriage, though it applies to all the siblings and their behaviors pretty equally.

All the best scenes are fights, and each character has a little trump card stashed away. As with hammers and nails, when you have a piece of incriminating intelligence about a relative, everything looks like an opportunity to deflect negative attention from yourself and hurt someone else. The children learned this kind of rage distribution and mistrust from Stan, whose rigidity and cruelty, particularly as a tennis coach, fell largely on Troy. Troy thinks his father knows more about his mother’s disappearance, and he’s frustrated — nay, enraged! — by his siblings’ reluctance to see their father as a brute.

And if “Apples” were just a domestic drama, that would probably be enough to sustain a story. But the show is also a missing-person mystery that is nowhere near as mysterious as it seems to think it is. When Savannah rings the Delaneys’ doorbell one night, claiming that she was fleeing her abusive boyfriend and had run right to this very street, a grift is so clearly afoot that the tension is less “hmm, what is really happening?” than “wait, how dumb are these people supposed to seem?” Every scheme is so telegraphed and unsubtle that it is hard to buy into the characters’ capacities to reason.

Mysteries often rely on characters being good liars, on viewers being fooled. To hide in plain sight requires hiding, though, and the show does not deploy any other techniques to cultivate complexity. If anything, it does the opposite: The police officers use their investigation primarily to announce each plot point. (“Well, now we know [a suspect’s] motive!”) There is no humor and little sense of place — the most distinguishing visual feature is the abundance of high ceilings. Even the tennis seems stripped of any psychological resonance.

“Apples” is not selling anything you couldn’t buy elsewhere; it’s a department store, not a fashion house. You can get the exact same scene of “a terrified family of a missing person visits a coroner’s office but finds the wrong body” on the smarter, more provocative “Expats.” You can get the “a storm in Florida also represents a storm [ sagely points at heart ] in here” on the dumber, high-on-its-own-supply “Extrapolations.”

Or perhaps you prefer something from the vintage collection, in which case you can capture the show’s general vibe by heading over to Hulu and recreating ABC’s Sunday night block from 2006-2010: “Desperate Housewives” followed by “Brothers & Sisters.”

That “Housewives” helped inspire the “Real Housewives” franchise, which demonstrated the modern appetite for rich women (some of whom commit crimes) drinking wine and yelling at each other. That formula got classed up by “Big Little Lies,” and, well, here we are again.

Margaret Lyons is a television critic at The Times, and writes the TV parts of the Watching newsletter . More about Margaret Lyons

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

The HBO show “The Regime” is set in a fictional European country. But our chief diplomatic correspondent recognizes references to many real despots and failed states.

In the comedy series “Girls5eva,” Paula Pell, at 60, has become the comedy star she always dreamed of being.

Barry Keoghan, Paul Mescal and Cillian Murphy are among a crop of Irish hunks who have infused popular culture with big Irish energy .

Kobi Libii, the writer and director of the movie “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” has made a satire that may feel primed to be provocative. He responded to some of the discourse .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings System — How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work - Featured

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings — How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work?

What is Pathos
What is Logos
What is Telos
What is Kairos
What is Ethos
Ethos, Pathos & Logos
What is an EPK
What is a Creative Director
What is Branded Content
What is a Creative Brief
How to Pitch a TV Show Like a Pro

How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work?

How to Make a Movie Poster
The Filmmaker’s Guide to The Clio Advertising Awards
A Complete Guide To The Funniest Commercials
How to Make a Commercial
How to Develop Your Brand
Complete Guide to Advertising on Instagram
How Does Instagram Promotion Work and Is It Worth It?
How Can You Kickstart Your Social Media Advertising?
Small Business Advertising Ideas from LeBron James Commercials
How To Create a Successful Branded Content Campaign
How and Why To Make Facebook Video Ads That Work
How to Make a Commercial People Will Actually Share
Video Branding Strategies to Get More Followers Right Now
Social Media and Digital Communications for Successful Short Films
Digital Advertising Trends
Most Inspiring Ads
Best Movie Taglines
Best Marketing and Advertising Campaigns
Best Creative Brief Template
Best Explainer Video Trends for Your Brand

T he Rotten Tomatoes ratings system―good or bad? Well, I’d say it’s a bit better than the original way tomatoes were used to judge entertainment. Because even if we want to throw fruit at the screen, 21st century technology reminds us we don’t have to. Rotten Tomatoes will provide us with a fair Critic consensus before we even get to the theatre (saving us a ton of food and money).

So how does Rotten Tomatoes work, exactly? Is it a reliable judge of… characters … Okay, okay, hold your tomatoes please. Let’s get a behind the scenes look at how it all works.

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings - Tomatometer Graphics Simplified - StudioBinder

What do the Rotten Tomatoes symbols mean? Read on

Rotten tomatoes ratings system.

Rotten Tomatoes started in 2000 and it quickly became moviegoers go-to for reviews. But ever since Fandango acquired the company, it’s become even more well-known adding something called a “Tomatometer” score next to every movie and ticket listing.

Critics have suggested that there is much more nuance and complication when it comes to the correlation between a Rotten Tomatoes rating and ticket sales. And while we will not get into that in this article, I think there is something to be said psychologically about seeing a rating right before you make your choice.

But I digress.

I know for me, the ubiquitous nature of a Rotten Tomatoes score has made me feel like they hold more weight than they once did. But do they really hold more weight? How is the score actually calculated? And how are critics curated?

Let's break it down.

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings - Tomatometer Score Graphic - StudioBinder

Tomatometer Breakdown

Rotten tomatoes rating system, how does the tomatometer work.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating system uses a scale better known as the “The Tomatometer.” This represents the percentage of positive reviews for a given film or show. The Tomatometer score is calculated after five reviews.

As the reviews come in, The Tomatometer measures the positive reviews against the negative ones and assigns either an overall score of fresh or rotten rating to the film or television show.

A red tomato score indicating its fresh status, is designated when at least 60% of the reviews are positive.

A green splat indicating rotten status, is displayed when less than 60% of the reviews are positive.

