christian movie reviews the whale

"Homosexual Teacher Suffers from Morbid Obesity"

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Food binging scenes are intentionally intense and shot almost like a horror movie.

More Detail:

THE WHALE is a new movie from director Darren Aronofsky that explores faith, the body, depression, despair and more.

Charlie, played by Brendan Fraser, is an online college professor. However, none of his students have seen him, as Charlie keeps his camera off due to his severe obesity. Although Charlie is ashamed to show himself on camera, he also is stuck in his addiction to binge-eating and other self-harm activities involving food.

The viewers learn that his partner, Alan, died. In his grief, Charlie turns to eating. In the process, he loses touch with his rebellious daughter who’s on the verge of being kicked out of school. In the midst of his depression, Charlie desperately tries to reconnect with his daughter, but his weight and horrible health make it difficult even to leave his couch.

Charlie is visited by an evangelical missionary who wants to help Charlie’s soul, but due to his homosexuality and past with religion, that too alienates Charlie from the rest of the world. However, through compassion and self-love, could Charlie have a second chance?

THE WHALE was written by Samuel D. Hunter who wrote the original stage play from 2012. The movie and the stage play have some distinct differences like the missionary being changed from Mormon to evangelical for the movie, as well as the setting.

In an interview with Hunter, the writer revealed that the story reflects much of his upbringing, where he cites his trauma from fundamentalist Christian religion and being a homosexual man that was overweight. For this reason, the Christian imagery is seen as alienating for the main character, Charlie.

While the movie preaches compassion, some of the cinematography and music could be seen as manipulative. In one food binge scene, it’s shot almost like a horror movie. This doesn’t align with the movie’s point about showing compassion toward severely obese people.

THE WHALE is an adaptation of a 2012 stage-play by the same name. While at its core is a message of love, primarily self-love, the movie’s marred by excessive foul language, graphic dialogue about sex and violence, and disturbing images of vomiting and self-harm involving food. Movieguide® advises strong caution for all audiences.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Compassionate, mature look at living with severe obesity.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Thoughtful dialogue and discussions around love, l

Charlie is a smart, positive-thinking man who does

Movie approaches Charlie's experiences with obesit

Dialogue describing a horrible death (a bloated bo

A character masturbates, with his hand underneath

Language includes "f--k," "bulls--t," "s--t," "a--

Various snack foods and sodas on display: Pepsi, 3

Teen vaping and smoking pot. A main character smok

Parents need to know that The Whale is a drama about a man (Brendan Fraser) who's living with severe obesity and trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Sadie Sink). Directed by Darren Aronofsky, it's a compassionate movie with mature, complex themes. Violence is described in dialogue, and there's…

Positive Messages

Thoughtful dialogue and discussions around love, literature, truth, and faith. Movie is also about dangers of pre-judging people. Promotes compassion.

Positive Role Models

Charlie is a smart, positive-thinking man who does everything he can to support his daughter, but he also has some major weaknesses. He lies to his students and keeps a big secret from his best friend, one that ends up hurting her. And he's forever apologizing for things, revealing a lack of confidence. In one sequence, after hearing bad news, he binge-eats and vomits. Liz, a nurse and Charlie's best friend, is selfless in her devotion to him, though she's often frustrated by him and sometimes even teases him. Some characters say cruel things about someone being overweight.

Diverse Representations

Movie approaches Charlie's experiences with obesity from a sympathetic place. He's also gay and mourning the loss of his true love. But the movie frames fatness -- and queerness -- as something shocking that needs to be "humanized" in the first place. Another major character is a strong, complex Asian woman (Vietnamese actor Hong Chau). Charlie's daughter, Ellie, is very smart, although she's also quite difficult and likes to make trouble; her mother is also a smart, three-dimensional woman. A South Asian supporting character shows kindness to Charlie. The only other character is Thomas, a White male missionary. Cruel language about a person being fat is heard.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Dialogue describing a horrible death (a bloated body washes up on shore, etc.). Main character frequently in pain. Main character chokes on food. Binge-eating and vomiting. Violent dialogue about death, stabbing, rape, etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A character masturbates, with his hand underneath sweatpants. A pornographic video plays on a laptop, with one person kissing and thrusting behind another. (No graphic nudity shown.) Charlie is shown shirtless in the shower. Strong sex-related dialogue.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language includes "f--k," "bulls--t," "s--t," "a--hole," "f--got," "retarded," "goddamn," "bitch," "hell," "idiot," "shut up," "stupid," "penis," "oh my God." "Jesus" and "oh Christ" as exclamations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Various snack foods and sodas on display: Pepsi, 3 Musketeers chocolate bar, Dr. Pepper, etc. Mentions of Walmart.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Teen vaping and smoking pot. A main character smokes cigarettes regularly. Dialogue about teen smoking too much pot. Character drugged with Ambien. Dialogue about someone who drinks frequently. Dialogue about college students drinking alcohol.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Whale is a drama about a man ( Brendan Fraser ) who's living with severe obesity and trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter ( Sadie Sink ). Directed by Darren Aronofsky , it's a compassionate movie with mature, complex themes. Violence is described in dialogue, and there's some unsettling imagery of things like binge-eating, vomiting, choking, etc. A man is shown masturbating (his hand is down his pants) and watching a pornographic video (one person kisses and thrusts behind another). The main character is also seen shirtless in the shower, and there's some strong sex-related dialogue. Language includes several uses of "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," and more. Teens smoke pot and vape, a character is drugged with Ambien, and there's dialogue about smoking too much pot and drinking too much alcohol. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (6)
• Kids say (6)

Based on 6 parent reviews

Not worth it. Don’t understand why it’s getting awards

“the truth will set you free “, what's the story.

In THE WHALE, Charlie ( Brendan Fraser ) teaches English classes online while living with severe obesity. He pretends that his laptop camera is broken so that his students can't see him. He never leaves his apartment, ordering all of his food delivered and getting occasional visits and care from his friend Liz ( Hong Chau ), a nurse. When Charlie learns that his blood pressure is potentially lethally high, he refuses to go to the hospital, instead devoting his energy to reconnecting with his brilliant, estranged, and deeply troubled teen daughter, Ellie ( Sadie Sink ). Meanwhile, a young missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), happens upon Charlie and decides that he wants to help save his soul.

Is It Any Good?

Like Darren Aronofsky 's other movies, this dark drama doesn't shy away from the realities of its main character's situation, but what lingers are its deep wells of compassion. The Whale launches with Charlie's masturbation being interrupted by crippling chest pains. This initially casts him in a pathetic light, but as the story progresses over the course of a week, viewers begin to see who Charlie really is: loving, intelligent, sensitive, and an undying optimist.

Fraser's work is unfailingly powerful, Charlie's bright eyes consistently gleaming with hope. Playing opposite him, Chau is equally brilliant. The screenplay by Samuel D. Hunter, adapted from his own play, is filled with discussions about love, literature, truth, and faith (Aronofsky has grappled with themes of faith in much of his work, especially Noah and Mother! ). Aronofsky's direction is skilled but not showy, closer to The Wrestler than his other movies and focused mainly on character and performance. The movie flows beautifully, even if it sometimes feels a little stage-bound and cutesy. (For a recluse, Charlie is never without someone to talk to.) Overall, it's a movie that twists preconceptions.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Whale 's depiction of body image . How do you think the filmmakers intend you to see Charlie? What message is the movie saying about judging others?

Why is it so important to Charlie for people to "write the truth"?

Did you notice positive diverse representations in the film? Are stereotypes used, or avoided?

How are drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol depicted? Are they glamorized? Are there consequences? Why is that important?

How does the movie promote compassion ? Why is that an important character strength?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 9, 2022
• Cast : Brendan Fraser , Hong Chau , Sadie Sink
• Director : Darren Aronofsky
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Asian actors
• Studio : A24
• Genre : Drama
• Character Strengths : Compassion
• Run time : 117 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language, some drug use and sexual content
• Award : Academy Award
• Last updated : September 9, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘The Whale’: Movie Review

by Michael Parnell | Jan 13, 2023 | Opinion

(Credit: A24 Press Photo / https://tinyurl.com/5xtbrkx7)

Studio A24 is known for making offbeat, even weird movies. So is director Darren Aronofsky. They paired up in the making of “The Whale,” but the film they have produced is not offbeat or weird.

“The Whale” begins with an online college English class. The center space in the digital meeting platform is blacked out. This is the space where the instructor, Charlie (Brendan Fraser), should appear.

In the chat, a student asks why the instructor never appears. Charlie responds that the camera on his computer is broken.

However, the true reason is that Charlie is a morbidly obese person who weighs close to 600 pounds. He is homebound, unable to walk without a walker and dependent upon his friend, Liz (Hong Chau) to care for him and do his shopping.

Charlie has congestive heart failure. The state he finds himself in is something he readily admits is of his own doing.

We watch him go through the days of the story wanting one thing: to reconnect with his daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink).

When Ellie was eight, Charlie left his wife Mary (Samantha Morton). He did so because he realized he was gay.

A character of the story we do not see on the screen is Alan, Charlie’s now-deceased partner. Why Alan is dead and how it connects to another character of the story is what caught my interest.

Thomas (Ty Simpkins) is a missionary from New Life Church. He comes into Charlie’s life at the beginning of the movie as he “cold calls” Charlie to talk to him about salvation.

New Life Church’s pastor is father to both Alan and Liz. Liz was adopted, and she hates her father and the church.

Alan was once a missionary for the church, but he left when he fell in love with Charlie. The fact that Alan is dead can be traced to his upbringing and the guilt he felt over leaving the church.

In one scene, Thomas comes to Charlie with tracts that he wants Charlie to read. Charlie says he has read everything that New Life published. He also tells Thomas he has read the Bible through twice, and he thinks the story of the Bible is not for him because he sees God as not being loving.

Liz makes it clear to Thomas that she wants him to leave Charlie alone who she says is not a candidate for salvation.

All the while, Charlie shows his belief that every person is amazing in his/her own way.

Ellie seems hostile, and her mother thinks she is literally demonic. Yet, Charlie thinks she is wonderful and needs to be acceptable as she is.

Brendan Fraser is outstanding in this role. His transformation into being a person of such girth, with all the physical restraints presented in the character, was a wonder to see. He wrings out every ounce of sympathy for his character.

My takeaway from this story is that our version of faith and salvation does not fit every person.

There was a time when I was an extremely large person, weighting well over 300 pounds. One of the great lies I knew was, “One size fits all.” Even saying, “one size fits most” does not help.

The way that Christianity is presented to Charlie and his experience of it is toxic. All he saw of it was the dark side, where everyone is sure of their view and their view was presented as normative for every person.

This fits into the “He Gets Us” ad campaign currently being presented on U.S. television. Jesus is said to get us. Jesus knew wrongful judgement that was directed at him from religious authorities.

Charlie and the Charlies that are in our world need to hear that message.

Thomas wants Charlie to be his “get.” He wants to get Charlie saved. But the “bait” that Thomas uses will not attract Charlie.

Thomas may be a fisher of people, but good fishermen will tell you that you need to change your bait from time to time.

MPPA Rating: For language, some drug use and sexual content. 

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writer: Samuel D. Hunter (based on his play)

Cast: Brendan Fraser as Charlie; Sadie Sink as Ellie; Hong Chau ad Liz; Ty Simpkins as Thomas; Samantha Morton as Mary.

The movie’s website is here .

Pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is married and has two boys. His love is for movies, and he can be found in a theater most Fridays.

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The Whale screenwriter on writing about religious fundamentalism, bodies, and hope

Samuel D. Hunter goes deeper with his vulnerable, personal play.

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Have you ever been watching a movie and suddenly feel a jolt of recognition so acute that you know you and the writer have something in common? That’s what I felt watching The Whale , which Samuel D. Hunter adapted from his 2012 play. The film (directed by Darren Aronofsky) centers on Charlie (Brendan Fraser), who is in the last week of his life after refusing treatment for congenital heart failure. An eating disorder developed after intense trauma has left him houseridden, but his doorstep is active nonetheless. First a young missionary from the evangelical church down the road shows up; then his best friend; then his estranged daughter. Meanwhile, it rains and rains and rains.

Fraser has deservedly received accolades for his performance, but I spent the whole film with a racing mind because it powerfully embodied a link between the body and religious fundamentalism that I, and many others, have personally experienced. I knew it wasn’t by accident, and I wanted to talk to Hunter about it.

Hunter grew up in a more liberal Episcopalian family in Moscow, Idaho, but as a teenager he attended a fundamentalist Christian high school. It was there that he was eventually outed as a gay man. The Whale is in part drawn from his experience of self-medicating his depression. He has frequently written plays at the intersection of religion and American life (a rich vein of inquiry in theater these days), mining the topics with a complexity that’s hard to recognize, and maybe even appreciate, if you haven’t lived it yourself.

Hunter is a working playwright (his latest play, A Case for the Existence of God , was produced this year ), so we met in midtown Manhattan to talk about all kinds of things: fundamentalism, bodies, religion in film and TV, the differences between how obesity has been depicted in film and theater, the challenges of adaptation, and a lot more. What follows is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.

Some things really shifted between the play, which was produced a decade ago, and the movie, right? For instance, the young missionary in the play became an evangelical; in the play, he was a Mormon missionary.

When I first started writing the play, I had only recently started writing plays with gay characters in them. Even though I had been out since I was 17, I think I was still struggling with that part of my self-love. There was a lot of residual energy from my experience at my fundamentalist Christian high school, and still a very active fear of hell in my life.

So when I decided I was going to write this play, initially I thought, “Okay, I’m going to put these more personal things on the line.” Obviously, it’s autofiction. It’s not directly autobiographical. But the core thing is that I self-medicated with food for many, many years after being outed.

I think one of the reasons that I made that character a Mormon was in an act of self-protection or distancing, because when I was 27 or 28 and first writing the play, I wanted to believe that I was more emotionally evolved than I was at the time — like many people who are 27. I kept telling myself, “I’m over it. I’m over it. I’m over it. That was years ago. I’m fine. I’m fine.” But I hadn’t really properly unpacked it in therapy and I was still dealing with a lot of self-loathing.

Making the character Mormon allowed me to write about religion, but in a way that didn’t feel too close to home. I had lost a bunch of weight in my early and mid-20s, but after the play was produced, I lost another 70 pounds over the course of three months. I hesitate to even bring that up because talking about numbers — everybody’s body is their own. I’m really just talking about my own body.

I have my own history with religious fundamentalism and the way food issues can come along with them. That really hit me hard watching the movie. Those two things can be tied up so tightly. Especially if you have a body that isn’t a straight male body.

Yeah, exactly.

Everything about you is always wrong.

I’ve really had to come to terms with how I felt like so much of an outsider. This was partially self-imposed but also real, that I felt isolated from the gay community as a 19-year-old in New York City, because I was a big guy. So I was like, “Oh, I guess I don’t belong here either.”

So even though writing the play felt really vulnerable and open at the time, I think having a second crack at it with the screenplay allowed me to go even further.

There was an article in the New York Times Magazine recently about how eating disorder patients who aren’t visibly emaciated have a really hard time getting insurance to cover treatment and have difficulty getting admitted to treatment facilities. The main subject of the article comes from a very fundamentalist religious background, and when I saw that, I was like, “Yeah, of course.”

We are living in a world where we’ve pretended disorders correlate to body size, but they don’t. You can be fat and have a disorder, or not; you can be thin and have a disorder, or not.

I was 21 years old and I was rapidly gaining weight and I was very depressed and I was not getting treatment in any way. I had the love of my parents; shortly after that, I met my husband, in 2005. I had these things in my life that allowed me to teach myself to not believe that I was a terrible person worthy of suffering, which is something I still struggle with. But I also knew I was lucky in a lot of ways. My parents aren’t fundamentalist Christians, they were just Episcopalians who saw that this education in this religious school was a really good education, which it was.

When I watched The Whale , I immediately interpreted it as being about a man who has developed a disorder as a coping mechanism, intertwined with some religious trauma, and it’s causing his body to shut down. But his relationship with the eating disorder has proven to be a tricky thing for people to navigate, I think, in watching the movie. I’m wondering how you think about that, and how much it was on your mind when writing the screenplay.

It’s so tough. When I write, I don’t sit down to be like, “Okay, what’s the thesis statement about this character?” I struggle with theater and film that arrives at a thesis statement because I’m just like, if it was that reducible, then I don’t know why I needed to watch a character drawing which, by its very nature, does not have one perspective and is about a confluence of perspectives and experiences.

It seems like the actual way we perceive Charlie, the way we’re asked to look at him, has been an issue for some audiences. How much of that do you think is a result of shifting from a stage to a screen? And did you think about it?

There are so many layers to this. Theater by its nature is a little more artificial and suggestive of reality, whereas film — at least a film like this — strives for something more “real.” But I struggle with that because film arguably is way less real than theater. My plays don’t have scores or visual effects. My plays are people in a room talking to each other.

Film allows an intimacy with the character — a physical intimacy — that I really understand is making people nervous. But also, the history of theater has a less fraught relationship with obesity than the history of cinema does. And so the moment that somebody hears a movie is employing makeup and effects in order to create the reality of this character, there’s an entire catalog of incredibly abusive filmmaking that comes to the surface. I was very aware of that when I wrote the script.

But at the end of the day, I had to have faith that what I was doing with this was the diametric opposite of the way that obesity has traditionally been treated in film, which is to make them tertiary characters who are the butt of the joke, who are rendered as dullards and as lazy. And I was like, “Look, I’ve fundamentally written a guy who is incredibly vibrant, incredibly joyful, and is loving and deeply intelligent.” I have not seen that rendered in cinema — I just haven’t. I had to have the faith of my own convictions at the end of the day, while recognizing that everybody’s reaction to this is a valid reaction.

Yet it is true that most people watch a movie and think they’re supposed to make a judgment about the characters, right?

Yes. I also wonder if that is a modern concept. I don’t know if we watch Shakespeare looking for our moral center. I don’t even know if we watch O’Neill or Williams looking for our moral center. But if something was written in the last 20 years, I think that’s the No. 1 question on people’s mind. I’ve just never been interested as a writer in creating a moral center for anything, or dictating people’s morality or ethics. All I could do when I decided to write this play was just write it deeply from the inside and imbue as much of myself into it as humanly possible.

Beyond that, I have very little control over how it’s received. I think the play and the film are just kind of an invitation. I just open a door and invite you to walk inside. It’s up to you whether or not you want to meet that invitation with a furrowed brow or not. And if you do, that’s fine. Everybody’s experience with this movie is valid.

Charlie has a disease, congestive heart failure, that he is actively refusing to get treatment for, which is, I think, the key thing here. Yes, that is a result of life choices that he’s made, but that’s the fundamental thing: He said, “I’m not going to the hospital for this.” The ultimate self-destruction is in saying, “I’m refusing to get treatment and I’m going to let this run its course.” It’s not just that he’s a guy who got too big or something. It’s way more layered than that.

You also shifted the time period.

I did. Leaving it set in 2009, or whatever it was, felt a little bit like, “Why are we consciously dating this 13 years ago?” So then the question became, “When do we want to set it?” We arrived at the idea of setting it during the 2016 presidential primaries in Idaho. We wanted to set it before Covid so it would make sense that nobody was wearing a mask.

But on a deeper level, I really loved how it makes it feel like we’re on the cliff’s edge of this seismic change, and here comes this kid being like, “The world’s going to end soon.” It feels apocalyptic, and it also zooms the play out of this two-bedroom apartment and reminds you that there’s this whole world outside that is like Charlie on the precipice of oblivion.

Of course, you hear the phrase “the whale” and you think Moby Dick. You think Jonah. But then the fact that it’s raining all the time outside means you’re thinking of Noah as well. All of those stories are apocalyptic in nature.

I’ve always thought that my plays use the lens of realism, but I think they also definitely hover above the surface of realism. They’re definitely not naturalism.

I wrote a play right after The Whale called A Bright New Boise , which is very much, in my mind at least, a companion piece to The Whale . It’s about a father trying to reconnect with his son; the setup is there’s this guy who was involved in an evangelical church in north Idaho, and years ago had put up a kid for adoption and is now working at a Hobby Lobby in Boise where his son works, to try to build a bridge with his son.

But his problem is he can’t let go of the dogma. And so the on-the-ground relationship with his son is fundamentally in conflict with this constant voice inside. At the cost of every relationship in his life, he slides back into the dogma in a deeply tragic moment.

You can play it as a sermon on the mount, kind of like hellfire and brimstone. But I think he doesn’t want to say any of it. It’s incredibly painful for him to say it because it alienates everybody around him — but without it, his life doesn’t mean anything.

It’s hard to explain that fear of coming unmoored to someone who didn’t grow up with it. I grew up in a much more fundamentalist community than my husband — he went to youth group, whereas I would hear sometimes that Focus on the Family was too liberal. It’s hard to unlearn what you learn in those spaces. The voices stick around.

The way that I understand Christ is as a person who enmeshed within the community, and was a pastoral presence to people in all walks of life, and was all about grace and forgiveness and empathy and the love of God and the defeat of tyranny and single-mindedness and myopia. Churches that I really respect and think are doing such good work are doing the same thing. They’re like, “We’re going to build a house in a community that is open to all. It is a place where you can come and receive grace and forgiveness and love and support. We’re going to do Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, we’re going to host community nights. We’re going to be a pastoral force within the community.”

But somebody like the pastor whose community I’d been involved with [through the high school], his theology is like, “No, I build a wall between me and the outside world. And then every so often, I go into the world with blinders on and I grab some people and I coax them behind the wall with me. That is the only way to do it.”

How do you show that kind of thinking, that sort of experience with that sort of figure, on a stage?

I wrote this play once called A Great Wilderness , for Seattle Repertory Theatre. It was about a gay conversion therapist. Every character in the play was a fundamentalist Christian, and so there was not that requisite moment where he gets taken down; it really was just a portrait of this deep tragedy of this man’s life as he’s sliding into dementia at age 70. And people got really angry because the play didn’t have that life preserver for the audience, where the character learns their lesson. But I wrote it that way because the people that I was associated with [in high school], they’re never going to get that moment. If anything, they’re going to just harden.

But we have these narrative fictions that make it seem like everybody who holds these beliefs are eventually going to let go of them and see the light of day. Well, that’s the exception to the rule. And I think it’s our problem that we’re not talking about it.

It almost never happens in an instant.

Yeah, exactly. It takes years. As you know, it took me years as a gay man.

But it’s funny, I was just moaning about this to a friend of mine — I feel like I’m constantly having TV people come up to me and be like, “Let’s work on something.” And invariably I’m like, “I want to make a show about evangelicals in America.” And they’re like, “Ew.” They have no idea what to do with that. All they know is, “Religion bad, don’t touch it.”

This is bad because we need to have these conversations. These people aren’t going away. If anything, they’re digging their heels in and growing in numbers. It’s happening in my hometown. My family has been in [the movie’s setting] Moscow, Idaho, since 1867. My great-great-grandfather was the first postmaster in my hometown. We’ve been there forever. It has drastically changed since I was 10 years old . Drastically.

Charlie’s not a saint, but there are moments in The Whale that made me think he was sort of the closest thing the movie has to a saint. Is that how you think about it?

Very early on in my notebooks, I was referring to Charlie as a Christ character.

Which I would imagine would be hard to swallow because he clearly is making a self-destructive choice.

Yes. Well, so did Jesus. That didn’t end up very well.

Fair point. The very last moment in the movie is the one that you walk out with, thinking, “What does that mean?”

Narrative used to do it all the time. It goes back to that life preserver of narrative authority: At some point, the author needs to show up and assure everybody that the world still makes sense and that suffering always leads to a reward.

But that is not the truth of it. Over the pandemic, I was trying to remind myself that history is long, so I read this book, A World Lit Only by Fire , about the Middle Ages. It’s beautifully conceived. I wanted to remind myself that we’re living in a moment that’s tiny.

It was so striking to me, reading this book, this brief survey of the Middle Ages, of how much suffering doesn’t lead to reward. That most of the time, suffering sits there and then just falls into the void. It’s a hard thing to swallow about life, but I think it’s why — not to get too rosy-eyed about it — but why having faith in other people is so damned important. Assuming that suffering is always going to lead to some triumphant moment is delusional, and it’s going to lead to tragedy.

But if you can learn to hold hope and despair in the same moment, which we all do every day, then I think you will live a life that amounts to something.

I think that’s true of The Whale . It was very important to me that we preserved the sense of humor from the play in the film. I was on set the whole time, and I feel like that was my hobby horse: “We can’t lose the humor. We can’t lose the humor.” Because that’s what life is. Amidst the despair, there is belly laughter.

The Whale opens in theaters on December 9.

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Review: Does Brendan Fraser give a great performance in ‘The Whale’? It’s complicated.

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When the camera looks at Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” what does it see? It sees a man named Charlie who weighs 600 pounds and is slowly expiring from congestive heart failure in a drab Idaho apartment. It also sees a familiar Hollywood face attached to a most unfamiliar body, enacting the kind of dramatic, prosthetically enabled transformation the movie industry likes to slobber over.

You might find these two images to be of a piece — an intuitive fusion of performer and role that reaches for, and sometimes achieves, a state of transcendent emotion. Or you may find them grotesquely at odds: the character whose every groan, wheeze and choking fit means to inspire both empathy and revulsion, and the actor whose sweaty dramatic exertions are calculated to elicit praise and applause.

Let’s render that praise where it’s due. There is more to Fraser’s performance than his exertions, just as there is more to Charlie than the corporeal shock value that the movie frontloads him with: The opening scenes find him frenziedly masturbating to gay pornography on his couch, then doubling over with searing chest pains. It’s a lot for an actor to come down from, but in a grueling chamber piece that tends to wield a dramaturgical cudgel, Fraser attempts, and mostly achieves, a symphony of surprising grace notes. He shows us Charlie’s suffering, but also his sweetness; his grief, but also his good humor.

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He laughs easily, though also with great difficulty. He can mope and rant, but caught at the right moment, he’s an out-and-out charmer, a patient listener, a good storyteller. He teaches an online college writing class, hiding his obese frame from his students (his webcam’s broken, he tells them), but giving full voice to his love for words, his keen understanding of the pleasures and potential manipulations of language. His favorite piece of writing is an essay on Moby-Dick — the actual whale of the title — that he often reads or demands that someone read to him, a device whose ludicrous backstory Fraser just about makes convincing. And after a while, as doors slam, tension mounts and Rob Simonsen’s score broods and surges, you might feel a curious tingle of recognition. Charlie, after all, is a character in a Darren Aronofsky movie, which means he’s destined for a crucible of suffering that, however emotional and spiritual in nature, exacts its most grievous torments in the flesh.

That’s not to suggest that he is kin to the tortured performers of “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan,” who pushed their athleticism to brutish extremes, or the strung-out kids from “Requiem for a Dream,” even if Charlie knows the pain of a different kind of addiction. The differences extend beyond the fact that Charlie is mostly immobilized, only occasionally rising from his couch to stumble, with a walker, toward the fridge or the bathroom. (At times the camera, wielded by Aronofsky’s regular collaborator Matthew Libatique, almost seems to mock Charlie, moving around him with an ease and agility that he cannot muster.) There’s also the fact that, in contrast with most Aronofsky characters, Charlie is born of another writer’s imagination: Like more than a few studies in confinement, “The Whale” is based on a play, this one written and adapted for the screen by Samuel D. Hunter.

But while we may be confined with Charlie, we are not alone with him. “The Whale,” straining to both honor and break free of its source material, unfolds over a few consecutive days, during which Charlie receives a series of visitors. Their regular appearances at once modulate the drama and expose its artificiality, none more obviously than Thomas (Ty Simpkins), an earnest young Christian missionary who turns up at Charlie’s door at a seemingly opportune moment. He’s there to save this man’s soul, and also to facilitate a load of exposition concerning Charlie’s late partner, Alan, whose untimely death hastened his own downward spiral. Thomas is also there to annoy Charlie’s tough-loving best friend, Liz (a wonderful Hong Chau), a nurse who stops by daily to bring him food, check his vitals and nag him to take better care of himself. She knows that Charlie doesn’t need religion; he needs to go to the hospital.

But Charlie refuses, citing a lack of health insurance and the general hopelessness of his cause. Which doesn’t mean he has nothing to live for, judging by his concerted recent renewal of ties with his 17-year-old daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink). Almost nine years ago, Charlie abandoned Ellie and her mother, Mary (a briefly seen Samantha Morton), to be with Alan. The teenager who now sits before him is more than a resentful child; she’s the personification of spite, vindictive and verbally abusive. Sink’s emotional ferocity is impressive, but Ellie, as written, amounts to one angry note struck with relentless, ultimately misapplied force. As a character, she’s about as subtle as the ultra-dim lighting — not just realistically dim but fastidiously, oppressively dim — that suffuses Charlie’s apartment, an all-too-literal embodiment of his inner darkness.

“You’d be disgusting even if you weren’t this fat,” Ellie snarls at the man she refuses to acknowledge as her father. And her ugly words find a painful echo in the question that Charlie at one point asks Thomas: “Do you find me disgusting?” It’s a question the camera seems to foist in turn upon the viewer, most emphatically when it shows us Charlie, in a miserable fury, devouring and vomiting up an entire pizza. It’s unsurprisingly unpleasant to watch, not least because Aronofsky seems to be shoving the camera in Charlie’s face with one hand while wagging his finger at us with the other. His question might prompt your own: Is this raw, unvarnished scrutiny of a difficult subject tilting into exaggeration, even exploitation? If we’re disgusted by what Aronofsky shows us, is that our fault or his?

Or is it Fraser’s? I’m reluctant to suggest it, and not just because I’m as fond as anyone of an appealing, long-underappreciated actor returning to prominence, after several years’ absence, in the industry that made, broke and allegedly abused him . But I’m also reluctant to fall into the default critical pattern of lauding an actor for what works about a movie or a performance and blaming a filmmaker for everything that doesn’t, especially since it just feels a little too easy. Movie performances are often more collaborative achievements than we (or actors themselves) care to admit, and a performance as reliant on external wizardry as Fraser’s — on the strange, seamless alchemy that welds an actor’s expressive tools to an array of digital and prosthetic tricks — doesn’t come into being without a director’s firm hand at the wheel. What’s good and bad about the performance is surely the responsibility of actor and director both.

The movie’s crudest moments, the ones in which Charlie’s body is treated as not just a matter-of-fact physical reality but a dare-you-to-look-away spectacle, have already raised legitimate questions and accusations of fatphobia — a debate that tends to arise whenever a Hollywood actor packs on some artificial pounds. Often this kind of transformation is done for comically villainous effect, whether it’s Colin Farrell’s Penguin in “The Batman” or Emma Thompson’s imposingly evil Miss Trunchbull in “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical.” But do these prosthetic encumbrances feel more or less cheap when applied to someone like Charlie, who isn’t a violent caricature but a sympathetically drawn human being? Is the grindingly self-conscious realism of a movie like “The Whale” a more empathetic gesture or a crueler, uglier one?

To return to the question at the outset: When the camera looks at Brendan Fraser in “The Whale,” what does it see? I think it sees a good actor giving a well-meaning, unevenly directed and often touching performance in a movie that strives to wrest something raw and truthful from a story that’s all bald contrivances, technological as well as melodramatic. But if “The Whale” is a weird conflation of the unflinchingly honest and the unbearably phony, Charlie’s own sincerity is undeniable: “Tell me the truth,” he says and reiterates on multiple occasions, whether he’s urging his students to write from the gut or engaging Thomas in a genial theological debate. As he demonstrated in his recent “Noah” and “mother!,” Aronofsky is a skeptic who’s more willing than most to meet God halfway.

And God, in this movie, surely has a lot to answer for: hypocrisy, homophobia, depression and suicidal ideation, for starters. But if we can think of God as synonymous with goodness, and I think we can, then he also seems to turn up more often than expected — not just when Thomas comes thumping at the door with a Bible in hand, but also whenever Liz returns. Hong, not for the first time proving herself a movie’s secret weapon, gives perhaps “The Whale’s” finest, least forced performance. Whether she’s scolding Charlie, passing him a meatball sub or snuggling next to him on the couch, Liz lays bare her uncertainty: Should she be trying to save her friend or making his last days as joyous as she can? It’s OK that she doesn’t know. It’s enough that she sees him and loves him — and more fully, ultimately, than the movie around him can manage.

‘The Whale’

Rated: R, for language, some drug use and sexual content Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 9 at AMC Burbank 16; AMC Burbank Town Center 6; AMC the Grove 14, Los Angeles; AMC Century City 15

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"The Whale" is an abhorrent film, but it also features excellent performances.

It gawks at the grotesquerie of its central figure beneath the guise of sentimentality, but it also offers sharp exchanges between its characters that ring with bracing honesty.

It's the kind of film you should probably see if only to have an informed, thoughtful discussion about it, but it's also one you probably won't want to watch.

This aligns it with Darren Aronofsky's movies in general, which can often be a challenging sit. The director is notorious for putting his actors (and his audiences) through the wringer, whether it's Jennifer Connolly's drug addict in " Requiem for a Dream ," Mickey Rourke's aging athlete in " The Wrestler ," Natalie Portman's obsessed ballerina in " Black Swan ," or Jennifer Lawrence's besieged wife in "mother!" (For the record, I'm a fan of Aronofsky's work in general.)

But the difference between those films and "The Whale" is their intent, whether it's the splendor of their artistry or the thrill of their provocation. There's a verve to those movies, an unpredictability, an undeniable daring, and a virtuoso style. They feature images you've likely never seen before or since, but they'll undoubtedly stay with you afterward.

"The Whale" may initially feel gentler, but its main point seems to be sticking the camera in front of Brendan Fraser , encased in a fat suit that makes him appear to weigh 600 pounds, and asking us to wallow in his deterioration. In theory, we are meant to pity him or at least find sympathy for his physical and psychological plight by the film's conclusion. But in reality, the overall vibe is one of morbid fascination for this mountain of a man. Here he is, knocking over an end table as he struggles to get up from the couch; there he is, cramming candy bars in his mouth as he Googles "congestive heart failure." We can tsk-tsk all we like between our mouthfuls of popcorn and Junior Mints while watching Fraser's Charlie gobble greasy fried chicken straight from the bucket or inhale a giant meatball sub with such alacrity that he nearly chokes to death. The message "The Whale" sends us home with seems to be: Thank God that's not us.

In working from Samuel D. Hunter's script, based on Hunter's stage play, Aronofsky doesn't appear to be as interested in understanding these impulses and indulgences as much as pointing and staring at them. His depiction of Charlie's isolation within his squalid Idaho apartment includes a scene of him masturbating to gay porn with such gusto that he almost has a heart attack, a moment made of equal parts shock value and shame. But then, in a jarring shift, the tone eventually turns maudlin with Charlie's increasing martyrdom.

Within the extremes of this approach, Fraser brings more warmth and humanity to the role than he's afforded on the page. We hear his voice first; Charlie is a college writing professor who teaches his students online from behind the safety of a black square. And it's such a welcoming and resonant sound, full of decency and humor. Fraser's been away for a while, but his contradictions have always made him an engaging screen presence—the contrast of his imposing physique and playful spirit. He does so much with his eyes here to give us a glimpse into Charlie's sweet but tortured soul, and the subtlety he's able to convey goes a long way toward making "The Whale" tolerable.

But he's also saddled with a screenplay that spells out every emotion in ways that are so clunky as to be groan-inducing. At Charlie's most desperate, panicky moments, he soothes himself by reading or reciting a student's beloved essay on Moby Dick , which—in part—gives the film its title and will take on increasing significance. He describes the elusive white whale of Herman Melville's novel as he stands up, shirtless, and lumbers across the living room, down the hall, and toward the bedroom with a walker. At this moment, you're meant to marvel at the elaborate makeup and prosthetic work on display; you're more likely to roll your eyes at the writing.

"He thinks his life will be better if he can just kill this whale, but in reality, it won't help him at all," he intones in a painfully obvious bit of symbolism. "This book made me think about my own life," he adds as if we couldn't figure that out for ourselves.

A few visitors interrupt the loneliness of his days, chiefly Hong Chau as his nurse and longtime friend, Liz. She's deeply caring but also no-nonsense, providing a crucial spark to these otherwise dour proceedings. Aronofsky's longtime cinematographer, the brilliant Matthew Libatique , has lit Charlie's apartment in such a relentlessly dark and dim fashion to signify his sorrow that it's oppressive. Once you realize the entirety of the film will take place within these cramped confines, it sends a shiver of dread. And the choice to tell this story in the boxy, 1.33 aspect ratio further heightens its sense of dour claustrophobia.

But then "Stranger Things" star Sadie Sink arrives as Charlie's rebellious, estranged daughter, Ellie; her mom was married to Charlie before he came out as a gay man. While their first meeting in many years is laden with exposition about the pain and awkwardness of their time apart, the two eventually settle into an interesting, prickly rapport. Sink brings immediacy and accessibility to the role of the sullen but bright teenager, and her presence, like Chau's, improves "The Whale" considerably. Her casting is also spot-on in her resemblance to Fraser, especially in her expressive eyes.