If there is no score available, it usually just means the movie or show hasn’t been released or there aren’t enough reviews yet. So, now that we know how they’re calculated, who’s doing the reviewing?

Best Leonardo DiCaprio Movies →
The Top Gangster Movies of All Time →
Outstanding Neo-Noir Films, Ranked for Filmmakers →

How Does Rotten Tomatoes Rate Their Movies

How is rotten tomatoes rated .

Rotten Tomatoes is careful in its Critic curation. It won’t include just any critic’s review. It aggregates those who have been regularly putting out movie reviews over the last two years, and those who are considered active by Rotten Tomatoes standards. This just means they’ve published a review within the last year. While there are about 3,000 accepted reviewers (see the Tomatometer-approved critics criteria), usually only several hundred are actively reviewing for any given film.

Many times, it’s much less. And Top Critics are counted with a separate score. So while the the Rotten Tomatoes rating system is really just general consensus, you can see some of the more renowned critics in a different space.

But it’s not just about the critics! You also get a fully rounded out review because you can also see how the audience feels.

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings - What is Tomatometer - StudioBinder

What is the Tomatometer?

Popcorn rating explained, rotten tomatoes audience score.

This is a great feature of the site because it provides information from everyday moviegoers but also gives you some insight to see how close this score is to the critics’ scores. It can help you gauge if it’s truly a must-see or probably-pass. And it’s calculated similarly to critic reviews.

The Audience Score is designated by a popcorn bucket.

The score is the percentage of users who have rated the movie or show positively. There is also a section for Verified Ratings which includes those that have actually bought tickets.

To receive a full popcorn bucket , at least 60% of users give a film or show a star rating of 3.5 or higher.

A tipped over popcorn bucket indicates that less than 60% of users have given it a 3.5 or higher.

The most interesting finds are the ones that have a green splat for critics, and a full bucket of popcorn from the audience.

While it’s rarely ever vice-versa, it happens, and it’s then when Rotten Tomatoes ratings may seem more subjective, and we wonder if the system works. And while reviews are opinion to some extent, the site boasts something called Certified Fresh, which brings a little more objectivity to the critique.

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings - Audience Score - StudioBinder

Audience Score Breakdown

Certified rotten tomatoes score, what is certified fresh.

What does Rotten Tomatoes mean by Certified Fresh?

If a film or television show is awarded a Certified Fresh status, it’s being acknowledged that it’s met these requirements:

It has at least five reviews from Top Critics
A steady Tomatometer score of at least 75%
Limited release films must have at least 40 reviews
Wide release films must have at least 80 reviews
TV shows are eligible by season and must have at least 20 reviews per season

Of course these stats could fluctuate, especially within the first few days or weeks of a film’s release. If it meets these requirements, it is automatically flagged for review.

When the Rotten Tomatoes staff can determine the movie or show is unlikely to fall below these numbers, it achieves its Certified Fresh status.

Similarly, if the Tomatometer score ever falls below 70%, it will lose this status. Because the Rotten Tomatoes ratings system is so general, RT certified fresh consideration gives the site more objective credibility.

What does Rotten Tomatoes mean for movies

Is rotten tomatoes good for movies.

So, what's the bottom line? With the movie theater business under constant assault from the rise of streaming services, audiences are less and less likely to venture out to the movies. If they do happen to make it outside the house, they'll likely be extra picky about how they spend their money.

Will they choose an "untested" wildcard movie or one that has general approval from fans and critics? The answer is self-evident. On its surface, the Rotten Tomatoes rating system and Tomatometer seem to be a legitimate resource for the discerning consumer.

However, there is also a legitimate concern for low-budget indie movies who already have the cards stacked against them in distribution. Since they don't have the marketing budget of the Hollywood tentpoles, curious moviegoers have little else to go on besides the Tomatometer. These "little fish" movies live or die by this system, which is ultimately opinion-based and subjective.

Best Marvel Movies So Far →
Jack Nicholson's Best Movies →
Best Movies of the Decade (2010-2019) →

What is a Cliche? Learn from Examples

If you’re a filmmaker or just love the movies, using cliches are a sure fire way to get awarded a nice big green splat, or a tipped over popcorn bucket. Next up, are some examples of these tired situations and ways to avoid them.

Up Next: Cliche explained →

Showcase your vision with elegant shot lists and storyboards..

Create robust and customizable shot lists. Upload images to make storyboards and slideshows.

Learn More ➜

Pricing & Plans
Product Updates
Featured On
StudioBinder Partners
The Ultimate Guide to Call Sheets (with FREE Call Sheet Template)
How to Break Down a Script (with FREE Script Breakdown Sheet)
The Only Shot List Template You Need — with Free Download
Managing Your Film Budget Cashflow & PO Log (Free Template)
A Better Film Crew List Template Booking Sheet
Best Storyboard Softwares (with free Storyboard Templates)
Movie Magic Scheduling
Gorilla Software
Storyboard That

A visual medium requires visual methods. Master the art of visual storytelling with our FREE video series on directing and filmmaking techniques.

We’re in a golden age of TV writing and development. More and more people are flocking to the small screen to find daily entertainment. So how can you break put from the pack and get your idea onto the small screen? We’re here to help.

Making It: From Pre-Production to Screen
What is Poor Things About — Plot and Themes Explained
Best Free TV Scripts Online (with PDF Downloads)
What is an Anagram — The Art of Writing Word Puzzles
What is a Color Palette — How to Use Them in Visual Arts
What Was the First Movie With Sound — Film History 101
65 Facebook
3 Pinterest
32 LinkedIn

Entertainment
<i>Apples Never Fall</i> Is Rotten to the Core

Apples Never Fall Is Rotten to the Core

The apple never falls far from the tree , according to the proverb that gives Peacock’s new domestic thriller its title. But if the tree is Big Little Lies —both shows are based on best-selling mystery novels by Liane Moriarty —then Apples Never Fall , which will stream in full beginning March 14, has rolled quite a distance downhill from whence it dropped. Even Hulu’s silly adaptation of Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers is substantially better.