The arrival of yet another visitor—an earnest, insistent church missionary played by Ty Simpkins —feels like a total contrivance, however. Allowing him inside the apartment repeatedly makes zero sense, even within the context that Charlie believes he's dying and wants to make amends. He even says to this sweet young man: "I'm not interested in being saved." And yet, the exchanges between Sink and Simpkins provide some much-needed life and emotional truth. The subplot about their unlikely friendship feels like something from a totally different movie and a much more interesting one.

Instead, Aronofsky insists on veering between cruelty and melodrama, with Fraser stuck in the middle, a curiosity on display.

Now playing in theaters. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

The Whale (2022)

Rated R for language, some drug use and sexual content.

117 minutes

Brendan Fraser as Charlie

Sadie Sink as Ellie

Hong Chau as Liz

Ty Simpkins as Thomas

Samantha Morton as Mary

Sathya Sridharan as Dan

• Darren Aronofsky

Writer (based on the play by)

• Samuel D. Hunter

Cinematographer

• Matthew Libatique
• Andrew Weisblum
• Rob Simonsen

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‘The Whale’ Review: Brendan Fraser Is Sly and Moving as a Morbidly Obese Man, but Darren Aronofsky’s Film Is Hampered by Its Contrivances

The director seamlessly adapts Samuel D. Hunter's play but can't transcend the play's problems.

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He plays Charlie, a man of many hundreds of pounds who sits all day long in his shabby dank apartment in a small town in Idaho. Fraser has been outfitted with a digital fat suit (the effects that bulk him up are a blend of prosthetics and CGI), and the result is that we see someone who looks at home in his flesh. The sloping jowls that consume his neck, the big wide back and gigantic jelly belly that spills down over his crotch, the arms and legs that are like meat slabs — Charlie is a mountain of a man, but he’s all of a piece. Fraser, with sweaty thinning hair plastered on his scalp, resembles an overstuffed Rodney Dangerfield. The actor sinks himself into that body, so that even as we’re gawking at a fellow the size of Jabba the Hutt we register the familiar soulful look in the eye, the distended remnants of the Fraser handsomeness.

“The Whale” is based on a stageplay by Samuel D. Hunter, who also wrote the script, and the entire film takes place in Charlie’s apartment, most of it unfolding in that seedy bookish living room. Aronofsky doesn’t necessarily “open up” the play, but working with the great cinematographer Matthew Libatique he doesn’t need to. Shot without flourishes, the movie has a plainspoken visual flow to it. And given what a sympathetic and fascinating character Fraser makes Charlie, we’re eager to settle in with him in that depressive lair, and to get to the bottom of the film’s inevitable two dramatic questions: How did Charlie get this way? And can he be saved?

In case there is any doubt he needs saving, “The Whale” quickly establishes that he’s an addict living a life of isolated misery and self-disgust, scarfing away his despair (at various points we see him going at a bucket of fried chicken, a drawer full of candy, and voluminous take-out pizzas from Gambino’s, all of which is rather sad to behold). Charlie teaches an expository writing seminar at an online college, doing it on Zoom, which looks very today (though the film, for no good reason, is set during the presidential primary season of 2016), with video images of the students surrounding a small black square at the center of the screen. That’s where Charlie should be; he tells the students his laptop camera isn’t working, which is his way of hiding his body and the shame he feels about it. But he’s a canny teacher who knows what good writing is, even if his lessons about structure and topic sentences fall on apathetic ears.

Charlie has a friend of sorts, Liz (Hong Chau), who happens to be a nurse, and when she comes over and learns that his blood pressure is in the 240/130 range, she declares it an emergency situation. He has congestive heart failure; with that kind of blood pressure, he’ll be dead in a week. But Charlie refuses to go the hospital, and will continue to do so. He’s got a handy excuse. With no health insurance, if he seeks medical care he’ll run up tens of thousands of dollars in bills. As Liz points out, it’s better to be in debt than dead. But Charlie’s resistance to healing himself bespeaks a deeper crisis. He doesn’t want help. If he dies (and that’s the film’s basic suspense), it will essentially be a suicide.

It’s hard not to notice that Liz, given how much she’s taking care of Charlie, has a spiky and rather abrasive personality. We think: Okay, that’s who she is. But a couple of other characters enter the movie — and when Ellie (Sadie Sink), Charlie’s 17-year-old daughter, shows up, we notice that she has a really spiky and abrasive personality. Does Charlie just happen to be surrounded by hellcats and cranks? Or is there something in Hunter’s dialogue that is simply, reflexively over-the-top in its theatrical hostility?

And what a rage it is! Sadie Sink, from “Stranger Things,” acts with a fire and directness that recalls the young Lindsay Lohan, but the volatile spitfire she’s playing is bitter — at her father, and at the world — in an absolutist way that rings absolutely false. Lots of teenagers are angry and alienated, but they’re not just angry and alienated. There are shades of vulnerability that come with being that age. We keep waiting for Ellie to show another side, to reflect the fact that the father she resents is still, on some level … her father.

“The Whale,” while it has a captivating character at its center, turns out to be equal parts sincerity and hokum. The movie carries us along, tethering the audience to Fraser’s intensely lived-in and touching performance, yet the more it goes on the more its drama is interlaced with nagging contrivances, like the whole issue of why this father and daughter were ever so separated from each other. We learn that after Charlie and Ellie’s mother, Mary (Samantha Morton), were divorced, Mary got full custody and cut Charlie off from Ellie. But they never stopped living in the same small town, and even single parents who don’t have custody are legally entitled to see their children. Charlie, we’re told, was eager to have kids; he lived with Ellie and her mother until the girl was eight. So why would he have just … let her go?

There’s one other major character, a lost young missionary for the New Life Church named Thomas, and though Ty Simpkins plays him appealingly, the way this cult-like church plays into the movie feels like one hard-to-swallow conceit too many. This matters a lot, because if we can’t totally buy what’s happening, we won’t be as moved by Charlie’s road to redemption. Near the end, there’s a very moving moment. It’s when Charlie is discussing the essay on “Moby Dick” he’s been reading pieces of throughout the film, and we learn where the essay comes from and why it means so much to him. If only the rest of the movie were that convincing! But most of “The Whale” simply isn’t as good as Brendan Fraser’s performance. For what he brings off, though, it deserves to be seen.     

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2022. Running time: 117 MIN.

• Production: An A24 release of a Protozoa Pictures production. Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Jeremy Dawson, Art Handel. Executive producers: Scott Franklin, Tyson Bidner.
• Crew: Director: Darren Aronofsky. Screenplay: Samuel D. Hunter. Camera: Matthew Libatique. Editor: Andrew Weisblum. Music: Rob Simonsen.
• With: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, Sathya Sridharan.

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'The Whale' Is As Unpleasant To Watch As It Is Remarkable

Senior Culture Reporter

Not a whole lot of people are going to really enjoy “The Whale.” Director Darren Aronofsky’s new drama is the kind that leans into relentless agony, demoralization, rage — and mostly within the confines of a single living room, the space where we watch a 600-pound teacher deteriorate emotionally and physically.

Stifling is the word that comes to mind when thinking about the film. That, and brutal. Because there’s a resolve that emanates from Charlie (Brendan Fraser) the moment he appears on screen. He moves around, understandably, with great effort, not just because of his girth; he also seems exhausted by an emotional weight we learn more about as the story progresses.

Aronofsky sits us next to him on an old couch throughout most of “The Whale,” a film just shy of two hours long with a title that references a student essay panning “Moby Dick” that Charlie admires, one that captures some of his own feelings.

He’s all but shut himself off from the world. He teaches Zoom classes without the camera on. He engages in sex only by watching gay porn on his personal laptop. He drops his regular pizza guy some cash for him to pick up in the mailbox, so that he doesn’t have to spare him his appearance.

But the audience sees Charlie, and obviously he’s well aware of what he looks like, even if he never once glances in the mirror. His persistent wheezing and gasps serve as further confirmation that he’s not well. In fact, he only has days left to live.

So, he gorges on double meatball subs, boxes of pepperoni pizza and liters of Coca-Cola. It’s a painful, horrifying thing for an audience to bear witness to; not the excessive eating but the fact that he’s so depressed that he’s enabling his own death.

Mental health and self-harm are recurring themes in Aronofsky’s work. His characters often drive or are driven to the edges of their own life due to something intangible. For the ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman) in “Black Swan,” it’s perfection. For each of the central addicts in “Requiem for a Dream,” the hardest of his films to watch, it’s to escape who or where they are.

For professional wrestler Randy (Mickey Rourke) in “The Wrestler,” it’s to achieve immortality. These characters are all brought to life by portrayals that are in equal parts heartbreaking, isolating and even off-putting at times. They’re about people you know, but can’t reach.

The same is true for Fraser’s interpretation of “The Whale,” which screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter adapts from his own play that was inspired by his own experiences with obesity. Much has been said and written about the fact that the actor wears a 300-pound fat suit in the role when an actually obese actor should have been prioritized to play Charlie.

It’s a fair argument, though Aronofsky has explained that he tried and couldn’t find the same quality and technicality in another actor that he did with Fraser. Wherever you stand on that, it’s not Fraser’s fat suit or obvious physical transformation that makes his performance so astounding. It’s his eyes.

They glisten with tears that never really flow, conveying years of pain, regret and dejection so viscerally that it’s hard not to have empathy for him, even when he doesn’t have it for himself. “The Whale” delicately paces out the details around this that are often too heavy for Charlie to utter himself.

His friend Liz (the equally terrific Hong Chau), a cantankerous nurse who regularly stops by to care for his health, is often the one to carry that burden. The two have a precious connection revealed later in the film in a scene that Chau floors, so I hesitate to give much away there in order for you to experience it as it’s meant to be seen: knowing nothing about it at all.

Though Charlie largely refuses hospital care, Liz still comes by and, even amid her own frustration with her friend, brings some of the most honest and fleetingly happy moments in the film as they watch TV together or when she tickles him playfully. And each of those milliseconds is a welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise tautly contained story.

It is through Liz we learn that his male partner died by suicide years prior. In later exchanges, it’s also revealed that Charlie left his wife Mary (Samantha Morton) and daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) to be with that love of his life. So, Charlie’s moments of joy, as he seems to consider them at least, have sometimes come at the expense of others he loves.

That’s a devastating perspective, one that is compounded by both Mary and Ellie’s bitterness when they reenter his life after eight years. With their separate reappearances come opportunities for Charlie to release some of the guilt he’s claimed and, potentially, rebuild these relationships.

As promising as that is, it’s also a miserable struggle to experience on screen. It encompasses rageful tears, dismay at Charlie’s changed appearance, teenage profanity and Mary’s desperate search for alcohol that answer any questions either Charlie or the audience might have had about whatever became of these two characters.

While Mary and Ellie’s entries further enlighten the story, and Morton and Sink give solid performances, it’s hard not to ponder what it would be like if they didn’t materialize on screen and disrupt Charlie’s intense solitude. Like, if they rather stayed voices on a strained phone call or people Charlie reflected on through conversations with Liz.

Their appearances pierce through something so singular and fragile that it almost seems irreparable.

But then again, they pivot the narrative toward something closer to redemption, which is also supremely fascinating here. Because it’s explored in many forms. Charlie gains the chance to forgive himself and Mary for her part in cutting Ellie out of his life. Despite Ellie’s hostility, Charlie also sees her beauty and wit, both of which are nearly impossible for the audience to discern without his own insight.

That’s not to say that Ellie lacks dimensionality or nuance as her own character. Rather, it takes Charlie for us to see what Ellie doesn’t show us. Just like it takes Liz for us to see more of Charlie. The fact that each character depends on another to highlight a humanity they can’t identify on their own, endows the movie with an undercurrent of love beneath its sour exterior.

Then there’s the idea of redemption through religious faith, which comes in the form of a duplicitous door-to-door Bible thumper named Thomas (Ty Simpkins) who becomes an increasingly nagging presence for Charlie.

Part of that is because we come to learn of a threaded theme of religion and faith in Charlie’s narrative where it has always been more detrimental and betraying than hopeful, though it’s touted to be the opposite.

At the same, it is interesting to explore this through the context of Charlie — a still relatively young, obese, gay white man whose sexuality often conflicts with Christian messaging and yet he seeks it, or something else on its level, for validation before he departs.

That says a lot about his dependence on external morality now, when he feels he can no longer count on his own. There’s an end-of-the-rope feeling in this, particularly when Charlie tries to contend with Thomas’ increasingly questionable beliefs. But it also shows Charlie in a way few other parts of the film do: fighting for himself. Having agency.

It yields a kind of hope, however false or fruitless, upon which “The Whale” ultimately hinges. The movie might largely be remembered for being somber, an emotion that stays at the forefront of the narrative, but it’s optimism that buoys its ending. And you least expect it.

If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorder Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237.

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The Whale review – Darren Aronofsky’s latest is a contrived disappointment

It’s hard to feel much sympathy for Brendan Fraser’s morbidly obese English teacher in this much anticipated but underwhelming return to movies

D arren Aronofsky’s vapid, hammy and stagey movie, adapted by Samuel D Hunter from his own 2012 play, is the festival’s biggest and most surprising disappointment: the writing clunks; the narrative is contrived and unconvincing and the whole film has a strange pass-agg body language, as if it is handling its own painful subject matter with kid gloves and asking us to do the same. Brendan Fraser is Charlie, an English teacher in charge of an online study course, run via Zoom. He claims to the group that his laptop camera isn’t working, which is why the square on the screen where his face should be is blank. But actually he doesn’t want them to see what he looks like: Charlie is morbidly obese, a giant pool of flesh, hardly able to leave the couch with a walking frame to get to the lavatory, gorging delivery pizzas and fried chicken, with a stash of chocolate bars in the desk drawer. Our first view of Charlie is of him masturbating to gay porn, culminating in a heart attack that almost kills him.

But this isn’t supposed to be ironic black comedy and Charlie isn’t supposed to be greedy or lazy or selfish (although these uncaring talking points are not really aired). He is depressed after the death of his partner, a former student from an adult night-school class for whom he left his wife and young daughter; it was a desertion for which he is still guilt-stricken.

Charlie’s only friend now is his late partner’s sister Liz (Hong Chau), a tough-minded nurse exasperated at his refusal to go to hospital. His fragile, lonely life becomes more complicated still with the arrival at his door of a strange young man, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a Christian evangelist from the church of which Charlie’s partner was a member. His angry, conflicted daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), also appears to want to reconnect.

Alongside it all, there is Charlie’s love of literature, especially Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Charlie is glumly aware that he is the whale, the huge bloated entity that no one wants to hunt down or obsess over or even think about at all. Or perhaps it is that Charlie is hunting the elusive meaning of his own wrecked life, deep in the ocean of loneliness.

Fraser brings a definite gentleness and openness to the role of Charlie, and his performance is good, although of course it is upstaged by the showy latex and the special effects, which are there to elicit a mix of horror and sympathy and awards-season love, like a very serious male version of the “ Fat Monica ” prom video scene in Friends.

There is a too-good-to-be-true sheen to Charlie’s sweet saintliness; his emotional yearning and wounded niceness are underlined by the coercive orchestral score, and this movie’s concept of death is sentimental and even sneakily religiose. But even this isn’t exactly the problem – it is the convoluted plot that surrounds Charlie: the weird and implausible shenanigans around Thomas’s background and Ellie’s unhappiness and bad attitude, all indirectly and clumsily revealed. Charlie believes in Ellie’s essential goodness to the very end, but any supposed ambiguity about her intentions and behaviour is unsatisfying and uninteresting. Fraser does an honest job in the role of Charlie, and Hong Chau brings a welcome fierceness and sinew to the drama, but this sucrose film is very underpowered.

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Austin Film Festival Review: The Whale

Darren aronofsky contemplates fatness and faith, by jenny nulf , 8:19pm, fri. nov. 4, 2022.

It’s not outlandish to say that Darren Aronofsky is a little obsessed with religion. Even before his biblical epic Noah , the controversial director dabbled in religious imagery and allegories, and continues to explore the depths of religious trauma with his adaptation of The Whale .

Aronofsky is one to challenge his audience, for better or for worse, and never shies away from dark imagery and grungy characters. The Whale is no exception – all set in the apartment of an English teacher, Charlie (played by Brandan Fraser), who is struggling with grief and depression, which has manifested itself into an eating disorder.

Often when eating disorders are portrayed by the media it’s anorexia or bulimia, and more often than that, the ones suffering from these disorders are portrayed as too thin. The Whale looks at another kind of eating disorder – binge eating – which is a difficult one to tackle visually, mostly due to society’s ongoing fatphobia as perpetuated by the media. There’s nothing consciously sinister about The Whale ’s use of Charlie’s eating disorder (the original play was, in fact, written from experience), but Aronofsky’s adaptation is cruel, not just to Charlie’s character, but to all of them.

In claustrophobic Academy ratio, The Whale dives in with a shot of Charlie panting, watching gay pornography on his computer, fumbling from shock when a knock at the door startles him. He begins to pant, searching for a piece of paper with an essay on the novel Moby Dick that he urgently needs to hear read if this is, in fact, the moment he’s dying. The essay is simple, and expresses the sorrow the writer felt when reading the book, particularly how the chapters on the whale made the writer reflect on their own depression. It’s overtly the theme of the film, an upfront reminder to the audience that the movie you are about to watch is a soul crushing eulogy.

The knock at the door is from a missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a kid who is spreading the gospel before the end times. Not too long after his appearance, Charlie’s nurse and friend Liz (Hong Chau) enters and is punched in the gut at the site of him, an upsetting trigger that reminds her of her own grief. It’s clear from the beginning that Charlie and Liz have a bond formed over their church-related trauma, and Thomas’ assertive presence constantly forces them to reflect on their shared pain. They both grieve over what was lost to them, and what will be lost to them, which is the imminent death of Charlie by prolonged suicide. The film never elicits hope for Charlie, and Liz sheds many a tear over the impending passing of her dear friend.

Charlie is placed in a hellish purgatory in The Whale . Fraser often brings a warmth to Charlie that the film desperately needs, but his positivity is only an ember in a fire dying in the pouring rain. His daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), is a nasty character, an angsty teenager whose wrath is caused by her father leaving her at the age of eight. Sink isn’t given much to do but brood in a recliner, cracking jokes at the expense of her father’s stature, a terrible daughter whose hatred is spiteful and cruel. There’s nothing redeemable about her character outside Charlie’s love for her, his insistence that she is his greatest achievement, but nothing outside his innate optimism really shows Ellie’s potential goodness to an audience.

The Whale never escapes the trappings of its theatrical origins, and Aronofsky conducts the space as such not only in the singular setting of Charlie’s apartment, but in the characters expository dialogue, and the metaphoric use of imagery, like the ongoing rain that pounds on Charlie’s windows. Everyone is always yelling at each other, and relentlessly mean, monologuing their suffering at each other but never with each other. There’s no empathy for Charlie, Liz, Ellie, or Thomas, and in a film that’s designed to evoke that from its audience, it ultimately fails.

Austin Film Festival, Oct. 27-Nov. 3. Details and badges at austinfilmfestival.com .

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Austin Film Festival , AFF 2022 , The Whale , Austin Film Festival 2022

By A.O. Scott

Charlie is a college writing instructor who never leaves his apartment. He conducts his classes online, disabling his laptop camera so the students can’t see him. The movie camera, guided by Darren Aronofsky and his go-to cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, also stays indoors most of the time. Occasionally you get an exterior view of the drab low-rise building where Charlie lives, or a breath of fresh air on the landing outside his front door. But these respites only emphasize a pervasive sense of confinement.

Based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter (who wrote the script), “The Whale” is an exercise in claustrophobia. Rather than open up a stage-bound text, as a less confident film director might, Aronofsky intensifies the stasis, the calamitous sense of stuckness that defines Charlie’s existence. Charlie is trapped — in his rooms, in a life that has run off the rails, and above all in his own body. He was always a big guy, he says, but after the suicide of his lover, his eating “just got out of control.” Now his blood pressure is spiking, his heart is failing, and the simple physical exertions of standing up and sitting down require enormous effort and mechanical assistance.

Charlie’s size is the movie’s governing symbol and principal special effect. Encased in prosthetic flesh, Brendan Fraser, who plays Charlie, gives a performance that is sometimes disarmingly graceful. He uses his voice and his big, sad eyes to convey a delicacy at odds with the character’s corporeal grossness. But nearly everything about Charlie — the sound of his breathing, the way he eats, moves and perspires — underlines his abjection, to an extent that starts to feel cruel and voyeuristic.

“The Whale” unfolds over the course of a week, during which Charlie receives a series of visits: from his friend and informal caretaker, Liz (Hong Chau); from Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a young missionary who wants to save his soul; from his estranged teenage daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), and embittered ex-wife, Mary (Samantha Morton). There is also a pizza delivery guy (Sathya Sridharan), and a bird that occasionally shows up outside Charlie’s window. I’m not an ornithologist, but my guidebook identifies it as a Common Western Metaphor.

Speaking of which, Charlie is not the only whale in “The Whale.” His most prized possession is a student paper on “Moby-Dick,” the authorship of which is revealed at the movie’s end. It’s a fine piece of naïve literary criticism — maybe the best writing in the movie — about how Ishmael’s troubles compelled the author to think about “my own life.”

Perhaps Charlie’s troubles are meant to have the same effect. He becomes the nodal point in a web of trauma and regret, variously the agent, victim and witness of someone else’s unhappiness. He left Mary when he fell in love with a male student, Alan, who was Liz’s brother and had been raised in the church that Thomas represents. Mary, a heavy drinker, has kept Charlie away from Ellie, who has grown into a seething adolescent.

All this drama bursts out in freshets of stagy verbiage and blubbering. The script overwhelms narrative logic while demanding extra credit for emotional honesty. But the working out of the various issues involves a lot of blame-shifting and ethical evasion. Everyone and no one is responsible; actions do and don’t have consequences. Real-world topics like sexuality, addiction and religious intolerance float around untethered to any credible sense of social reality. The moral that bubbles up through the shouting (and the strenuous nerve-pumping of Robert Simonsen’s score) is that people are incapable of not caring about one another.

Maybe? Herman Melville and Walt Whitman provide some literary ballast for this idea, but as an exploration of — and argument for — the power of human sympathy, “The Whale” is undone by simplistic psychologizing and intellectual fuzziness.

Aronofsky has a tendency to misjudge his own strengths as a filmmaker. He is a brilliant manipulator of moods and a formidable director of actors, specializing in characters fighting their way through anguish and delusion toward something like transcendence. Mickey Rourke did that in “The Wrestler,” Natalie Portman in “Black Swan,” Russell Crowe in “Noah” and Jennifer Lawrence in “Mother!” Fraser makes a bid to join their company — Chau is also excellent — but “The Whale,” like some of Aronofsky’s other projects, is swamped by its grand and vague ambitions. It’s overwrought and also strangely insubstantial.

The Whale Rated R for abjection. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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Villainous Christianity in ‘The Whale,’ ‘The Wonder,’ and ‘Women Talking’

More By Brett McCracken

TGC’s critical theological engagement with art and media should not be construed as endorsement or recommendation. TGC often discusses movies, TV shows, and other forms of art primarily because they have explanatory power in helping us understand the culture we’re trying to reach. Before you make a decision to watch any piece of media, we recommend reading “ Should I Watch This? ” and checking out a content guide.

The “Christian villain” trope is nothing new in Hollywood. From sociopathic Christian killers ( The Night of the Hunter , Se7en ) to prudish, sexually repressed fundamentalists ( Footloose , Carrie , The Virgin Suicides ) to blood-sucking vampire priests ( Midnight Mass ), vengeful church ladies (Mrs. Carmody in The Mist ), and Bible-toting tyrants (Warden Norton in The Shawshank Redemption ), loathsome Christian baddies are everywhere in Hollywood and have been for some time.

We can understandably feel defensive about how Hollywood depicts Christians (heavily weighted toward the negative). But rather than simply shouting “Unfair stereotype!” we ought to consider the nature of the critiques. How are Hollywood’s narratives expressing the larger culture’s angst and grievances about Christianity? What might we learn from this about the obstacles we face in evangelism and apologetics?

To that end, let’s look at three 2022 films— The Whale , The Wonder , and Women Talking —that wrestle with faith and depict Christians largely negatively. Though their emphases are slightly different, the three films share an overall view that institutional Christianity is an oppressive system from which victims must be liberated.

The Whale : Christianity Suppresses Authenticity

Darren Aronofsky is no stranger to exploring faith in his films, often in disturbing ways (see Noah and Mother! ). His latest, The Whale (written by Samuel Hunter and based on his 2012 play), offers a characteristically provocative look at faith through the story of a morbidly obese gay man living in Moscow, Idaho. Played by Brendan Fraser in a role likely to earn him a best actor Oscar, Charlie is a thinly veiled Christ figure whose story plays out during an “unholy week” of sorts, culminating in a predictable way on Friday.

The Whale depicts Charlie as an outcast whose repulsive appearance is probably meant to nod in the direction of messianic imagery in Isaiah 53 (“He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him”). The church, meanwhile, is framed as a homophobic, pharisaical institution that preaches love but practices hate. Charlie’s late boyfriend, Alan, grew up in the local evangelical church but was driven to suicide after he was exiled on account of his sexual choices. For Charlie, then, the church has LGBT+ blood on its hands.

How are Hollywood’s narratives expressing the larger culture’s angst and grievances about Christianity? What might we learn from this about the obstacles we face in evangelism and apologetics?

When a friendly young evangelical missionary, Thomas (Ty Simpkins) starts visiting and proselytizing Charlie, it briefly seems Charlie might soften a bit to the gospel. But it doesn’t go well when Thomas implies—quoting Romans 8:13—that Alan died because he chose flesh (illicit relationship with Charlie) over Spirit (faithfulness to God).

“You think Alan died because he chose to be with me?” Charlie responds. “You think God turned his back on him because he and I were in love?”

If Charlie is meant to be a sort of Christ figure, his gospel message is one of authenticity and “love is love” sexual freedom. He teaches a writing class online and repeatedly tells his students to write “honest” things. Honesty is the ultimate value in Charlie’s gospel—in the “honesty to self” sense. If honesty to self leads a man to abandon his wife and daughter to run off with another man (as Charlie does, basically ruining his daughter’s life), so be it. If honesty to self leads someone to flee his family or church or eat two entire pizzas a day to the point of congestive heart failure, all in the name of “authenticity,” so be it.

If honesty to self trumps all other values and commitments, then whatever hinders authenticity is villainized. In The Whale , the church—and its privileging of God’s revealed truth over our subjective authenticity—is thus the biggest villain. The heroes, meanwhile, are those willing to be brutally honest about “who they are,” whatever the cost to themselves or others.

The Wonder : Christianity Rejects Science

In The Wonder , an agnostic nurse named “Lib” Wright (Florence Pugh) is summoned to a rural Irish village in the 19th century. She’s asked to observe a young girl, Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy), who hasn’t eaten in four months but is somehow still alive. Anna claims she’s living off “manna from heaven,” and her devout Catholic family and village believe her miraculous account. Representing science, reason, liberation, and being factually right, the appropriately named Lib Wright is naturally skeptical. She sets out to investigate the truth behind Anna’s supposed miracle and uncovers what in her mind is dangerously deluded religious fanaticism.

In Lib’s view, Anna is a victim of an oppressive religious regime that ignores science if it might undermine their faith. Though set in 1862, the film is obviously colored by today’s political dynamics, wherein secular progressives claim the “party of science” mantle and religious conservatives are accused of being dangerously antiscience. Even if the reality is more complex (progressives appeal to science on some issues but ignore it on others, especially on gender and procreation), the popular narrative nevertheless persists: Christianity’s supernatural bent is an enemy of science.

Adapted from a 2016 novel and directed by Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio, The Wonder at least acknowledges that Lib’s materialistic scientism is itself a sort of faith. A dialogue scene between Lib and Kitty (Anna’s older sister) is telling:

“What was the last thing Anna ate?” Lib asks.

“The flesh of our Savior,” Kitty responds, referring to the Eucharist.

“So just water and wheat?”

“No, missus. Not just water and wheat. It’s the body and blood of Christ.”

“That’s a story, Kitty. I’m looking for facts.”

“You see, you also need your stories. You write them down in that little notebook of yours. It’s quite the Bible you got going.”

The film tacitly frames faith and science as both “stories” with sincere, devoted adherents. But it leaves no doubt as to which story we should prefer.

The Wonder frames faith and science as both ‘stories’ with sincere, devoted adherents. But it leaves no doubt as to which story we should prefer.

By film’s end (spoiler alert), Lib lives up to her name by liberating the brainwashed Anna from the constraints of her spiritually oppressive (in Lib’s view) family and community. She essentially kidnaps Anna and takes her to live as her own daughter in a faraway place (Australia). To religious conservatives watching, this will look like a harrowing example of progressives disregarding parental rights as an act of justice . Progressive viewers, meanwhile, will likely cheer for Lib as a heroine willing to advocate for and ultimately extract children from backwater religious delusion.

Women Talking : Christianity Enables Abuse

Sarah Polley’s Women Talking is more nuanced in its treatment of Christianity than the “hit job” approaches of other films. Yes, Christianity can become a front for unspeakable evil. But for the vulnerable female victims in Women Talking , it’s also a source of incomparable hope.

The film is based on a book about a harrowing true story of sexual abuse in a Mennonite colony. It follows a group of women who discover they’ve been repeatedly drugged and raped by men in their own community: men they trusted, their husbands and brothers and spiritual leaders. Upon making this horrific discovery, and while the perpetrators are temporarily away, eight women meet in a hayloft to discuss their options. Should they do nothing, stay and fight, or leave to pursue a new life elsewhere?

True to its name, Women Talking is essentially one long dialogue scene as the women (played by talented actresses like Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Claire Foy) grieve together, argue together, and comfort one another with Scripture and hymns. Unable to read and write (in their colony, women aren’t allowed to be educated), the women can at least talk in secret—hatching plans for their own emancipation.

To Polley’s credit, Women Talking asks hard questions about Christianity without using those questions to discredit faith entirely. “If God is omnipotent,” one character asks, “then why has he not protected the women and girls of this colony?” It’s a heavy question, but none of the women appears to lose her faith on its account. Over the course of the film, they wrestle with forgiveness, justice, and the trauma they’ve endured. But through it all, they manage to keep repeating, in faith, “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in loving kindness.”

We absolutely sympathize with these women and rage against the evil perpetrated against them by men who claim to serve Christ. But even as it tells a very specific story, Women Talking is clearly aware of how it fits into a larger narrative that says patriarchy and abuse are not a bug but a feature of conservative Christianity.

The film’s progressive worldview is apparent in the character of Melvin (played by nonbinary actor August Winter), a biological woman turned trans man who goes mute out of protest for the trauma she’s endured. Only when the other women stop “deadnaming” her and call her by her preferred name (Melvin), does she speak out loud: “Thank you.” Would contemporary trans politics have been part of an isolated Mennonite colony in real life? It’s unlikely, but Women Talking is attempting more than mere history-telling here. It’s also an advocacy piece—celebrating the virtues of feminism, collective action, and liberation for women and LGBT+ people in a cisgender, patriarchal world.

Self-Secured Liberation

Believers should pay attention to the “alternative gospels” on offer in contemporary pop culture. If Christianity is seen more as an oppressor than a liberator, after all, something else must play the part of liberator. In each of the films discussed above, that “something else” is the empowered self , through which salvation and “rebirth” are achieved without appeal to the supernatural.

In The Whale , the final magic-realist shot of Charlie evokes a blissful resurrection scene, as he lifts off the ground and ascends into light. In that ending sequence, Charlie is finally “liberated,” according to Fraser . At the end of The Wonder , in a sort of secular declaration of resurrection, Lib pronounces “Anna” dead and reborn as “Nan”—liberated from her previously toxic, caged existence.

Believers should pay attention to the ‘alternative gospels’ on offer in contemporary pop culture.

Women Talking similarly concludes with imagery of leaving the old and beginning anew, with previously silenced women now having the power to speak into being whatever reality they desire. Ona (Mara) tells the other women, “When we’ve liberated ourselves we’ll have to ask ourselves who we are.” She calls the women to join in creating “a new religion,” which is taken from the old “but focused on love.” The Exodus imagery at the end and the last shot (of a newborn baby) visually emphasizes these themes of liberation from the shackles of “old religion” and rebirth into something new.

Engaging the Push and Pull of Post-Christian Culture

Insofar as these three films each pitch a “new religion” built on the old but more focused on love, inclusivity, and science, they’re perfect fables of our post-Christian age. They’re expressions of a generation that seeks to take from Christianity what’s useful and inoffensive while scrapping what’s seen as offensive (sexual ethics), outmoded (supernatural), or oppressive (male leadership). Indeed, especially in The Whale and Women Talking— where Christianity still has some moral and aesthetic value—we see how the “post” part of post-Christian culture works: the goal isn’t abandoning Christianity entirely but moving beyond it only with the parts we wish to keep.

As we seek to reach this post-Christian culture with the true gospel, we’d do well to notice the prevalence of these narratives. We should pay attention to how Christianity is framed as oppressive or villainous in the popular imagination (e.g., antigay, antiscience, antiwomen), owning what we can own and apologizing when appropriate. We should also note the aspects of Christianity that are still celebrated and retained by a secularizing culture, even if the Christian roots of these ideas are increasingly unacknowledged (or unknown).

Effective apologetics in a post-Christian culture will thoughtfully exegete cultural artifacts to discern (1) what today’s culture makers find abhorrent about Christianity and (2) what they find attractive about Christianity. Our response should not be to then diminish (in embarrassment) the former while we rush to highlight the latter. Our mission fails if we’re hiding the parts of the gospel unfavorable to the zeitgeist and focusing only on what “plays well” with the desired audience.

Films like The Whale , The Wonder , and Women Talking shouldn’t spur Christians toward reactionary “rebranding” of faith but rather toward more effective apologetics—taking seriously the “push” and “pull” perceptions of Christianity as two unavoidable, interconnecting dimensions of our mission in a post-Christian culture.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

Brett McCracken is a senior editor and director of communications at The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World , Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community , Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty , and Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide . Brett and his wife, Kira, live in Santa Ana, California, with their three children. They belong to Southlands Church , and Brett serves as an elder. You can follow him on Twitter .

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Good Friday

Review: ‘The Whale’ is a hard but astounding film to watch

This image released by A24 shows Brendan Fraser in a scene from “The Whale.” (A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Hong Chau in a scene from “The Whale.” (A24 via AP)

This image released by A24 shows Sadie Sink in a scene from “The Whale.” (A24 via AP)

Brendan Fraser poses for a portrait in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, to promote his film “The Whale.” (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

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The center of gravity of “The Whale” is obviously the 600-pound man at its center. Look closely, though, and he’s the one with a soul as light as a feather.

Charlie is a reclusive, morbidly obese English literature teacher unable and unwilling to stop eating himself to death. As his health woes mount and his life expectancy is put at just a week, Charlie struggles to reacquaint himself with his estranged daughter. We meet him on Monday and the film goes day by day to Friday.

Charlie is a gentle giant, not raging at his fast approaching demise. He’s an optimist and a fierce believer in truth even though there is nothing in his world reinforcing either. “The Whale” is not always pleasant to watch but the payoff and performances make it an astounding film.

Stationary and wheezing on his couch, Charlie is repeatedly visited by a constellation of people — a friendly nurse, his teenage daughter and a young missionary from an apocalyptical church. They all need something from this well-meaning but broken man — spiritual, medical or familial. They are all broken, too.

The movie, based and adapted from the off-Broadway play of the same name by Samuel D. Hunter, is directed by Darren Aronofsky, who helmed such dark tales as “Requiem for a Dream” and “Black Swan.” Hunter’s depiction of the mortification of the flesh perfectly meets a director enamored by the grotesque.

Brendan Fraser has earned lots of Oscar buzz for playing Charlie, allowing his signature puppy dog face to remain despite a massive body suit and swelling prosthetics. And why not? It is one of the most moving performances in years, full of humanity and a redemptive triumph for an actor who hid his talent in quickly forgotten films like “Blast from the Past,” “Hair Brained” and “Airheads.”

The whole cast is perfect, from Sadie Sink as Charlie’s spiky daughter, Hong Chau as his foul-mouthed nursing angel, Ty Simpkins as the missionary with a hidden past and Samantha Morton as his ex-wife with simmering anger and yet still love. There are steady references to Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” which gives the film the title and its doomed vibe.

Charlie has ballooned ever since the death of his same-sex partner, who apparently willed himself to death by wasting away in starvation after their relationship was condemned by his church-leading father. Charlie has apparently decided to die the opposite way.

He is sadly apologetic to his nurse — “I’m sorry,” he says continually — and shuts the video camera on his laptop during his online classes. Even the pizza delivery man doesn’t know what he looks like. “Who would want me to be part of their life?” he asks.