Considering the personnel involved, it’s hard to tell why the show went so frustratingly wrong. Moriarty is on board as an executive producer. Showrunner Melanie Marnich worked on a pair of fascinating Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij series, A Murder at the End of the World and The OA , after writing the very best episode of Big Love . Annette Bening (also an executive producer) and Sam Neill star as Joy and Stan Delaney, married tennis coaches who’ve recently sold their academy and retired. The eldest of their four adult children are played by the reliably great Jake Lacy and Alison Brie.

Yet the acting is inconsistent (even Neill’s hotheaded performance can verge on John McEnroe camp), and the directing workmanlike. All of which might have been forgivable if the script, from premise to characters to the execution of big plot twists, wasn’t such a disaster. The show is goofy from the very beginning. In the overwrought opening scene, Joy rides her apple-green bicycle through her hometown of West Palm Beach. She frowns, passing the Garces (formerly Delaney) Tennis Academy, and picks out a perfect red apple at an outdoor market. Katie Herzig’s slow, moody “Buried” (sample lyric: “All the secrets buried in the backyard”) plays on the soundtrack. Then, after an Apples Never Fall title card, the camera follows a trail of apples scattered across asphalt, zooming in on the abandoned bike with blood staining its gears.

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. Obviously, Joy’s disappearance isn’t so funny to her children, who soon realize that the annoying mom who never stops calling and texting them has become impossible to reach. In the absence of a believable explanation from Stan, they start investigating. Some of the Delaneys, who each get their own point-of-view episode, are broad caricatures. Stan has exactly one mood: angry. Like a watered-down version of the actor’s smug White Lotus villain, Lacy’s Troy works in venture capital and wears T-shirts that remind everyone he went to Stanford. Amy (Brie) is a central-casting unmoored hippie. Their younger siblings have circumstances rather than personalities. Brooke (Essie Randles) has a female fiancée and a physical therapy practice; Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), says Joy, likes “boats and yoga.” For declining to continue the Delaney tennis dynasty, all four kids are disappointments to Stan.

Of course, once the search for Joy begins in earnest, everyone’s predictable secrets (infidelity, mostly) come out. And two key suspects emerge. There’s Stan, who has a nasty scratch on his face, has told some suspicious lies about his wife’s whereabouts, and, as the show never lets us forget, has quite a temper. More mysterious is Savannah (Georgia Flood), a young woman who appeared at the Delaneys’ doorstep months ago with a bloody forehead and a story about an abusive husband. Bored in retirement and desperate to mother someone as her own children ignored her, Joy took Savannah into her home over her husband’s objections. She’s long gone by the time Joy vanishes, but Logan urges the police to look into her, whoever she is, anyway.

It’s a serviceable premise for a potboiler, despite the thin characters and trope-laden plot. But subpar storytelling robs Apples Never Fall of all suspense—or, really, any other form of enjoyment. The dialogue leans on cliché: “I was like a father to you!” “She was a force.” “It’s crazy, isn’t it? How a split second can change everything for the rest of your life.” And Marnich treats viewers like we’re stupid, spoon-feeding unadorned exposition and analysis through a pair of generic detectives (Jeanine Serralles and Dylan Thuraisingham). “Did Stanley Delaney do what I think he just did?” one asks, in a typical exchange. “Yes, he did. He just threw his son under the bus,” the other replies. Often, characters’ motivations seem nonsensical. Other times, the show hints so relentlessly at why people do the things they do that you can see the twists coming several episodes away. I can’t imagine I’ll be the only one to guess the ending early on.

About that ending. It arrives with the same thuddingly obvious force as the hurricane that also hits West Palm late in the season. And it compounds the disservice that the show does to its mostly talented cast and viewers hungry for another delicious Liane Moriarty binge. Instead of saying something specific and true about women’s lives and families, the way Big Little Lies did, Apples Never Fall reduces Joy to the blandest, most unsurprising maternal stereotype. In a finale plainly engineered to make us weep, I felt nothing except irritation. Maybe it would’ve been different if Joy, or any other character, had come off as a real person in the first place.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Why We're Spending So Much Money Now
The Fight to Free Evan Gershkovich
Meet the 2024 Women of the Year
John Kerry's Next Move
The Quiet Work Trees Do for the Planet
Breaker Sunny Choi Is Heading to Paris
Column: The Internet Made Romantic Betrayal Even More Devastating
Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

The 15 Best Apple TV+ Original Movies, Ranked According to Rotten Tomatoes

For the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, these Apple TV+ movies are the best of the best.

In 2019, the tech giant Apple joined the streaming scene with their Apple TV+ service, and that same year, they released their first original movie, launching a catalog of memorable films of varying success. Though they're still finding their footing in terms of what kinds of movies they distribute, they already have over a dozen outstanding works backing them up.

From the Oscar-winning feel-good comedy CODA to work by highly acclaimed filmmakers like Martin Scorsese 's Killers of the Flower Moon , Apple TV+ has offered numerous great films that people can watch from the comfort of their home . Critics on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes seem to agree, since many of these movies have terrific Tomatometer scores.

15 'Palmer' (2021)

Rotten tomatoes score: 72%.

Starring Justin Timberlake in one of his best roles, Palmer is about an ex-convict who strikes up a friendship with a boy from a troubled home. It certainly has plenty of trite clichés that not every audience member will be able to connect with, but it's so earnestly told and beautifully performed that it's hard to be dissatisfied once the credits roll.

On Rotten Tomatoes, critics were impressed by Timberlake's surprising acting chops and then-nine-year-old Ryder Allan 's tearjerker performance. Almost everyone who reviewed the film found that it was easy to overlook its mawkish story in favor of its beautiful themes , nicely written characters, and powerful messages about acceptance and redemption.

*Availability in US

Not available

14 'Finch' (2021)

Rotten tomatoes score: 74%.

A post-apocalyptic movie that isn't a total bummer , Finch stars the ever-charming Tom Hanks as the dying creator of a robot, who he tasks with taking care of his beloved dog after he's gone. The premise alone is moving, and the movie it generates is just as touching.