There has been fear that the film might be fatphobic and it’s true that cinematographer Matthew Libatique often leans into unflattering ways to show Charlie, soaping in a shower, straining to stand up or touch the floor, covered in sweat and shoving pizza or fried chicken into his mouth. Maybe some of that could have been touched on instead of lingered on.

But body weight is not what the writer and director want to focus on here. It’s more the weight of guilt and love and faith. “I just want to know I did one good thing in my life!” Charlie shouts. One feels that the underlying issue in “The Whale” could have been obesity as easily as cancer or alcoholism or a blood disorder. Hunter is exploring salvation, redemption, determinism and family.

The play has been sharpened for the screen but there’s no escaping the fact that it is rooted inside Charlie’s Idaho apartment, which he shuffles about in on a walker or later a wheelchair. This doesn’t make for sweeping cinema. Sometimes the apartment feels confining like a ship, adding to the Melville theme.

Some of the filmic attempts are forced, like the symbolically heavy bird that Charlie feeds outside his window, the three times actors rush to leave the apartment only to stop and turn back, and the heavy rain that builds as the film’s climax nears. But this is a film that stays with you and changes you. It is heavy, indeed.

“The Whale,” a A24 release that is in movie theaters on Friday, is rated R for “language, some drug use and sexual content.” Running time: 117 minutes. Four stars out of four.

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Online: https://a24films.com/films/the-whale

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

'The Whale' Angle Few Are Talking About: It's Anti-Christian

The pre-release hype , and catcalls , for “The Whale” gave the drama plenty of free publicity.

It’s Brendan Fraser’s comeback story, many cried, even if the 54-year-old’s resume boasts at least one new project over the last half dozen years.

Others decried the film, depicting an obese man whose weight keeps him confined to his home, as Fatphobia 101 . They cite scenes in which Fraser’s character is shown nearly naked and in unflattering predicaments a la TV’s “My 600 lb. Life .”

The film itself is over-performing at the box office by modern standards – roughly $6 million on 600+ movie screens, according to Box Office Mojo. Many Oscar-bait films have failed to make that number on far more screens nationwide.

What the culture at large, including film critics, are downplaying about the film is clear. “The Whale” is an anti-Christian screed which embeds that loathing in nearly every aspect of the film.

Story spoilers ahead:

Fraser’s Charlie is visited by a stranger early in the film. Played by Ty Simpkins, the character is a missionary named Thomas who tries to make Charlie, who is gay, see the spiritual light. Had Simpkins lingered, and then left, the inclusion wouldn’t be worth mentioning.

Except Thomas returns to Charlie’s home repeatedly during the film. And that’s not Thomas’ only connection to the story. Turns out the church he belongs to has a direct connection to Charlie’s late partner.

That church’s strident views on homosexuality led to the character’s death, an angle the film hammers home in various ways. The partner's passing is a crucial part of Charlie’s back story and a reason why he may be gorging himself to an early grave.

Another character, played by Hong Chau, is Charlie’s closest friend. She, too, has ties to Thomas’ church and repeatedly excoriates faith as a result.

The dialogue is on the nose and unrelenting. You can’t miss it.

Dramas have every right to explore organized religion and, if the story demands, critique faith in compelling ways.

'The Whale' Was Released In Early December

What we see in “The Whale” is more than that. It’s angry, punitive and clearly a vital element of the story. Yet that angle got little attention during the film’s wave of pre-release hype, nor has it been highlighted in many reviews. The Wall Street Journal's critique is an overt exception.

The irony is easy to see. The film asks us to be more empathetic to those who struggle with both weight and homosexuality, both conveyed with conviction by Fraser’s performance. Yet there’s zero empathy for those who find solace in religion.

Brendan Fraser stars in "The Whale". (Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage).

A third-act plot point targets Thomas in an incredibly cruel manner and offers the only glint of warmth to the religion bashing.

Director Darren Aronofsky didn’t pen “The Whale.” It’s based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter, who adapted the material for the film. The acclaimed director’s stance on religion is a recurring motif in his work and Hunter changed Thomas from a Mormon to a Christian for "The Whale."

In 2014, Aronofsky delivered “Noah” with Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. The director described his vision as the “least-biblical biblical film ever made” and hoped it would help combat Climate Change.

The film opened with a strong $43 million at the U.S. box office but quickly sank as audiences realized it lacked a spiritual component many expected.

Aronofsky's 2017 bomb “mother!” evoked faith in dark and disturbing ways. The liberal Salon.com called that film’s angle as, “ religion as misogyny and sadism .”

So why are so few “Whale” watchers ignoring the film’s stern assault on religion? Have these attacks become so mainstream we barely recognize their anger? Or does the press fear that angle might hurt the film’s box office chances?

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2022, Drama, 1h 57m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Held together by a killer Brendan Fraser, The Whale sings a song of empathy that will leave most viewers blubbering. Read critic reviews

Audience Says

With a heartbreaking story brought powerfully to life by Brendan Fraser's starring performance, The Whale 's as hard to watch as it is to look away from. Read audience reviews

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The whale videos, the whale   photos.

A reclusive English teacher suffering from severe obesity attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter for one last chance at redemption.

Rating: R (Sexual Content|Language|Some Drug Use)

Genre: Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writer: Samuel D. Hunter

Release Date (Theaters): Dec 21, 2022  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Feb 21, 2023

Box Office (Gross USA): $17.2M

Runtime: 1h 57m

Distributor: A24

Production Co: Protozoa Pictures

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Brendan Fraser

Ty Simpkins

Samantha Morton

Darren Aronofsky

Samuel D. Hunter

Screenwriter

News & Interviews for The Whale

How Oscar Winner Brendan Fraser Became Charlie in The Whale

Oscar Winners 2023: Full List of the 95th Academy Awards Winners

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Someone Like You

Based on the novel by #1 NYTimes bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, "Someone Like You" is an achingly beautiful love story. After the tragic loss of his best friend, a grieving young archit... Read all Based on the novel by #1 NYTimes bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, "Someone Like You" is an achingly beautiful love story. After the tragic loss of his best friend, a grieving young architect launches a search for her secret twin sister. Based on the novel by #1 NYTimes bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, "Someone Like You" is an achingly beautiful love story. After the tragic loss of his best friend, a grieving young architect launches a search for her secret twin sister.

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'3 Body Problem' presents a fascinating take on an alien invasion story

Eric Deggans

Based on the sci-fi book series Remembrance of Earth's Past , the Netflix series 3 Body Problem imagines Earth's first extensive contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

An interpretation of a celebrated Chinese science-fiction novel, "Remembrance Of Earth's Past," debuts tomorrow on Netflix. The series is called "3 Body Problem." NPR TV critic Eric Deggans gives us his impressions of this new take on an alien invasion story.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: "3 Body Problem" actually starts with two problems - first, a string of unexplained suicides by scientists where they write numbers on the wall in their own blood. These deaths are investigated by two men, one of whom is played by Marvel movie alum Benedict Wong.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "3 BODY PROBLEM")

BENEDICT WONG: (As Da Shi) Another countdown.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) One of the betting sites had him pegged as a favorite for the next Nobel Prize in physics.

WONG: (As Da Shi) You can bet on that?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You can bet on anything, boss.

DEGGANS: That corpse was actually missing his eyes.

The other problem is that science seems to have stopped working, as researchers report results from experiments in supercolliders that make no sense. Jovan Adepo plays a scientist puzzling over what's happened with a colleague.

JOVAN ADEPO: (As Saul Durand) You told us it doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is - if it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) I think that was Feynman, but yeah.

ADEPO: (As Saul Durand) According to the experiments, all of our theories are wrong. All of the physics of the past 60 years is wrong. Science is broken.

DEGGANS: If you're sensing that "3 Body Problem" takes its time in building a narrative, then you've discovered a third problem. It takes a while to gather steam. You're three episodes in before the narrative really gets arresting, and there's a bit of filler in the early episodes. This may not be a surprise, given two of the Netflix series' three creators are David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, former showrunners of HBO's "Game Of Thrones," a program which could have its own problems with narrative flow. Still, once "3 Body Problem" gets going, it reveals a unique kind of invasion attacking the world's scientists, who start seeing a bizarre countdown appear in their vision no one else can perceive. Eiza Gonzalez is one of those scientists who thinks she's going crazy until she gets a visit from a very mysterious woman.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) The Lord has a better way.

EIZA GONZALEZ: (As Auggie Salazar) Listen, you seem like a very nice person. I'm just not interested, OK?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) How far as it got - the countdown? How much time do you have left? It's easy to make it stop. You put an end to your work. You shut down the lab. Simple.

DEGGANS: Simple? Well, I'm not so sure about that. This show is based on a 2008 novel by Chinese engineer and science fiction writer Liu Cixin, which became a book series that won praise from big names like Barack Obama. It popularized Chinese science-fiction internationally, and it makes compelling observations about the nature of society and technological progress, some of which find their way into the TV show. It kind of makes sense that Netflix, which has found success funneling audiences to TV shows from South Korea, Latin America and all over the world, would crack this sprawling narrative. The story reaches back to a young Chinese scientist watching an angry mob during China's Cultural Revolution.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character, non-English language spoken).

DEGGANS: They beat her father to death, who's also a scientist, for refusing to recant the Big Bang theory of the universe's beginnings.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character, shouting) Ah.

DEGGANS: "3 Body Problem" shows that scientist, fueled by hate and loss, making a decision which puts the entire planet at risk. The TV show amps up the thriller elements from the books to pose a compelling challenge - how to fight an alien enemy targeting the world's scientific progress. The story arcs across many genres, combining an ambitious narrative with ideas rooted in actual science and eye-popping visual effects to create a truly impressive tale. Just remember to be patient early on as it sets the stage. I'm Eric Deggans.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAMIN DJAWADI'S "MAIN TITLE (FROM THE NETFLIX SERIES "3 BODY PROBLEM")"

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Native customs meet social media

'One With the Whale’ shows Indigenous communities grapple with change

by Joe Tarr

March 25, 2024

A still from One With the Whale.

'One With the Whale,' which will screen April 5 at UW Music Hall, explores how a small Native community is grappling with forces beyond its control.

There’s a scene early on in One With the Whale that provides a lot of context for what Native communities in the far reaches of Alaska are grappling with. A woman walks through a sparsely stocked grocery store, explaining to the film crew that there’s usually a shortage of fresh produce. She holds up one item from the shelf and says, “This box of rice is $11.29.” 

That’s the inflationary reality of life in the town of Gambell on Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island, which is located in the Bering Sea and closer to Russia than it is to mainland Alaska. 

People have lived here for thousands of years, but to survive they must hunt and fish. As the school principal explains in the film, “If you don’t do subsistence activities, you die.” 

One With the Whale , which will screen April 5 at UW Music Hall, explores how this small Native community is grappling with forces beyond its control. Climate change is melting the ice that they rely on to hunt seals and walruses. And the connectivity of social media has been a mixed blessing, offering both a connection and a menace.

The film focuses on the family of Chris Agra Apassingok, who made headlines in 2017 when he was just 16 for harpooning a bowhead whale. The kill helped feed the community and he was widely celebrated there as a hero. But on social media, Chris was denounced as a monster and strangers wished him death. For others in the village, social media is a lifeline. Chris’ sister Nalu is able to connect with the LGBTQ community in Anchorage, where she eventually moves.

Pete Chelkowski, co-director of the film, tells Isthmus that he and his filmmaking partner, Jim Wickens, wanted to document the racism that often exists in environmental spaces. And they hoped to show how communities try to endure in a changing world. (Justine Nagan, a co-producer on the film, is a 2000 graduate of UW-Madison and the film’s Wisconsin connection.)

Some of the most stunning scenes are on the small hunting boats, as Chris, his father and others from the village venture miles into the frigid cold in search of food. 

Aside from the powerboats and the rifles, the hunting ritual has likely changed little in thousands of years. When the whale is dragged to land, the whole community comes out to partake in the ritual butchering.

The hunting scenes might be difficult for animal lovers to watch. Chelkowski says that although he felt “empathy for this wonderful creature,” overall, these hunting trips had an atmosphere of joy and community. 

“The hunt never felt vulgar,” he says. “Without that whale, they don’t survive. If you want to put it in Christian terms, this is the body of Christ.” 

ISTHMUS is © 2021 Isthmus Community Media, Inc. | All rights reserved. | Madison, Wisconsin | USA

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March 22, 2024 - Catherine, Princess of Wales, says she has cancer

By Thom Poole, Peter Wilkinson , Laura Smith-Spark , Tori B. Powell and Elise Hammond , CNN

In pictures: Catherine, Princess of Wales

From CNN Digital's Photo Team

Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed Friday that she has been  diagnosed with cancer  and is in the "early stages" of treatment.

Kate married Prince William, now the heir apparent to the British throne, in 2011. They met while attending the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

See  more photos from Kate's life.

US President Biden wishes Kate "full recovery"

US President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden wished Catherine, the Princess of Wales, a full recovery.

"Jill and I join millions around the world in praying for your full recovery, Princess Kate," he said on X , formerly Twitter.

Kate's whereabouts became a subject of frenzied speculation over the last few months

From CNN's Christian Edwards

Before Catherine, Princess of Wales , revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer on Friday, she had been mostly absent from the public eye since undergoing abdominal surgery in January.

Kate’s health and whereabouts became the subject of frenzied speculation , despite the palace reiterating that it had “made clear in January the timelines of the Princess’ recovery” and that the public should not expect to see her until after Easter.

Kate was first seen in public earlier this month after she was spotted in Windsor wearing dark sunglasses and sitting in the front passenger seat of a car driven by her mother, Carole Middleton.

Speculation about Kate’s health continued, putting pressure on the family to reveal more details.

Trying to put rumors to rest: In what appeared to be an attempt to end the rumors, Kate published an official photograph of her and her three children — George, Charlotte and Louis — on Mother’s Day, which was marked in the UK on March 10.

But instead of ending the speculation, it  fueled it instead . Members of the public swiftly noticed several irregularities in the image. After a day of more amateur sleuthing, Kate admitted that she had edited the photograph, and apologized. Multiple global news agencies recalled the image from circulation hours later, citing manipulation concerns.

Records investigation : Most recently, the UK’s data watchdog said earlier this week that it is “assessing” reports that a staff member at the London Clinic allegedly  tried to access  Kate’s private medical records.

Here's what we know so far about Kate's cancer diagnosis

From CNN staff

Catherine, Princess of Wales, announced Friday she has been diagnosed with cancer and is in the "early stages" of chemotherapy treatment.

The princess, known as Kate, described her diagnosis as a “huge shock” in a video  statement  that was filmed by BBC Studios at Windsor on Wednesday.

“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment," the princess said. "My work has always brought me a deep sense of joy and I look forward to being back when I am able, but for now I must focus on making a full recovery."

Here's what we know so far:

• Few details expected: Kate, 42, who is married to the heir to the British throne, Prince William, did not say what type of cancer she had been diagnosed with and Kensington Palace is not expected to reveal any further medical details, such as what stage the cancer is in.
• Abdominal surgery: The announcement comes two months after Kate had stepped away from public life temporarily following what Kensington Palace said at the time was surgery for a non-cancerous abdominal conditio n. She remained in a London hospital for 13 days following the procedure. Kate was spotted in public last weekend for the first time since January, visiting a farm shop with her husband.
• Preventative chemotherapy: The princess started preventative chemotherapy in late February, a royal source told CNN. She had been expected to return to official duties after Easter. However, she will now postpone further work until she has been cleared by her medical team, the source said.
• Reactions: The news prompted a wave of sympathy and support from public figures around the world, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak , King Charles , Prince Harry and Meghan , the head of England's National Health Service , Kate's brother James Middleton , French President Emmanuel Macron , as well as the White House and US first lady Jill Biden .
• King Charles also has cancer: Kate's diagnosis is a devastating blow for the British monarchy as  King Charles III is currently undergoing treatment  for an unspecified cancer, which was announced in early February.
• How to tell children: In the time Kate spent away from the public before revealing her cancer diagnosis, one of her biggest priorities was finding the right way to tell her children, she said. CNN understands the royal couple wanted to wait for their young children to be out of school for the Easter vacation before making an announcement. When talking to young people about a parent's cancer diagnosis, experts advise taking the child's age into account. Read more for tips on how to talk to kids about cancer diagnoses.

French president says Princess of Wales' "strength and resilience inspire us all"

From CNN's Amy Cassidy

Princess of Wales' "strength and resilience inspire us all," French President Emmanuel Macron wrote in a post on X on Friday.

Princess of Wales' brother sends touching message after shocking cancer news

From CNN's Niamh Kennedy in London 

James Middleton, the brother of the Princess of Wales, wrote a touching message on Instagram to his sister Friday after her shocking cancer announcement . 

The 36-year-old entrepreneur shared an old family photo of him with his teenage sister.

Prince Harry and Meghan send best wishes to Kate after cancer diagnosis

From CNN’s Max Foster 

Prince Harry and Meghan have sent their well wishes to Catherine, Princess of Wales, after she announced a cancer diagnosis Friday.

"We wish health and healing for Kate and the family, and hope they are able to do so privately and in peace," the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said in a statement.

US first lady Jill Biden to Princess of Wales: "You are brave, and we love you"

From CNN's Arlette Saenz

US first lady Jill Biden posted a message of support on social media for Catherine, Princess of Wales, after the disclosure of her cancer diagnosis.

“You are brave, and we love you. ~Jill,” the first lady wrote on X while re-posting the video message from the princess earlier today. 

Kate started preventative chemotherapy last month, source says

From CNN's Max Foster and Lauren Said-Moorhouse

The video in which the Princess of Wales revealed her cancer diagnosis was filmed by BBC Studios at Windsor on Wednesday.

Kensington Palace is not expected to reveal any further medical details, such as the type of cancer or what stage it is.

The princess started preventative chemotherapy in late February, a royal source told CNN.

Kate had been expected to return to official duties after Easter. However, she will now postpone further work until she has been cleared by her medical team, the source said.

Prince William has been balancing supporting his wife and children while continuing his public-facing duties and will continue to do so, the source added. 

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‘Lousy Carter’ Review: David Krumholtz Contemplates Life After Lousiness as a Terminally Ill Loser

Christian zilko.

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Ever since his high school golf teammates realized he couldn’t hit a straight tee shot, Carter ( David Krumholtz ) has been saddled with a nickname that doesn’t allow much room for charitable interpretations. His days of athletic mediocrity are now far behind him, but the “ Lousy Carter ” moniker has followed him throughout his adult life — and frankly, it’s hard to argue he doesn’t deserve it. The question of whether his high school bullies were abnormally clairvoyant or he simply lived down to their insults is a chicken-and-egg dilemma, but the middle-aged iteration of Carter that we meet in Bob Byington’s latest film is an undeniably lousy man.