Although not all critics on Rotten Tomatoes connected with the story's emotional core, most of them found that Finch was a smart and sincere sci-fi tale with interesting characters and an entertaining narrative, as well as solid visuals that made it easy to immerse oneself in the world of the movie. Hanks was praised for his performance, which most critics agreed was the beating heart of the whole movie.

13 'Greyhound' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes score: 78%.

A Tom Hanks WWII action thriller movie released during the COVID-19 pandemic definitely sounds like something that would be hard not to enjoy. Indeed, Greyhound did pretty well with critics and audiences alike, and is still remembered as one of the best Apple TV original movies.

On Rotten Tomatoes, critics praised Greyhound for its fast-paced action, economical approach to suspense, and Hanks's understated but outstanding performance . The characters aren't very well-rounded, and the story is a little too by-the-numbers, but for viewers who are just looking for an absorbing war action drama, this one will satisfy that craving more than well enough.

Watch on Apple TV+

12 'The Banker' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes score: 79%.

In this period drama set in the '60s, two revolutionary businessmen hatch a clever plan to grant themselves and other African Americans a shot at the American Dream. Based on an impressive true story, The Banker sports a set of phenomenal lead performances by Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson .

On Rotten Tomatoes, though critics noted the film pulling its punches when it came to depicting its story, they praised its strong social themes, inspiring tone, and engaging story , all of which make it one of the most interesting movies about the American Dream that have recently come out. Even if it plays it safe when it should have gone all out, it's hard to complain when the result is so entertaining.

11 'Swan Song' (2021)

Rotten tomatoes tomatometer score: 79%.

Swan Song is not only one of the best Apple original movies, but also one of the best sci-fi movies about cloning made in recent years, telling the story of a family man who tries to clone himself after finding out that he's terminally ill. Mahershala Ali carries this thought-provoking drama with not just one but two excellent performances that are hard to take one's eyes off of.

Critics evidently thought the same, praising the actor's work in this intelligently written , sharply directed sci-fi film full of interesting ethical questions and memorable moments. It's a poignant and slow-moving film that's definitely not for those who prefer action-packed sci-fi, but those who enjoy profound and moving stories about grief and identity should love it.

10 'Tetris' (2023)

Rotten tomatoes score: 81%.

Many video games have interesting stories behind their production, but none have one quite as fascinating as that of Tetris . The movie of the same name is about how this massively popular game found its way to players around the globe, complete with political intrigue and fish-out-of-water thriller elements that make it, if anything, a very unique movie.

As colorful and delightfully paced as the game it's about, Tetris is a biopic unlike any other . Visually creative and surprisingly informative about the subject matter , it's undoubtedly one of the most entertaining Apple TV+ original movies. Though not all critics on Rotten Tomatoes connected with its dialogue-heavy narrative, most thought that it made up for it with fun pop culture references and colorful dashes of creativity.

9 'Causeway' (2022)

Rotten tomatoes score: 85%.

With gut-wrenching performances from Jennifer Lawrence and an Oscar-nominated Brian Tyree Henry , the outstanding female-led A24 drama Causeway is about a severely injured American soldier struggling to adapt to life in her estranged hometown. Greatly enjoyable for A24 fans who like the more understated films from their broad catalog, Causeway is a terrific film that packs a big punch.

The movie is a bit of a slow burn, taking its sweet time to build the dynamic between its two leads. The result is a painful, bittersweet, but ultimately very rewarding story about trauma and how connection helps people get past it. Because of this, it earned the approval of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who called it one of the most unique Apple TV+ movies.

8 'Cha Cha Real Smooth' (2022)

A highly underrated indie comedy, Cha Cha Real Smooth follows a 22-year-old who starts working as a party starter for bar/bat mitzvahs, where he befriends a young mom and her daughter. Though it flew under the radar of many movie fans in 2022, the movie is very worthy of being discovered by more people — Which is greatly facilitated by a service like Apple TV+

If Cooper Raiff was already a talent to watch out for before Cha Cha Real Smooth , the touching dramedy only further cemented him as one of the most intriguing new voices in the genre . It's funny, genuine, has phenomenal performances with a natural feel, and has the approval of most critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who think it's a tender celebration of the beauty and frustration of being young.

Cha Cha Real Smooth

7 'hala' (2019), rotten tomatoes score: 86%.

Those looking for good coming-of-age movies on Apple TV+ ought to check out the service's first original film, Hala , which should scratch that itch and then some. It's a drama about a 17-year-old girl struggling to balance being a suburban teenager with her traditional Muslim upbringing. With a sensitive and loving approach to its themes, it makes sure that they have plenty of staying power.

The film didn't really work with audiences, but Rotten Tomatoes critics thought that it was a pretty strong debut for the studio , and a coming-of-age movie destined to become a classic . It beautifully portrays its lead character's journey of self-discovery, empowered by Geraldine Viswanathan 's nuanced performance and a fresh twist on traditional teen movie tropes.

6 'On the Rocks' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes score: 87%.

In her career as a filmmaker, Sofia Coppola has mostly garnered universal praise throughout her career. Her dramedy On the Rocks , another collaboration between Apple and A24, is about a young mother reconnecting with her eccentric father on an adventure through New York. Full of the signatures that have made Coppola a popular director, the movie should satisfy any fan's expectations of her work.

Rashida Jones makes for an incredibly charming lead, but Bill Murray steals the show as her larger-than-life playboy father. The two have incredible chemistry together, making the silly plot work wonderfully and the more nuanced and emotional scenes have deep power . On Rotten Tomatoes, critics celebrated the movie's warmth and surprising complexity.

On the Rocks

5 'the tragedy of macbeth' (2021), rotten tomatoes score: 92%.

For The Tragedy of Macbeth , Joel Coen of the Coen brothers went solo. He offered audiences a riveting, visually impressive take on the tale of Macbeth by William Shakespeare , one of the greatest tragedies ever told in fiction. With the script sticking very closely to the Bard's impossible-to-improve work, Coen was able to focus on elevating the material visually and aurally like no filmmaker had before.