Carter’s lack of ambition, isolated personal life, and destructive habits should be glaring signs that he’s setting himself up for some real despair in the near future. But the lousy golfer isn’t too worried about the back nine of life, because he only has six months to live. The terminal diagnosis doesn’t bother him as much as it should, since he’s not leaving much behind besides medical debt and boring paperwork. Years of alcoholism and professional failures probably numbed his emotions long before the movie starts, so the news of his impending doom fails to elicit much more than a resounding shrug.

Carter realizes that he’s never had an affair with a pupil, a problem he tries to rectify by inviting Gail (Luxy Banner) into his “Great Gatsby” seminar that’s supposed to be capped at eight students. Rather than the genuine horniness that has brought down so many men in similar positions of power, Carter’s attempt at an exploitative relationship stems from his idea that preying on students is something that a dying professor should want to do. He pays Gail to star in his animated “Lolita” film, which he has now decided to finish before he dies as a way of filling the hours that he can’t spend drinking. When her apathy toward him stalls his plans, he pivots to sleeping with his best friend’s wife.

As a character study, “Lousy Carter” is a depressingly realistic portrait of a certain breed of toxic has-beens who waste away in tenured jobs at liberal arts campuses across America. And to Krumholtz’s credit, he gives a believable performance as the kind of loser who deserves a harsher epithet than “lousy” in front of his name. Media literacy might condition viewers to suspect there’s a massive secret lurking beneath his facade, some hidden brilliance or life-defining trauma that’s just waiting to be discovered. When that reveal never arrives, we’re left to infer that the real truth behind the film is that some men are just irredeemably lousy.

A Magnolia Pictures release, “Lousy Carter” opens in select theaters and on VOD platforms on Friday, March 29.

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Apple TV+ shows and movies: Everything to watch on Apple TV Plus

Apple TV+ offers exclusive Apple original TV shows and movies in 4K HDR quality. You can watch across all of your screens and pick up where you left off on any device. Apple TV+ costs $9.99 per month. Here’s every Apple original television show and movie available now on Apple TV+, as well as the latest trailers …

Apple TV+ content is available exclusively through the Apple TV app . You can watch on your Apple TV set-top box, iPhone, or iPad as you might expect.

But you don’t need the latest Apple TV 4K to enjoy Apple TV+. The TV app is also available on other platforms like Amazon Fire TV , Roku , Sony PlayStation , Xbox , and even the web at tv.apple.com .

Apple TV+ offers original comedies, dramas, thrillers, documentaries, and kids shows.

For your $9.99/month subscription, you can watch all of Apple’s originals — as listed below. You can download to watch offline too. Apple is adding new content every single month.

How to watch the free Apple TV+ shows

The TV app is the exclusive destination for Apple TV+, but the TV app is a little confusing because it blends together purchasable TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store, which you can buy or rent, content from other apps like Amazon Prime and Disney+, and Apple TV Channels.

The Watch Now screen does not really distinguish between content that you own and can watch, and just Apple’s general recommendations.

The easiest way to get started with Apple TV+ is to open the Apple TV app on your device , and tap on the Originals tab. (On some platforms, this tab is simply labelled using the ‘tv+’ logo.)

This tab takes you to the Apple TV+ channel page. This shows you all of the Apple TV+ shows and movies available to watch, separated into categories like comedy, drama and family fun.

Be aware, the web experience at tv.apple.com is a bit barebonds compared to the native TV app on devices, and it only shows Apple original content. For the best experience, use the TV app on a device like Apple TV 4K .

What to watch on Apple TV+

Apple TV+ (Apple TV Plus, or as some erroneously call it Apple+ TV) is still in its infancy but has already seen breakout hits including comedy Ted Lasso and workplace sci-fi drama Severance .

Apple aims for premium quality across its drama, comedy, and documentary TV shows and movies so everything should reach a reasonable level of quality and hopefully be worth your time. In terms of personal recommendations, I suggest starting with Ted Lasso , For All Mankind , Severance , Trying , and the movie Finch .

Read on to see all of the TV shows, movies and specials streaming now on Apple TV+ as well as trailers for upcoming releases.

All Apple TV+ TV shows and movies (updated March 29, 2024):

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Latest Trailers

Girls State premieres April 5.

Colin Farrell stars as a private investigator in new drama Sugar .

Michael Douglas is Benjamin Franklin , streaming April 12.

STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces

Steve Martin’s life is the subject of this documentary by Morgan Neville, unusually told in two feature-length parts, each with different styles of filmmaking. “Then” covers Martin’s early life with the usual fare of archive footage, whereas the second part “Now” takes a more conversational approach with Martin himself leading the story.

Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock

Back to the Rock is a full series reboot of the original franchise, featuring recognizable characters like Gobo, Red, Boober, and Mokey as well as some new additions and celebrity guest cameos. Follow the Fraggles and Doozers as they embark on a new set of fun adventures, down in Fraggle Rock.

Palm Royale

Kristen Wiig, Ricky Martin, Laura Dern, and Carol Burnett are just some of the actors in this star-studded drama. Maxine Simmons (Wiig) wants to break into high society and join the exclusive Palm Royale club, but how much of her morals will she sacrifice along the way to achieve this?

This limited series depicts the twelve day search for John Wilkes Booth, following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Anthony Boyle stars as Booth, while Tobias Menzies plays Edwin Stanton, the lead organizer of the manhunt.

The Reluctant Traveler

Eugene Levy travels the world in this fun docuseries, facing all manner of personal challenges along the way. Levy takes a helicopter tour across the Utah desert, tries sumo wrestling in Toyko, stays at a deluxe island resort in the Maldives, assists conservation efforts in South Africa, and more across eight awe-inspiring episodes.

The Reluctant Traveler is renewed and a third season is in the works.

The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin

Noel Fielding stars as the famous highwayman Dick Turpin, in a wacky and absurdist comedy. Despite his repeated protests, Turpin is made the leader of a band of outlaws and the series follows the group as they embark on increasingly wild and zany adventures.

Earthsounds

Sound is the focus of this latest Apple TV+ nature docuseries. The noise of ostrich chicks inside their eggs, snow leopards singing love songs, and the sound of walrus’s underwater courtship are all featured in the series, with sequences narrated by Tom Hiddleston.

Messi’s World Cup: The Rise of a Legend

Lionel Messi finally achieved World Cup glory at Qatar 2022. This four-part docuseries charts the soccer legend’s performance across the last five World Cups, through the ups and downs, culminating in the ultimate career prize.

Constellation

Noomi Rapace stars as Jo, an astronaut who returns to Earth after a stint on the space station ends catastrophically. Back on the ground, though, Jo is haunted by self-doubt and questions her own sanity. Jonathan Banks also stars in the series.

The Dynasty: New England Patriots

The ten-part docuseries dives deep into the Tom Brady era of the New England Patriots. Featuring exclusive interviews with Brady, coach Bill Belichick, and others, the series charts the team’s momentous rise to success and six-time Super Bowl glory.

The New Look

The drama follows Christian Dior and Coco Chanel as they launch modern fashion in the midst of World War II. Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche, John Malkovich and Maisie Williams round out the cast.

Sago Mini Friends

Based on characters from the award-winning app Sago Mini World, this preschool series explores gratitude and thankfulness with fun animated adventures and original music, set in the world of Sagoville.

Masters of the Air

From the makers of ‘Band of Brothers’ and ‘The Pacific’, Masters of the Air follows the 100th Bomb Group in a nine-part epic battle for the skies. With vast scope and meticulous attention to detail, the series captures all of the triumphs and horrors of the World War II daylight bombings raids.

Criminal Record

Detective June Lenker (Cush Jumbo) confronts chief inspector Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi) in this British crime drama, facing off about the circumstances surrounding the guilty verdict of an old murder case, as new information comes to light by way of an anonymous tip-off. The series shows how institutional racism and failings of the police process serve to obstruct finding the actual truth.

John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial

In this three-part documentary, people close to John Lennon reflect on his life and death. The series examines the events surrounding his murder, including new eyewitness interviews and never-before-seen crime scene photos, as well as the many conspiracy theories that sprung up in the aftermath of the killing.

Slow Horses

Gary Oldman leads this adaptation of the Mick Herron book series, about a division of MI5 rejects. The Slough Horse group are consigned to a live of admin and drudgery, until they become embroiled in an active hostage situation.

Slow Horses is currently on season three. It has already been renewed for a fourth and fifth season.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Set in the world of Godzilla, this cinematic series follows two siblings as they uncover their family ties to the mysterious Monarch organization. With the show spanning multiple generations, stars Kurt and Wyatt Russell portray younger and older versions of the same character, officer Lee Shaw.

For All Mankind

For All Mankind explores what could have happened if the Russians got to the Moon first in 1969. This inspires the US government to continue the space race. The show forges an alternate timeline of NASA with the first season covering the 1969-1974 period. Season two picks up in 1983, as the USA and USSR face off in a space race cold war.

The Buccaneers

Inspired by an unfinished Edith Wharton novel, The Buccaneers sees a group of rich American women trying to find a posh English other half. The group descend into a culture clash of 1870s London society.

The Buccaneers is renewed and a second season is in the works.

The Enfield Poltergeist

The infamous poltergeist case is explored in this docuseries with dramatic recreations that use the original audio recordings of the events in question. Subject Janet Hodgson is interviewed and reflects on the long-lasting consequences of the investigation.

In this animated series, an ancient curse turns a beloved father, Alex, into a stone statue. His two children, Pandora and Russ, embark on a magical quest to collect stolen artifacts, lift the family curse, and bring Alex back.

Lessons in Chemistry

Elizabeth Zott’s dream of becoming a scientist is stalled by the realities of a patriarchal society. Fired from the lab, she finds her feet as the host of a TV cooking show. And suddenly, everyone is listening to her. Brie Larson stars in this adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name.

Messi Meets America

Soccer legend Lionel Messi joined Major League Soccer in July 2023 and immediately made his mark. This docuseries covers Messi’s arrival at Inter Miami and the events of his thrilling match debut. The series shows how Messi propelled MLS’s popularity, garnering worldwide attention, record-breaking merch sales, and sold-out stadium crowds.

Interrupting Chicken

Inspired by the Interrupting Chicken book series, this preschool series introduces children to the world of creative writing. The show revolves around the main character Piper, a little chicken with a big imagination.

Lisa is an illustrator, Danny is a journalist. Their friendship is bonded by a common trait — insomnia. Despite never meeting in person, while everyone else sleeps at night, they text each other for hours. The series follows the antics of their lives as their relationship blooms.

The Super Models

A four-part documentary series on the four elite supermodels of the ’80s; Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. With exclusive interviews and archive footage, the documentary shows how the illustrious models catapulted themselves to stardom, disrupting the power dynamics of an entire industry along the way.

The Morning Show

A drama exploring the power dynamics in the world of morning news broadcasts. The story opens with anchor Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) facing sexual misconduct allegations. Newcomer Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) aspires to replace Kessler in the prime-time slot, and clashes with longtime host Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston). In the second season, the show unravels the ramifications further against a backdrop of the beginnings of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Morning Show Season Four Release Date

The show has been renewed for a fourth season. An exact release date for the new season is not yet known.

The Changeling

Based on the book by Victor LaValle, The Changeling is described as a dark fairy tale. Apollo (LaKeith Stanfield) first believes that Emma is experiencing the effects of postpartum depression, but it quickly unravels into a whole other world of horror, fantasy, and mythology.

Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn was one of the most respected business leaders in the world, until a 2018 scandal saw his entire reputation destroyed. He was facing lengthy jail time for fraudulent misuse of company assets. Incredibly, Ghosn escapes Japanese arrest by being smuggled out of the country inside a musical equipment case. This four-part documentary dives deep into this extraordinarily weird tale.

This sci-fi series shows the effects of an alien invasion from several different perspectives around the world. Spanning five continents, Invasion is theoretically huge in scope, although it prefers to focus on the minutiae of individual characters’ experiences rather than a character-driven adventure.

Invasion has finished its second season. A third season is in development.

Strange Planet

Adapted from Nathan W. Pyle’s viral social media comic of the same name, Strange Planet is an animated TV series that explores the absurdity of human life through the lens of these cute blue alien beings.

Rose Byrne stars as Sheila Rubin in this dramedy set in the ’80s. Stricken by a serious eating disorder, Sheila turns to the aerobics craze to find motivation and self-worth. Her hobby quickly develops into something more however, as student becomes teacher and she forges a new career.

Physical concluded with its final season on August 2, 2023.

Based on the genre-defining novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation is an epic sci-fi adventure. Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) predicts the downfall of the Galactic Empire and recruits a band of exiles to carry out his plan to save the future of humanity.

A third season of Foundation is in development. A release date is not yet known.

The Afterparty

The Afterparty retells the story of a night gone wrong from eight different perspectives, with each account presented through the lens of a different film genre. Tiffany Haddish plays the lead detective in this murder mystery whodunnit comedy series.

The Afterparty concluded with its final season on July 12, 2023.

Duck & Goose

Based on the best-selling children’s books, Duck & Goose is a cartoon series aimed at preschool age. Titular characters Duck and Goose learn to appreciate each other’s differences and become even closer friends.

Idris Elba stars in this airplane hijack thriller, with the seven hour ordeal portrayed in real-time across seven episodes. Sam Nelson (Elba) negotiates in-the-air while ground control investigates the histories of the people onboard.

Swagger dissects the world of youth basketball, inspired by the experiences of NBA legend Kevin Durant. O’Shea Jackson Jr. stars as coach Ike, who helps Jace Carson (played by Isaiah Hill) navigate his burgeoning sports career. Ike is as much father-figure as he his coach. The show covers off-the-court storylines too, including the pressures of social media, child abuse and police brutality.

Unfortunately for fans of the series, Swagger has been cancelled and will not return for a third season.

Lovely Little Farm

Sisters Jacky and Jill explore what it is like to work, and grow up, on a farm. In the series, they nurture a mysterious golden egg that hatches into a baby dragon. Lovely Little Farm is a loving children’s series that beautifully blends live-action and computer animation.

The Crowded Room

Tom Holland stars as Danny Sullivan in this 10-part series, who is arrested on suspicion of his involvement with a New York City shooting. He claims innocence, initially. Much of the story is revealed through interviews with interrogator Rya Goodwin (played Amanda Seyfried), in which the mystery unravels as Sullivan is forced to reflect on all aspects of his life.

The Snoopy Show

A whole new set of adventures with Snoopy and friends for the whole family to enjoy, drawing on the spirit of the classic cartoons but rendered in a modern computer animated 2D style. The series will surely delight young viewers as well as parents with pangs of nostalgia.

Rose Byrne and Seth Rogan star in this new comedy series, which flirts with the idea of two people just being friends. Playing Sylvia and Will respectively, the series sees the characters rekindle their friendship after many years apart, leading to some hilarious antics and midlife escapades.

A second season of Platonic is in development. A release date is not yet known.

Prehistoric Planet

David Attenborough narrates this stunning dinosaur docuseries. From the creators of Planet Earth, Prehistoric Planet blends state-of-the-art visual effects with the latest scientific understanding to demonstrate dinosaur behavior like never before.

In this charming animated kids series, three kids gain new perspectives on the world thanks to their new best friend, Stillwater the panda. Stillwater helps the children make sense of their emotions. The series received a Peabody award for outstanding children’s programming.

High Desert

Patricia Arquette stars as Peggy, a drug addict who wants to make a fresh start following the death of her mother. She decides to become a private investigator, and becomes entwined in a web of mysteries in this dark comedy series.

High Desert was cancelled after the debut of its first season on May 17, 2023.

City on Fire

Samantha, an NYU student, is shot in Central Park on July 4th, 2003. She appears to have been alone — there are no witnesses. As the mystery of the show unfolds, It turns out the truth of her apparent murder is connected to a series of fires that have been started across New York.

Eight episodes of City on Fire were released. Since the first season came out, the show has been cancelled.

Based on Hugh Howey’s best-selling book series, Silo sees the last of mankind living in a vast underground bunker, without knowing exactly why they ended up down there. No one is allowed to leave. The mystery of the silo unravels as the protagonists hunt for the truth.

Silo Season Two Release Date

Silo fans will welcome the news that the series has been renewed for a second season. A release date for the upcoming season is yet to be confirmed.

Harriet the Spy

Inspired by the classic children’s novel, Harriet the Spy is newly adapted for television as an animated series. 11-year-old Harriet (voiced by Beanie Feldstein) is an aspiring writer and absorbs as much as information about the world around her as possible, jotting it down in her notebook.

Frog and Toad

Based on the popular children’s books by Arnold Lobel, this cartoon centers on two best friends, Frog and Toad. The show explores friendship in all its forms, and how we should all embrace what makes us different and unique.

Drops of God

Fine wine is on the line in this dramatic adaptation of popular manga Drops of God. Camille is the daughter of Alexandre Leger, a highly respected figure in oenology. Following his death, Camille has to compete to earn the rights to her father’s endowment — an extraordinary wine collection. The series features both French and Japanese language dialogue.

From the same producers as Apple TV+ docuseries Tiny World, Big Beasts looks at the giants of the animal kingdom, including the gray whale, the orangutan, and the polar bear. Filmed across seventeen countries, the series features never-before-recorded sequences of animal behavior. The show is narrated by Tom Hiddleston.

Jane, an aspiring young environmentalist, who wants to save as many endangered animals as possible. Using leading computer graphics techniques to bring the animals featured in the stories to life, the series charts epic adventures to save wild animals from across the globe.

The Last Thing He Told Me

The New York Times bestseller The Last Thing He Told Me is dramatised in this limited series adaptation starring Jennifer Garner. The story follows Hannah, whose seemingly-perfect partner Owen unexpectedly vanishes. He leaves behind a note for his daughter that ominously reads ‘Protect her’. Hannah realizes she didn’t really know her husband at all.

A second season of The Last Thing He Told Me has been confirmed and is in development. An exact release date for season two is not yet known.

Boom! Boom: The World vs. Boris Becker

A two-part documentary on the topsy turvy life of tennis player Boris Becker, who was ultimately sent to prison for bankruptcy fraud. The series includes interviews with Becker, as well as other tennis icons like John McEnroe and Novak Djokovic.

Schmigadoon!

Schmigadoon embraces the parody of classic musicals with a story of a couple getting trapped in a mystical musical town until they can find true love. Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong are joined by Broadway heavyweights including Alan Cumming, Jane Krakowski, Kristen Chenoweth, Aaron Tveit and Ann Harada in this star-studded cast.