There have been many adaptations of the classic tale throughout cinema's history, and Coen's is undoubtedly one of the most memorable. Cold, minimalistic, and abstract, the director's execution of the already enthralling material makes it even more impactful , which undeniably makes this one of the best Apple TV+ original movies.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

4 'flora and son' (2023), rotten tomatoes score: 93%.

Touching and musically exquisite, like all of director John Carney 's widely beloved movies, Flora and Son follows a single mom who's at war with her son, and in trying to find him a hobby, finds in an abandoned guitar her family's salvation. Irresistibly enchanting and refreshingly sincere, it's exactly the kind of extraordinary movie one would expect from Carney.

Bound to go down as one of the best musicals in recent years , Flora and Son is a subtle and bittersweet crowd-pleaser like only Carney knows how to do them . It's a moving celebration of creativity full of heart and charm, and as one of the best Apple TV movies, it's reason enough to consider getting the streaming service.

Flora and Son

3 'killers of the flower moon' (2023), rotten tomatoes tomatometer score: 93%.

Four years after his last movie, Martin Scorsese — perhaps the greatest living filmmaker — returned to the scene with Killers of the Flower Moon , one of the best movies on Apple TV. Based on David Grann 's book, the film tells the true story of the mysterious Osage murders of 1920s Oklahoma, showing what led up to them and what happened after the FBI stepped up to unravel the mystery.

With some of the most extraordinary directing of Scorsese's late career, as well as the kind of incredible work that one can always expect from his frequent collaborators (from Leonardo DiCaprio to editor Thelma Schoonmaker ), Killers is a harrowing but fascinating three-and-a-half-hour-long experience led by DiCaprio at the top of his game and Lily Gladstone in the performance of a lifetime, which Rotten Tomatoes critics couldn't get enough of.

Killers of the Flower Moon

2 'coda' (2021), rotten tomatoes score: 94%.

When it comes to empowering stories about people with disabilities , few are as enjoyable and sweet as the Best Picture Oscar-winning CODA , following a young girl in a deaf family who dreams of being a singer. The movie goes above and beyond to make itself stand out among other feel-good comedies of its type, and it certainly succeeds.

The cast has an immense screen presence, and everyone is as funny as they are effective in the scenes that require more pathos . There aren't many surprises or revolutionary elements in this crowd-pleaser, as Rotten Tomatoes critics have said, but it's also hard not to have a good time with such a sweet story.

1 'Wolfwalkers' (2020)

Rotten tomatoes tomatometer score: 99%.

When it comes to Apple original films, it hardly gets any more charming than this. For proof that Cartoon Saloon is one of the most incredible and tragically underrated animation studios of modern times, the Celtic-inspired Wolfwalkers should be enough. Colorful, touching, and gorgeously directed, it's probably the studio's best film.

A rousing tale about friendship, acceptance, and authoritarianism, Wolfwalkers may be aimed at children, but it's an extremely easy film to love no matter one's age . On Rotten Tomatoes, critics were astounded by the movie's layered themes, fantastic world-building, and endearing characters, making it the peak of Apple TV exclusive movies.

Wolfwalkers

NEXT: The Best New Movies on Apple TV

7 Apple TV Plus movies with 85% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes

Don't miss these highly acclaimed movies on Apple TV Plus

On the Rocks movie poster featuring Bill Murray and Rashida Jones

Apple TV is making a big run for the Oscars in 2024 with Ridley Scott’s Napoleon and Martin Scorcese’s Killers of the Flower Moon both generating serious awards season buzz during their limited theatrical runs prior to debuting on the service early next year.

However, these two films aren’t the only critically acclaimed films on Apple TV+ , as the streamer has quietly amassed quite a library of award-winning films. From thoughtful comedies to arthouse dramas, if you’re looking for some prestige cinema, here are the top seven Apple TV Plus movies with 85% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes.

The quiet devastation that trauma can wreak takes center stage in Causeway, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as Lynsey, a soldier who is struggling to adjust to her life back home in New Orleans following a traumatic brain injury. Lynsey is often overwhelmed with feelings of loneliness and isolation, but a chance encounter with mechanic James, played by Brian Tyree Henry, helps her shift her outlook on life and focus on healing.

Though the film is slow to start, Causeway is a powerful film about the unlikely places where connection and healing can be found. Though he lost to Ke Huy Quan for his performance in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, Brian Tyree Henry was nominated for the Academy Award in 2023 for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Causeway.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 85% Watch on Apple TV Plus

Cha Cha Real Smooth

A thoughtful comedy about family, friendship, and the spaces in between, Cha Cha Real Smooth stars writer and director Cooper Raiff as Andrew, a recent college graduate who is unsure of what to do with his life. He starts working as a bar mitzvah party starter, where he meets the enigmatic Domino, and her autistic daughter Lola. The trio becomes very close, but when it is revealed that Domino is engaged, Andrew starts questioning his place within this family, and what his goals as a young adult truly are.

Cha Cha Real Smooth took home the Audience Award (U.S. Dramatic) at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, with many praising Cooper Raiff’s writing, directing and acting in the film, as well as the story’s exploration of the sometimes messy journey to adulthood.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 89% Watch on Apple TV Plus

On the Rocks

Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, On the Rocks is a moody comedy that stars Bill Murray and Rashida Jones as father and daughter Felix and Laura. When Laura becomes convinced that her husband is cheating on her, she teams up with her playboy father to investigate the suspected infidelity, with both hilarious and heartfelt results.