The run of Schmigadoon! on Apple TV+ has ended. The show was cancelled after the release of its second season.

Eva the Owlet

Based on the book series ‘Owl Diaries’, Eva the Owlet is a beautifully animated childrens series. With ambition and personality, Eva and her best friend Lucy go on many different adventures, logging her progress in her journal as she goes.

The Big Door Prize

Chris O’Dowd leads this comedy series adaptation of best-selling book The Big Door Prize, in which a mysterious machine appears in a small town shop. The machine promises to tell people their true life’s potential.

The Big Door Prize has been renewed for a second season. New episodes premiere on April 24.

My Kind of Country

Apple TV+’s first competition series, My Kind of Country, highlights upcoming talent in country music. Artists are scouted and mentored by Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton and Orville Peck. The contestants are hoping to win a prestigious endorsement prize from Apple Music.

Monster Factory

This documentary series explores the world of wrestling through the lens of the Monster Factory, a training school in New Jersey led by a tough-yet-caring coach Danny Cage. As a former wrestler himself, Cage is motivated to help the new recruits achieve their dreams of going pro.

Extrapolations

Director Scott Z. Burns brings climate change to the fore in this star-studded limited series. Across eight interconnected episodes, Extrapolations speculates how human life will be forced to adapt to the changing climate, and whether there’s a chance to turn back the the clock and reverse the trends of what seems like an inevitable fate.

Ted Lasso follows an American football coach who comes to England to lead … a soccer team. However, this show is much richer than a typical fish-out-of-water story. Ted Lasso may not know about the intricacies of soccer but he employs his unyielding optimism to bring out the best in his players.

This heartwarming and funny comedy series has been widely received by audiences and earned much critical acclaim.

Real Madrid: Until The End

This three-part series gives an inside look at Real Madrid’s legendary run during the 2021-2022 Champions League football season. The team ultimately defy their critics to score their 14th Champions League title.

Vincent Cassel and Eva Green star in Apple’s first French language original series. The crime thriller sees Alison Rowdy (Green) and Gabriel Delage (Cassel) struggle with the secrets of their relationship in the wake of major international cyber attacks against the United Kingdom.

Pretzel and the Puppies

Pretzel is the world’s longest dachshund. He has a supportive dad to five puppies, and husband to wife Greta. In this animated series, follow Pretzel and his family as they try to make the world a better place.

Make or Break

Make or Break jumps into the world of professional surfing, with exclusive access to follow some of the best surfers on the planet as they experience the highs and lows of competing in the World Surf League season.

Hello Tomorrow

Billy Crudup stars as salesman Jack in this retro-future sci-fi series, in which Jack and a cohort of others are trying to find homebuyers for promised lunar timeshares. But everything is not as it first seems and Jack’s headstrong ambition and charisma masks a darker truth.

Dear Edward

A horrific plane crash kills everyone onboard apart from Edward, a 12-year-old boy. Based on the novel of the same name by Ann Napolitano, this emotional drama series explores the effects of grief and spontaneous camaraderie of the families left behind.

Unfortunately for fans of the series, Dear Edward has been cancelled and will not return for a second season.

Pinecone & Pony

Based on the book by Kate Beaton, Pinecone & Pony is a beautiful family cartoon starring a young warrior, Pinecone, and her best friend, Pony. A world of magic and adventure awaits in this children’s comedy series.

Jason Segel plays James Laird, a grieving therapist who throws out the classical rulebook. Instead, he tells his clients his raw, unfiltered, thoughts about their problems. This has life-changing consequences on them, and himself. Harrison Ford also stars in the series.

A second season of Shrinking is in development. A release date is not yet known.

Truth Be Told

True-crime podcaster Poppy Parnell, played by Octavia Spencer, reopens a murder case as new evidence comes to light about the crime she originally investigated and brodcast to the world. In season two, Poppy Parnell follows the trail of a different case with help from lifelong friend Micah Keith (Kate Hudson).

The run of Truth Be Told on Apple TV+ has ended. The show was cancelled after the release of its third season.

Shape Island

Go on adventures with Circle, Triangle and Square in this stop-motion animation adaptation of the children’s book series by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen. The Shapes aren’t all the same, but they learn how best to work together.

A psychological thriller produced by M. Night Shyamalan, told in 30-minute chunks. The family suffers the death of their baby at 13-weeks, and get a substitute baby doll as a kind of therapy. The grief-stricken mother becomes so attached to the doll she hires a mysterious nanny to care for it.

Servant ended with its fourth season on January 13, 2023.

Super League: The War for Football

A four-part series detailing the (ultimately failed) attempts to create a breakway league of top clubs in European football. The documentary features exclusive interviews with the masterminds of the planned European Super League, including access to club owners and league presidents.

Puppy Place

Siblings Charles and Lizzie share their love for dogs in this live action TV show for kids, inspired by the Scholastic book series. In each episode, the family find a caring and loving home for each of the puppies that come their way.

Little America

Little America is a half-hour anthology series that explores amazing tales of immigrants in America, spanning the gamut of human emotion and experience. Each episode is based on a true story from the Epic Magazine feature of the same name.

A young scientist, Amber, has been captured and held hostage somewhere near the Colombia-Venezuela border. Amber’s military veteran brother Bambi (Luke Evans) and husband Prince (Michiel Huisman) undertake a treacherous search and rescue mission to try to find her, in this intense action thriller.

Circuit Breakers

Circuit Breakers is an anthology series for kids and families to enjoy together, featuring seven unique science-fiction stories. Go on futuristic adventures to space and more, all while exploring the highs and lows of what it means to grow up.

Mythic Quest

Mythic Quest centers on a video game studio working on their next hit game. This fun workplace sitcom stars Rob McElhenney and Charlotte Nicdao, featuring subtle — and not so subtle — commentary on the universe of gaming culture in every episode.

Mythic Quest is renewed and a fourth season is in the works.

Slumberkins

Combining puppetry and 2D animation, Slumberkins is an enchanting show about feelings, based on characters from the popular children’s book series. Go on adventures with Bigfoot, Unicorn, Sloth, Yak and Fox, learning about mental wellness along the way.

The Mosquito Coast

Although it shares a name with ‘The Mosquito Coast’ book, this TV adaptation is more of a prequel. It follows Allie Fox (Justin Theroux) as he takes his family on the run from the US government, in a perilous journey to Mexico.

The run of The Mosquito Coast on Apple TV+ has ended. The show was cancelled after the release of its second season.

Headlined by Eugenio Derbez, this fun bilingual comedy series is set at a popular hotel resort in Acapulco. Derbez plays the present-day version of lead character Maximo Gallardo, who narrates the life experiences of his younger self, starting from when he joined the resort in 1984.

Acapulco has been renewed for a third season. New episodes premiere on May 1.

Ghostwriter

A reboot of the classic children’s show of the same name, Ghostwriter follows the adventures of four kids in a haunted bookstore. The ghost brings classics of literature to life, and the kids must solve the mysteries that they entail.

Based on the popular novel of the same name, Charlie Hunnam stars as Lin Ford, a runaway criminal who tries to start a new life in Bombay, India. However, his ties to crime ultimately reel him back into the underworld.

Shantaram was cancelled after the debut of its first season on October 14, 2022.

The Problem with Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart returns to television with a more serious tone. In each hour-long episode, The Problem with Jon Stewart examines global issues relating to current affairs and Stewart’s advocacy work, and aims to raise conversations around possible solutions.

The Problem with Jon Stewart ended with its second season on October 7, 2022.

Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show

Jack McBrayer highlights small acts of kindness in this charming kids series aimed at preschoolers, with an original soundtrack produced by award-winning band OK Go. The Kindness Show reinforces the values of caring and connecting with others.

Get Rolling With Otis

Otis the tractor is here to help others in this animated kids series that takes place on Long Hill Dairy Farm. Whenever he sees a friend in need, Otis rolls into action. You may recognize Otis from the popular children’s book series of the same name.

Wolfboy and the Everything Factory

In this charming animated series, William Wolf lets his imagination run wild. Along with his new Spryte friends, he might even have the power to change the world. William is voiced by Kassian Akhtar. The show is executive produced by Joseph-Gordon Levitt.

Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, highlight bold and influential women in this interview series. Featured celebrities include Kim Kardashian, Wanda Sykes, Megan Thee Stallion, Jane Goodall and more.

Central Park

Central Park is an animated series from the creator of Bob’s Burgers. With a cast that includes Josh Gad, Kristen Bell and Tituss Burgess, the story revolves around a family of caretakers trying to save the city’s green space from being converted into a shopping mall. The show is an animated musical comedy, with 3-4 original songs per episode.

The run of Central Park on Apple TV+ has ended. The show was cancelled after the release of its third season.

Life By Ella

Following a stint of chemotherapy, Ella just wants to be a regular teenage girl as she starts a new year of school. Empowered by a new perspective on life, Ella faces her fears head-on with an aim to make memories she’ll remember forever.

A post-apocalyptic adventure set 600 years in the future. The remaining population of Earth is blind. A war breaks out as sighted twins are born into a tribe, and the queen of the lands fears the mythic twins will threaten her rule. Jason Momoa stars as Baba Voss, who will do anything to protect his sighted children. Dave Bautista joins the cast as Edo Voss, Baba’s brother, in the second season.

Surfside Girls

Based on the popular young adult graphic novels, Surfside Girls sees best friends Sam and Jade explore supernatural happenings in their seaside town, with a mysterious pirate ship docking at the bay. It all culminates in a showdown at the Danger Point coastal bluff.

Bad Sisters

From executive producer and writer Sharon Horgan, Bad Sisters features a dark comedy plot revolving around the mystery of how Grace’s husband ended up dead. The insurance company certainly wants to believe the death came about by malicious intent, suspecting fraud. Horgan stars as Eva, one of the five sisters in the family.

A second season of Bad Sisters has been confirmed and is in development. An exact release date for season two is not yet known.

Five Days at Memorial

This limited series tells the harrowing true story of what happened at Memorial Medical Center, in the aftermath of the devastation by Hurricane Katrina. The events of the first five days inside the hospital are re-enacted over the first five episodes, combining dramatic performances with archive footage. The remainder of the season shifts to focus on the investigation into possible charges of euthanasia, raising questions about whether human failures prevented more lives from being saved.

Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is suffering from severe memory loss, as a consequence of a suicide attempt. Or at least, that’s what she was led to believe. Battling amnesia, Sophie begins to piece together the truth of what happened.

Apple TV+ has confirmed that Surface is renewed and will return for a second season. We don’t yet know when season two will be released.

Amber Brown

Based on the books by Paula Danziger, Amber Brown is a fun TV series for the whole family to enjoy. It addresses issues of friendship, communication and growing up. Brown’s love to draw is brought to life in the show with beautifully animated illustrations.

Amber Brown was cancelled after the debut of its first season on July 29, 2022.

Best Foot Forward

Based on the book Just Don’t Fall by paralympic athlete Josh Sundquist, the show centers on 12-year-old Josh Dubin, who has a prosthetic leg, as he starts a new chapter of his life at middle school. He teaches his peers at school that he is really just like them, disability or otherwise.

A fun British comedy revolving around a couple who are unable to conceive, and instead opt to go down the path of adoption. ‘Trying’ stars Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as their characters negotiate all the various hurdles associated with adopting a child.

Trying has been renewed for a fourth season. New episodes premiere on May 22.

Based on a true story, inmate Jimmy Keene is giving a chance for freedom. But first, he must be transported to a maximum security prison and elicit a confession out of a suspected serial killer, Larry Hall. Taron Egerton and Paul Walter-Hauser lead the cast of this thrilling six-part series.

Loot follows Molly, played by Maya Rudolph, who is figuring out what to do with her $87 billion divorce settlement. Across the series, she reckons with the comings and goings of her new life focus; running her charitable foundation.

Loot has been renewed for a second season. New episodes premiere on April 3.

A series that takes you inside some of the world’s most innovative homes, and the stories of the people that made them. The optimistic docuseries explores incredible dwellings from places around the world.

Carpool Karaoke: The Series

Based on the popular James Corden format, Carpool Karaoke: The Series expands on the premise with different celebrities taking the wheel for various comedic skits and classic karaoke sing-alongs.

An educational children’s live-action puppet series starring Cody and the Helpsters, from the makers of Sesame Street. The show teaches the fundamentals of problem solving and coding through the lens of activities like party planning, climbing a mountain, and magic tricks.

Now and Then

A cover up of a deadly car crash leaves a group of friends forever implicated. Twenty years on, their secret is threatened to be revealed. This Spanish and English language thriller contrasts the freedom of youth with the realities of adulthood.

Greatness Code

A short-form documentary series covering some of the greatest stories in sports. The show features sporting legends including LeBron James, Tom Brady, Alex Morgan, Usain Bolt, Katie Ledecky and more, as they discuss the critical moments that defined their careers.

The Essex Serpent

Religion, superstition and science wage war in a town on the coast of Essex. Following the mysterious disappearance of a young girl, Cora (played by Clare Danes) moves to the town to hunt for proof of the rumored serpent. Church rector Will Ransom (Tom Hiddleston) refuses to believe the myths.

Apple TV+’s first non-English language show is ‘Tehran’. A Mossad agent goes undercover in Tehran, Iran, in this espionage thriller starring Niv Sultan and Shaun Toub. The series is created by Moshe Zonder, head writer of Fauda.

Tehran is renewed and a third season is in the works.

The Big Conn

From the makers of McMillion$, The Big Conn explores one of the largest government frauds in US history, with ill-gotten gains valued in the billions of dollars, all centering on one man: Eric C. Conn. The four-part docuseries tells an incredible tale of how Conn evaded the eyes of the law for so long.

Shining Girls

Elisabeth Moss leads this adaptation of the award-winning novel, Shining Girls. She plays journalist Kirby, who realizes that a modern day murder is somehow linked to her own personal childhood assault. Kirby’s reality continously shifts as she discovers just how interconnected she is with the killer.

The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball

Makur Maker accepted a position at Howard University in 2020, becoming the first top 100 NBA draft prospect to commit to a historically Black college. This five-part docuseries covers what is behind behind Maker’s groundbreaking decision.

They Call Me Magic

With intimate access to Earvin Johnson, and his friends and family, They Call Me Magic charts Johnson’s incredible career as an NBA basketball legend as well as his business and philanthropic impacts later after he retired from the game. The four part docuseries also examines Johnson’s HIV diagnosis and the effect it had on changing how the disease was perceived in worldwide culture.

Roar is an eight-part anthology series of genre-bending feminist fables, based on a novel of short stories by Cecelia Ahern. Cast includes Nicole Kidman, Alison Brie, Cynthia Erivo, Meera Syal and more.

Told in three languages — Korean, Japanese and English — Pachinko is a sweeping epic with a story that spans four generations of a Korean immigrant family. The show flashes between timelines to follow the main character, Sunja, from a child and all the way through to elderly adulthood.

A second season of Pachinko has been confirmed and is in development. An exact release date for season two is not yet known.

Jared Leto and Anna Hathaway star as Adam and Rebekah Neumann, in this limited series drama about the whirlwind rise and fall of WeWork. Based on insane real events, the series highlights the crazy and — often — unhinged decision-making at the top of the office space startup.

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

Samuel L. Jackson (as the titular Ptolemy Grey) leads this six-part series about a man suffering with dementia. A miracle treatment restores Grey’s memories … but only for a month. With renewed vigor, Grey can finally right some wrongs of his past that he had previously forgotten all about.

Dear…

A documentary inspired by the Apple ad campaign ‘Dear’. The series finds people who have written letters to their heroes, expands on their stories and shows how everyone can be inspired. Famous faces featured include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Stevie Wonder, Oprah Winfrey and Spike Lee.

Lincoln’s Dilemma

This four-part docuseries explores the details and nuance in the story of former President Abraham Lincoln’s journey to end slavery. Using archival footage and interviews with scholars, journalists and educators, the series lays out a more complete view of an America struggling to reconcile issues of economy and race.

Severance is a dystopian workplace thriller, in which employees at Lumon Industries undergo a procedure that separates their home and work memories. In the ultimate test of work-life balance, Mark Scout (played by Adam Scott) slowly confronts the secrets of the mysterious corporation that he works for.

Severance Season Two Release Date

The show has been renewed for a second season. An exact release date for the new season is not yet known.

Four suspects are at the center of an investigation into the abduction of an American businesswoman’s son. Suspicion follows the FBI as they down track the suspects and hunt for clues as to the perpetrator. The focus of doubt shifts across the series, as more information comes to light about each person’s whereabouts and motivations.

Suspicion was cancelled after the debut of its first season on February 4, 2022.

El Deafo is a three-part animated story about Cece, who is somewhat isolated from other kids at school because of her need to wear hearing aids. But with the help of an alter ego ‘El Deafo’, she learns to treat her hearing aids as a superpower rather than a disability. Her increasing confidence helps her to make new friends.

This docuseries explores the ambiguity of war, centering on the 2018 case in which US Navy platoon chief Eddie Gallagher was accused of war crimes. The show includes interviews with Gallagher as well as members of the team that reported him to authorities, and never-before-seen footage of the controversial mission in Mosul, Iraq.

The Shrink Next Door

Psychiatrist Ike Herschkopf (played by Paul Rudd) crosses ethical and moral boundaries to exploit the vulnerable patient Marty (played by Will Ferrell) for his own gain, slowly taking over his entire life. Based on a true story, dark comedy drama The Shrink Next Door exposes this wholly-dysfunctional relationship.

Snoopy in Space

Snoopy and Charlie Brown start a whole new adventure … in space. Follow Snoopy on his steps to becoming a NASA astronaut as the Peanuts gang explores the moon and beyond. Snoopy in Space is part of a wider Apple deal that includes Charlie Brown and Peanuts classics, and new original titles.

In a modern interpretation of Emily Dickinson’s life, Hailee Steinfeld stars as the misunderstood American poet in her coming-of-age story. Dickinson blends classical themes and carefully-crafted set pieces with anachronistic language and flair, personifications of Death, among other twists.

Dickinson concluded with its final season on November 5, 2021.

Apple’s first Korean drama is the six-part series Dr. Brain. The show features a daring brain scientist named Sewon. He discovers that the closest members of his family have mysteriously died. In an attempt to find closure, Sewon connects to their brains to try and uncover exactly what happened.

Doug Unplugs

Have fun with Doug, the inquisitive robot, in this kids animated adventure series. Most robots spend their days downloading facts. Doug wants to explore the world. Doug Unplugs encourages children to always be curious, try out new activities, and learn more about Planet Earth.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote, directs and stars in this ten-part series about a teacher who thinks he is stuck in a rut. The show explores Mr. Corman’s anxieties and his underlying musical ambitions, as he struggles to find happiness in the daily grind of life.