Bill Murray’s multi-layered performance is a highlight of this heartwarming and insightful film and was nominated for several awards, including Best Supporting Actor at the Critics Choice Awards.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been adapted dozens of times over the years, so it's easy to dismiss The Tragedy of Macbeth outright as just another film featuring the eponymous Scottish lord. However, director Joel Coen and stars Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand bring a stylish twist to this iconic story with striking visuals that emphasize both the supernatural elements of the story as well as Macbeth’s internal conflict.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and a Best Actor nod for Denzel Washington.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 92% Watch on Apple TV Plus

Flora and Son

Written and directed by John Carney, and featuring original songs by Carney and Gary Clark (who previously collaborated on Once and Begin Again), Flora and Son is a heartfelt musical film that follows Dublin single mom and bartender Flora (Eve Hewson). Flora struggles to connect with her son Max (Orén Kinlan) and after trying and failing to get her son interested in music, she takes up the guitar herself with the help of American music teacher Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who instructs Flora over Zoom. Over time, love blossoms between the pair and Flora begins to find her voice through music, which leads to a deeper connection with her son as well.

This feel-good, heartwarming story has not been nominated for any major awards yet, but Apple TV Plus has submitted “Meet in the Middle” and “High Life” from this film for consideration in the Best Original Song category at the Oscars.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 93% Watch on Apple TV Plus

CODA, which is an acronym for Child of Deaf Adults, stars Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi, a high school student who is the only hearing member of her deaf family. Ruby is a talented vocalist but struggles to follow her passion as her parents and older brother rely on her to help them run their fishing business as their interpreter.

CODA’s powerful story and realistic portrayal of the deaf community helped it win several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, In addition, Troy Kotsur won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, becoming the first male deaf actor to do so.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94% Watch on Apple TV Plus

Wolfwalkers

The third and final installment in director Tomm Moore’s animated "Irish Folklore Trilogy", Wolfwalkers sees Moore reunite with The Secret of Kells co-director Ross Stewart to create a hand-drawn masterpiece that follows the story of Robyn Goodfellowe, a young Irish hunter-in-training who is tasked with helping her father wipe out the last wolf pack in Kilkenny, Ireland.

While exploring the forbidden lands outside the city walls, Robyn befriends Mebh, who is part of a tribe rumored to have the ability to turn into wolves by night, putting them in direct conflict with Robyn’s mission and forcing her to reevaluate what is really important.

The film has been universally lauded for its distinct art style, which resembles medieval tapestries and Celtic art as well as its meaningful story. The film is one of a very select few to hold a near-perfect Tomatometer score and was nominated for several awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 99% Watch on Apple TV Plus

Get the BEST of Tom’s Guide daily right in your inbox: Sign up now!

Upgrade your life with the Tom’s Guide newsletter. Subscribe now for a daily dose of the biggest tech news, lifestyle hacks and hottest deals. Elevate your everyday with our curated analysis and be the first to know about cutting-edge gadgets.

Amanda Kondolojy is an entertainment journalist based in Florida with over 15 years of experience covering film, TV, theme parks and more. When not in front of a screen you can find her reading something at the beach (usually by Neil Gaiman, Grady Hendrix or Brandon Sanderson) or dancing around the kitchen to her favorite showtunes.

Move over 'True Detective' — 'Sugar' looks like the detective show of the year in first trailer

I'm worried 'Masters of the Air' might crash and burn before it sticks the landing — here's why

PS5 Pro could blow away Xbox on GTA 6 performance

Annette Bening Mystery ‘Apples Never Fall’ Is a Propulsive Beach Read You Can Binge: TV Review

By Alison Herman

Alison Herman

Max Misfire ‘The Girls on the Bus’ Tries and Fails to Make Politics Fun Again: TV Review 6 days ago
Annette Bening Mystery ‘Apples Never Fall’ Is a Propulsive Beach Read You Can Binge: TV Review 6 days ago
The 96th Oscars Were More Than Kenough to Celebrate a Banner Year in Moviemaking: TV Review 1 week ago

APPLES NEVER FALL -- "The Delaneys" Episode 101 -- Pictured: Annette Bening as Joy -- (Photo by: Jasin Boland/PEACOCK)

Thankfully, the Peacock series “ Apples Never Fall ” brings this cold streak to an end. With a less glitzy cast and a platform with a far narrower reach than HBO, its release is unlikely to equal the impact of “Big Little Lies.” Yet more than any Moriarty series since, “Apples Never Fall” captures the potential of a beach read you can binge. The scenic setting and propulsive pace are effective cues to turn off one’s brain, but the emotional foundation is solid enough for its central family to resonate as real people, however soapy their struggles may seem.

These tensions could make for a grounded family drama, but they’re heightened by a series of sensational twists. Joy’s unexplained absence splits the action into two timelines, helpfully labeled “Now” and “Then.” In the present, Stan’s history of emotional neglect makes him not just a subpar husband, but a potential suspect. And in the past, Joy and Stan take in a woman named Savannah (Georgia Flood) who claims to be fleeing an abusive relationship. While Joy takes a shine to Savannah, her presence attracts the suspicion of the other Delaneys — and eventually, the detectives tasked with finding out where Joy has gone.

Working with directors Chris Sweeney and Dawn Shadforth, showrunner Melanie Marnich deftly weaves these threads together. Last year, the dark comedy “Bad Sisters” used a similar structure and sometimes strained to balance characters’ knowledge of what’s already happened with gradually revealing those events to the audience. Over a more condensed, seven-episode run, “Apples Never Fall” feels less effortful as it toggles between these two phases of the Delaneys’ lives. Overcomplicated chronology is now a cliché of modern TV storytelling, but a good potboiler knows how to put a cliché to good use.

After the premiere, each episode of “Apples Never Fall” is named for and devoted to a different member of the Delaney clan. The show is not particularly specific about the sport of tennis, but both the individual Delaneys and the dynamics between them quickly come into focus. As the older kids, Troy and Amy remember their father as an aggrieved and angry man. His dream ended by an ACL injury, Stan used to abandon Joy and the kids for days at a time until the academy gave him a new identity as a coach and community leader. Where Brooke and Logan idealize their dad, their siblings reflexively side with their mom. Troy, in particular, harbors resentment over Stan’s mentorship of Harry Haddad (Giles Matthey), a prodigy turned Grand Slam winner who abruptly fired Stan as a teen. Stan blames his eldest, a peer of Harry’s who chafed at his father’s favoritism toward an outsider. Having spoken openly about his diagnosis with advanced blood cancer, currently in remission, Neill gives depth to a man looking back on his life with regret, even if Stan doesn’t process or express it in the healthiest ways.

Like most Moriarty yarns, “Apples Never Fall” resolves with a twist. The answer to the driving question of where Joy has gone ultimately doesn’t live up to the season that precedes it, ending the show on an abrupt and anticlimactic note. But the series never feels like it hinges on its conclusion or holds back useful context for the sake of a reveal, as many puzzle boxes do. Even if the destination is something of a letdown, the trip through Florida country clubs and one family’s buried secrets is scenic, engaging and speedy enough to be worth the ride.

All seven episodes of “Apples Never Fall” are now available to stream on Peacock.

More From Our Brands

Olivia rodrigo will spill more ‘guts’ on new deluxe edition, an aspiring race car driver lists her peaceful beverly hills retreat for $30 million, carlyle group out as t-wolves purchase deadline nears, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, new amsterdam sequel series about max’s daughter in the works at nbc, verify it's you, please log in.

Tickets & Showtimes
Trending on RT

TV & Streaming Shows
100 Years, 100 Movies
Best & Popular

Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked – New Scary Movies to Watch

Welcome to the best horror movies of 2024, ranking every dark and dreary delight coming out this year by Tomatometer! We start the list with Certified Fresh films (these movies have maintained a high Tomatometer score after enough critics reviews), followed by the pulp-pounding Fresh movies (these are rated at least 60%), and then concluding with the morbidly Rotten.

March additions: Larry Fessenden’s back with his werewolf-take Blackout . Night Shift . Imaginary (see Blumhouse horror productions ranked ). Indian Hindi-language Shaitaan. Late Night with the Devil .

In February , terror reared its head in the stop-motion animation medium (don’t forget about Phil Tippett’s Mad God in 2021) with the literal titled Stopmotion .

In 2023 , horror kicked off in a big way with M3GAN . There wasn’t a breakout hit in January 2024, with the major genre releases being the COVID-shot Paleolithic thriller Out of Darkness , and the Diablo Cody-penned Lisa Frankenstein , set in the same world as her cult comedy Jennifer’s Body .

New horror movies for 2024 on the horizon include They Follow (sequel to It Follows , with Maika Monroe and writer/director David Robert Mitchell returning), MaXXXine (Ti West’s closing his trilogy after X and Pearl ), Terrifier 3 (Art the Clown expands his spree into Christmas ), Nosferatu (from director Robert Eggers), Alien: Romulus (due in August), A Quiet Place: Day One (June), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (September), Return to Silent Hill (original director Christophe Gans returns as well), The Conjuring: Last Rites (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their Warren roles).

Late Night with the Devil (2023) 100%

Stopmotion (2023) 88%

Out of Darkness (2022) 85%

T-Blockers (2023) 100%

Double Blind (2023) 100%

Summoners (2022) 100%

Midnight Peepshow (2022) 100%

Somewhere Quiet (2023) 91%

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) 90%

Lovely, Dark, and Deep (2023) 89%

Here for Blood (2022) 88%

Blackout (2023) 79%

Cuckoo (2024) 79%

Immaculate (2024) 73%

Departing Seniors (2023) 61%

The Seeding (2023) 55%

Lisa Frankenstein (2024) 51%

Founders Day (2023) 47%

Shaitaan (2024) 46%

The Prank (2022) 38%

Amelia's Children (2023) 36%

Night Shift (2023) 29%

Imaginary (2024) 25%

Night Swim (2024) 22%

Camp Pleasant Lake (2024) 13%

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

Star Wars: The Acolyte : Premiere Date, Trailer, Cast & More

March 19, 2024

Ghostbusters Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

How to Watch Ghostbusters Movies In Order

The Most Anticipated Movies of 2024

Top Headlines

Ghostbusters Movies Ranked by Tomatometer –
How to Watch Ghostbusters Movies In Order –
25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming –
Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now –
100 Best Dog Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer –
All A24 Movies Ranked by Tomatometer –

Screen Rant

Apples never fall's rotten tomatoes score continues sam neill's disappointing tv trend.

Sam Neill's recent TV series, Apples Never Fall, has continued a disappointing streak in his career, which has lasted since his Peaky Blinders role.

Sam Neill's TV career has seen a recent slump with disappointing Rotten Tomatoes scores on his latest series.
Despite his talent and longevity in the industry, Neill has struggled to find success in recent television projects.
While Neill's movie roles continue to be box office hits, his recent TV ventures have fallen short of critical acclaim.

Sam Neill's recent Peacock series, Apples Never Fall , has debuted with a 38% Rotten Tomatoes score, continuing a disappointing trend in the actor's TV career. Sam Neill has been one of the most coveted acting talents since the 1970s, appearing in cult classics like Possession and In the Mouth of Madness , as well as starring in the cinematic phenomenon Jurassic Park . At 76, the New Zealand actor is still putting in great performances, appearing in a variety of film and television roles.

The miniseries Apples Never Fall is Sam Neill's latest venture, and at first glance, it seems like a very promising project. The show is based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, who also wrote the books Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers , which have had successful television adaptations. The Apples Never Fall cast also includes Annette Bening, Alison Brie, and The White Lotus's Jake Lacy. Unfortunately, the adaptation didn't come together, ending up with sub-par reviews on multiple sites.

Apples Never Fall's Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Disappointing For Sam Neill's TV Career

Like many other movie stars, Sam Neill has pivoted primarily to TV roles in the 21st century, with fantastic roles in period dramas like The Tudors and Peaky Blinders . However, his past two shows, The Twelve and Invasion , both received negative scores on Rotten Tomatoes. Since his role in Peaky Blinders ended in 2014, Neill has only had one critically acclaimed TV series, the BBC miniseries adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None .

Apples Never Fall Ending Explained: What Happened To Joy Delaney?

Despite being a recognizable and celebrated film actor with numerous memorable performances, Sam Neill hasn't found much success on television in recent years . Although his performances have been consistently enjoyable, he's found himself on mediocre shows. On the other hand, his movie roles have seen him in box office hits like Peter Rabbit , Thor: Ragnarok , and Jurassic World Dominion .

Sam Neill's TV Shows Haven't Gotten A Fresh Rotten Tomatoes Score Since Peaky Blinders

Inspector Campbell was far from the most likable member of the Peaky Blinders character ensemble , but he was constantly entertaining and made for an essential piece in the show's early seasons. Sam Neill played a fantastic, complex villain in the period crime drama, contributing to the immensely talented cast that earned the series an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. After four decades of performances, Peaky Blinders is one of Neill's most memorable.

Apples Never Fall can be watched on Peacock, while all six seasons of Peaky Blinders can be seen on Netflix.

Given how recently Peaky Blinders ended, Sam Neill's stint doesn't seem that long ago. It's actually been ten years since his role in the series ended, and Neill has struggled to find promising television roles since. It's not that Sam Neill has anything to prove at this point in his career, but he has such a beloved screen presence that it'd be wonderful to see him in more successful projects . For now, Apples Never Fall will have to do.

Apples Never Fall

Based on the novel by Liane Moriarty (author of Big Little Lies), Apples Never Fall is a mystery-drama series created by Melanie Marnich for Peacock in 2024. The Delaney family seemingly has it all from an outsider's perspective. Still, when Stan and Joy sell their sports academy to spend more time with their older children, their plans are disrupted when a young woman arrives at their door, leading to Joy's disappearance soon after.

Cast & crew
User reviews

Arthur the King

An adventure racer adopts a stray dog named Arthur to join him in an epic endurance race. An adventure racer adopts a stray dog named Arthur to join him in an epic endurance race. An adventure racer adopts a stray dog named Arthur to join him in an epic endurance race.

Simon Cellan Jones
Michael Brandt
Mikael Lindnord
Mark Wahlberg
Juliet Rylance
24 User reviews
35 Critic reviews
54 Metascore

Bear Grylls

Studio Photographer
Photo Studio Personal Assistant

Broadrail Executive
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

Trivia Mark Wahlberg tore his knee on the first day of shooting and implemented the pain of his injury into his performance.
Soundtracks Bailando Written and composed by José Miguel Ortegon (Sr Ortegon) Produced and performed by José Miguel Ortegon (Sr Ortegon)

User reviews 24

Mar 17, 2024
How long is Arthur the King? Powered by Alexa
March 15, 2024 (United States)
United States
Official Site
Lionsgate Films
Tucker Tooley Entertainment
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 30 minutes

rotten apples movie reviews

IMAGES

VIDEO

COMMENTS

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

What to know

You might also like

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

How did you buy your ticket?

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for Apples

Movie & TV guides

Movie Reviews

Review: Memory and identity vanish in soothing Greek existential drama ‘Apples’

Greek film ‘Apples’ explores the role of memory in human existence

More to Read

Review: ‘Io Capitano’ captures the harrowing plight of African migrants in all its extremity

Chilean doc Eternal Memory reminds true love endures even after recollections fade

Review: ‘Tótem,’ a haunting drama about a family at a turning point, will stay with you forever

More From the Los Angeles Times

Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend sues actor alleging defamation, battery a year after his arrest

‘Stormy’ filmmakers say they wanted to show how the justice system failed Daniels

Taylor Swift’s L.A. fans made SoFi concerts shake, shake, shake, Caltech-UCLA study says

‘Kung Fu Panda 4,’ ‘Dune: Part Two’ continue atop box office as ‘Arthur the King’ lags

Rotten Apples

As featured in

Apples review – splendidly poignant and creepy pandemic drama

More on this story

Feminist drama Poor Things wins Golden Lion at Venice film festival

Auteurs and workers’ rights spotlit at a less starry Venice film festival

‘Very difficult to watch’: Priscilla Presley on new film about her life with Elvis

Makeup artist who created prosthetic nose for Bradley Cooper film apologises

Venice film festival: T-shirts replace red carpet glitz as striking stars lie low

Comandante review – fun, if you ignore the voice in your head telling you it’s wrong

‘We knew we would face insults’: Venice film festival’s Alberto Barbera on including Polanski and Allen

20 greatest Venice film festival Golden Lion winners – ranked!

Sex and the smackdown: the crazy world of wrestling cult comic Andy Kaufman

Venice film festival 2023: our critic’s picks of 10 to watch

Apples review: Accidental COVID allegory is Lanthimos Lite

Editors' Recommendations

Movie Reviews

Cristina Escobar

Now playing

Drive-Away Dolls

Peter Sobczynski

Knox Goes Away

Simon Abrams

Land of Bad

Brian Tallerico

Apples Never Fall (2024)

Latest blog posts

SXSW 2024: Songs from the Hole, The Black Sea, Adrianne & The Castle

SXSW 2024: Sing Sing, Bob Trevino Likes It, Hood Witch

Netflix Dutifully Unpacks Memorable Cases in Overdone Homicide: New York

Becoming Other: Another Look at Under the Skin

‘Apples Never Fall’ Review: A Drama Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Formula

Explore More in TV and Movies

Rotten Tomatoes Ratings — How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work?

How Does Rotten Tomatoes Work?

What do the Rotten Tomatoes symbols mean? Read on

Tomatometer Breakdown

Related Posts

How Does Rotten Tomatoes Rate Their Movies

What is the Tomatometer?

Audience Score Breakdown

What does Rotten Tomatoes mean for movies

What is a Cliche? Learn from Examples

Up Next: Cliche explained →

Apples Never Fall Is Rotten to the Core

More Must-Reads From TIME

You May Also Like

The 15 Best Apple TV+ Original Movies, Ranked According to Rotten Tomatoes

15 'Palmer' (2021)

14 'Finch' (2021)

13 'Greyhound' (2020)

12 'The Banker' (2020)

11 'Swan Song' (2021)

10 'Tetris' (2023)

9 'Causeway' (2022)

8 'Cha Cha Real Smooth' (2022)