Ten episodes of Mr. Corman were released. Since the first season came out, the show has been cancelled.

Watch the Sound With Mark Ronson

Mark Ronson reveals how musicians turn sound into music, specifically tackling how technology is changing the development of modern songs and soundtracks. This docuseries features interviews with Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Charli XCX and more.

Home Before Dark

Based on the true story of young investigative reporter Hilde Lysiak, Home Before Dark shows how a young girl uncovers a cold case that even her own family tried to hide. The appeal of the show spans generations, just like its cast.

Lisey’s Story

With all episodes written by Stephen King, Lisey’s Story is a deeply personal horror thriller. Following the death of her husband, Lisey, played by Julianne Moore, must confront her past relationship. The show blends real-world heartbreak and despair with supernatural encounters.

The Me You Can’t See

Produced by Oprah and Prince Harry, this docuseries tackles issues of mental health in modern society. It features interviews with people from all walks of life, united by the challenges and struggles of emotional well-being. Stars featured include Lady Gaga, Glenn Close and DeMar DeRozan.

1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything

The music of 1971 reflected the political and cultural upheaval of the time. This docuseries explores the innovative artists and bands of the era, featuring John Lennon, Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner and more.

This docuseries explores the life of living creatures at microscopic scale. Paul Rudd narrates stunning sequences of animals that are so, so, small. Tiny World features a variety of species and habitats, including the depths of the forest, the dry sands of the desert and the underwater biodiversity of the coral reef.

Earth At Night In Color

What would be pitch black to human eyes, is revealed in full color in this innovative docuseries. The show used cutting-edge camera equipment to film animals going about their normal business, in the dead of night. Tom Hiddleston narrates.

Calls is a strange addition to Apple TV+’s lineup, as it relies on audio for storytelling and features almost no visuals at all. Each episode features an eerie phone call conversation as a group of strangers simultaneously experience an apocalpytic event.

Losing Alice

A fictional psychological thriller that follows Alice, a film director, as she becomes obsessed with a young screenwriter. The show examines how Alice succumbs to the allure of power and success.

Becoming You

Olivia Colman narrates ‘Becoming You’, a docuseries covering the first 2000 days of 100 children’s lives. It features a wide variety of kids from an array of cultures and from all walks of life. The show highlights young people find their own way in the world, from their very first step.

Long Way Up

Long Way Up follows Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on a 100-day journey riding electric Harley-Davidson motorbikes. The show is about best friends travelling through Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Mexico. The new trip is the latest installment in the Long Way franchise. Apple TV+ is also streaming the prior adventures, Long Way Down and Long Way Round.

The Oprah Conversation

The Oprah Conversation is the reincarnation of Oprah’s iconic talk show format. The interview format explores deep topics affeecting the world. In the opening episode, Oprah explores racism in culture, in conversation with Emmanuel Acho.

Little Voice

Featuring original music from Sara Bareilles, Little Voice charts the path of a fledgling music artist trying to make a name for herself in New York. Brittany O’Grady stars as Bess in this romantic tale as she finds her voice in the big city.

Nine episodes of Little Voice were released. Since the first season came out, the show has been cancelled.

Defending Jacob

Defending Jacob tells the story of a legal attorney whose teenage son has been accused of murder, based off the best-selling book of the same name. The story culminates with an epic twist that you can’t predict. The limited series stars Chris Evans, Jaeden Martell, and Michelle Dockery.

Oprah Talks COVID-19

As everyone self-isolates, Oprah Winfrey hosts video conversations with noted doctors, scientists, recovering COVID-19 patients, and the health workers on the front line fighting this pandemic. Every episode is free to watch, no TV+ subscription required.

Amazing Stories

A remake of the 1980’s classic sci-fi show, the Amazing Stories anthology series is produced by Steven Spielberg. Each episode follows a different tale in a completely different setting. With a family-friendly age rating, the series aims to appeal to parents and children alike.

Visible: Out on Television

Described as a five-part documentary series, Visible looks at the portrayal and development of LGBTQ characters on television. It also examines the consequences of coming out in the television industry and how attitudes have evolved, albeit slowly.

Oprah’s Book Club

Renowned American talk show host Oprah Winfrey brings her famous Book Club to Apple TV. Every few months, Oprah records interviews with the author of her book picks at locations around the world.

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Napoleon Bonaparte, in Ridley Scott’s latest historical epic. The film features stunning depictions of six significant battles in Napoleon’s military career, interspersed with insights into his personal life, rise to power, and his complex relationship with wife Josephine (played by Vanessa Kirby).

Killers of the Flower Moon

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon explores the unspeakable crimes against the Osage Nation, in a conquest for oil riches. Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons star in this three-hour crime western epic.

The Family Plan

Mark Wahlberg stars as Dan Morgan in this action comedy film. Dan is living comfortably with his family, having withheld the fact that he was once a career assassin. When he realizes that he has been located by someone that wants him dead, he takes his family on a ‘road trip’ to Las Vegas to try and end it once and for all. His cover is blown, and his family is now along for the ride.

Fingernails

Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White star in this sci-fi romantic drama. This film explores what happens in a world where the compatibility of couples can be tested for. Anna (Buckley) and Ryan (White) are told they are a perfect match for each other, but Anna isn’t so sure. She forges a new love interest with Amir (Ahmed), a co-worker at the love testing institute

The Pigeon Tunnel

Writer of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and other espionage fiction, John le Carré’s life is brought to the fore in this insightful film, directed by award-winning documentarian Errol Morris. The film explores the throughline between le Carre’s relationship with his father, and the themes explored in his written work.

Flora and Son

Flora (Eve Hewson) attempts to get her wayward son, Max, a meaningful hobby. With the help of a second-hand acoustic guitar and the teachings of an LA musican (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Flora and Max’s connection deepens.

The Beanie Bubble

Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, and Geraldine Viswanathan star in this retelling of the late 90s Beanie Babies craze. The film shows who came up with the smart business strategy that helped keep the hype train moving, and who took credit for it.

Stephen Curry: Underrated

From Apple and A24, this documentary explores the rise of Stephen Curry in the world of basketball, charting his course from an unknown college player to a four-time NBA champion. The film features a mix of exclusive interviews and new fly-on-the-wall footage.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Michael J. Fox tells his story in this documentary that cleverly blends scripted elements, new interviews, and archive footage. As well as showcasing his rise to stardom in the 1980s, the film uncovers his private journey battling Parkinson’s disease, having been diagnosed at just 29 years old.

Cole (Chris Evans) is infatuated by Sadie (Ana de Armas) in this rom-com action thriller. Before he can get a second date, he learns that Sadie is actually an undercover secret agent and is caught up in an international espionage mission.

Starring Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers, the movie Tetris is a dramatic retelling of the story behind acquiring the distribution rights for Tetris. Rogers must collaborate with Tetris’s Russian inventor, Alexey Pajitnov, to secure the deal amid a tense Cold War environment.

Max hunts larger ill-gotten gains and plots to scam the New York elite, in a proposed heist of epic proportions — but will his greed backfire? Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, John Lithgow and more star in this twisty thriller.

Emancipation

Will Smith stars as Peter, a slave who takes it upon himself to flee his captor, escaping his life of cruelty in the hopes of returning to his family. He traverses the dangers of the Louisana swamps as part of his journey to freedom. The film is inspired by the famous photos of ‘Whipped Peter’, whose depiction of Peter’s brutal lashings helped accelerate the emancipation movement in the US.

Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer star in this modernized, musical, comedic reimagining of A Christmas Carol. In this adaptation of the iconic Charles Dickens tale, it is the Ghost of Christmas Present (Ferrell) that reflects on his own past, present and future.

Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me

Mental health is the focus in this documentary on Selena Gomez, who shot to fame as a child star on the Disney Channel. Using footage filmed across the last six years of her life, the Emmy-nominated actress intimately reveals her struggles with lupus and bipolar disorder.

Jennifer Lawrence stars as a soldier, Lynsey, who has just returned from the warzone of Afghanistan. She is dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury she sustained in the field. Lynsey bonds with James (played by Brian Tyree Henry).

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues

Black & Blues is a feature-length documentary on Louis Armstrong, one of the most influential figures in jazz music. Using archive footage and never-before-heard home recordings, the film presents intimate insights into the mind of the culture-defining musician.

Raymond & Ray

Half-brothers Raymond (Ewan McGregor) and Ray (Ethan Hawke) must come together to fulfill their estranged father’s final wish following his death: to have them dig his grave. In inviting guests to his funeral, they discover that their dad treated his friends very differently to how he treated them.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever

Based on the incredible true story, Zac Efron stars as Chickie, who takes it upon himself to travel to the front lines of the Vietnam war, to give allied soldiers a little bit of hope — and a can of beer. Upon arriving at the trenches, Chickie is forced to confront the harsh realities of war. The film also stars Russell Crowe, with Bill Murray in a supporting role.

The life of Sidney Poitier is explored in this documentary film, produced by Oprah Winfrey in collaboration with the Poitier family. Poitier’s legacy is brought to life with archive footage and interviews with Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Barbra Streisand and more.

The unluckiest person ever, Sam Greenfield, journeys into a secret world where magical creatures manage the good luck and bad luck experienced on Earth. Sam’s arrival threatens the balance of fortune, and chaos ensues. Luck’s voice cast features Eva Noblezada, Simon Pegg, Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg and more.

Cha Cha Real Smooth

Cooper Raiff wrote, produces, directs, and stars in this Sundance award-winning film. In Cha Cha Real Smooth, Andrew is a wayward unemployed young man working as a Bar Mitzvah party starter. He strikes up a friendship with Domino (Dakota Johnson) and her autistic daughter, Lola at one of these parties — beginning a very unconvential love story.

The Sky Is Everywhere

Based on the novel by Jandy Nelson, The Sky is Everywhere tells the story of Lennie Walker, who is struggling with grief following the death of her older sister. Lennie navigates love and loss as she meets Joe Fontaine, the new guy at school, and is inspired to write a song of her very own.

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand lead a bold black-and-white adaptation of the Shakespeare classic. Joel Coen’s interpretation retains much of the original dialogue, albeit abridged to keep the story lean and focused. The stunning sets are stark and geometric, with clear German Expressionism influences, evoking the tone of a classical stage setting whilst still feeling impressively cinematic.

Starring Mahershala Ali, Swan Song explores the ultimate dilemma: would you let a clone take your place? Ali’s character, Cameron, is tragically diagnosed with a terminal illness. But, in the near-future sci-fi setting, Cameron has the opportunity to replace himself with a perfect, healthy, human clone. The catch is that he cannot tell his family what he has done. Cameron struggles with the ramifications of this heart-breaking choice, learning much about love and life along the way.

‘Twas the Fight Before Christmas

Jeremy Morris is perhaps the only person who has been banned by a federal court from putting up Christmas decorations. This documentary film shows the extreme lengths Morris will go to celebrate the holiday season, and the neighborhood’s less-than-welcoming response to a Christmas bonanza taking place on the driveway of his North Idaho home.

Tom Hanks stars as the eponymous inventor, who is one of the last human survivors in this post-apocalyptic world. Finch builds a robot to keep him — and his beloved dog — company as they embark on a cross-country expedition in increasingly harsh conditions.

The Velvet Underground

Todd Haynes brings a refined perspective on a genre-defining rock band in The Velvet Underground. Leaning heavily on the cinematic language of the ’60s — such as montage and split screen compositions — the film is far from a standard run-of-the-mill rock documentary.

Come From Away

The Come From Away musical tells the story of the small town of Gander, who generously opened their doors to more than 7,000 people who found themselves stranded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. They would go on to develop long-lasting bonds and friendships. This filmed version of the musical features many original Broadway cast members, and was performed to an audience of 9/11 survivors and front-line workers.

Ruby, played by actress Emilia Jones, is the only hearing person in her family. She has grown up helping out, and generally acting as interpreter, for her deaf parents. In this heartwarming and hilarious film, Ruby discovers a passion and a talent for singing. She must reconcile her new-found career ambitions with her family commitments.

CODA premiered at the 2021 Sundance film festival and took home the grand jury prize for drama. Following positive audience reception and critical acclaim, the film ultimately won the prestigious Best Picture award at the 2022 Oscars.

Who Are You, Charlie Brown?

Featuring interviews with people that worked with him and were inspired by him, this documentary explores the life of Charles Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown. It shows how Schulz became interested in cartoons and how that evolved into the development of the Peanuts series. The film interweaves a new Peanuts animation featuring Charlie Brown and the gang tackle the question of ‘who are you?’ in a school essay.

Dr Michelle Fournet wants to prove that whales identify each other by sound and Dr Ellen Garland aims to show how whalesong is not so dissimilar to human speech. Fathom centers on the intricacy of scentific research. It also highlights how the scientists readjust to normal life, after spending months dedicated to observing one species of animal.

The Year Earth Changed

The year of human quarantine allowed wildlife flourished in unexpected and profound ways and The Year Earth Changed explores 2020 from the perspective of the natural world. David Attenborough narrates this fascinating documentary film, featuring scenes such as the penguin takeover of Cape Town and the appearance of whales in Glacier Bay.

Tom Holland stars as Cherry, in this hard-hitting drama feature directed by the Russo brothers. After joining the army at a young age, Cherry falls into the depths of heroin addiction. He becomes a bank robber to service his cravings, with the film examining the real impact of the opoid crisis in America.

Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry

A documentary film depicting the meteoric rise of Billie Eilish’s career. Recorded mostly in 2019, the film shows the artist’s triumphs and personal struggles as she crafts her debut album. An album so successful that it lands her five Grammy wins, at the age of eighteen.

Justin Timberlake stars as Eddie Palmer, who has just completed a 12 year prison sentence. Palmer’s neighbor disappears, leaving him in the care of her 7 year old son Sam. As the pair develop a close bond, Palmer’s past comes back to haunt the relationship.

Wolfwalkers

Wolfwalkers is the latest installment from Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon. A young hunter, Robyn, comes to Ireland and discovers the magical world of the Wolfwalkers, after originally intending to exterminate the last remaining wolf pack. The film tells an enchanting folklore tale and received glowing reviews from critics, including an Oscar nomination for best animated feature.

Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds

Fireball is a documentary film about the human response to meteorites and shooting stars, or more cryptically the ‘visitors from darker worlds’. Werner Herzog explores how these happenings have shaped human culture and beliefs.

On The Rocks

On The Rocks stars Rashida Jones and Bill Murray, in a romantic comedy film directed and written by Sophia Coppola. Jones’ character, Laura, suspects her husband might be having an affair. On the Rocks is a light-hearted and fun caper to find out the truth.

Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You

A documentary showcasing the creative process of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, as they record their new album ‘Letter to You’. The film includes 10 final take performances from the album.

An illuminating documentary following the 2018 Boys State in Texas, providing a fascinating insight into the machinations of politics. Boys State won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance festival.

A cinematic World War II naval thriller starring Tom Hanks. Hanks play Krause, a commander on his maiden voyage to escort a convoy of merchant Allied ships across the North Atlantic. The film follows their quest as they face the German submarines trying to stop them in their tracks.

A documentary about the father relationship in a family. The 80-minute movie starts with interviews with famous faces but pivots into an exploration of how fathers in ordinary families are dealing with the many stresses of life.

Beastie Boys Story

The Beastie Boys Story takes a personal look at the band’s highs and lows over the last 40 years. The documentary is narrated by band members Mike Diamond and Adam Horvitz, in an intimate live theater setting, and directed by the award-winning Spike Jonze.

Based on a true story, the movie follows two businessmen who take on the oppressive racial climate of the 1960s by pretending to be just a janitor and chauffeur, whilst they secretly grow their business empire.

Hala puts the spotlight on a teenager attempting to balance the innate freedoms of teenage life with her traditional Muslim upbringing. A secret romance could split the family relationship altogether.

The Elephant Queen

A documentary spanning footage shot over four years of an elephant herd traveling across Africa. The film centers around the matriarch Athena but also pays attention to other animal species encountered along the way.

MLS Season Pass

Watch all Major League Soccer games, with no blackouts or geographic restrictions, exclusively on the Apple TV app with MLS Season Pass. Apple TV+ subscribers can watch some of the matchups at no extra charge, and get a discount on the full Season Pass package.

MLB Friday Night Baseball

Apple has partnered with the MLB to offer a doubleheader of two live baseball games, every Friday of the regular season, exclusively for Apple TV+ subscribers. Apple also streams ‘MLB Big Inning’, a daily live show featuring game highlights. You can also watch a 24/7 stream of MLB replays, historic games and more content.

Shorts and Specials

The bloody hundredth.

Narrated by Tom Hanks, documentary The Bloody Hundredth serves as a companion piece to the dramatization of events in Masters of the Air. In this one-hour special, viewers find out the real-life stories of several airmen in the 100th Bomb Group.

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin

In this original Peanuts special, the beloved character of Franklin Armstrong is given a backstory for the first time. Franklin depends on a notebook containing his grandfather’s advice on friendship. After a few false starts fitting in, Franklin and Charlie Brown work together to make a car to race in the town’s Soap Box Derby.

Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas

Hannah Waddingham stars in a musical extravaganza holiday special, filmed at the London Coliseum. Singing iconic Christmas classics to a rapturous crowd, Waddingham is joined by special guests including Leslie Odom Jr., Luke Evans, Sam Ryder, and surprise appearances from her Ted Lasso co-stars.

The Velveteen Rabbit

Based on the beloved children’s book by Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit comes alive in this holiday special. Combining animation and live action, William gets a new toy for Christmas, a woven rabbit doll. The rabbit magically comes alive and the pair go on a wondrous adventure.

Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie

The newest Snoopy special for Apple TV+ sees introvert Marcie in the running for class president. She has a bunch of great ideas to improve lunchtimes, but lacks the confidence to be in the spotlight. She finds a way to express her ideas — to great effect — without taking all of the attention.

Apple Music Live

In collaboration with Apple Music, Apple TV+ streams live concerts from some of the biggest artists in music. The series debuted with a performance by Ed Sheeran, premiering tracks from his new album, Subtract.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Charlie Mackesy’s book is brought to life in this carefully-crafted Christmas Day special, featuring beautiful hand-drawn animation. Four unlikely friends team up on an inspiring journey of exploration.

Snoopy Presents: Lucy’s School

Lucy is worried about starting at a new school in the fall, so she decides to start her own instead. The Peanuts gang enroll as her students. However, Lucy soon learns that running a school is easier said than done. The new Peanuts special debuts in time for back-to-school season and pays respect to the important role of teachers in children’s lives.

Snoopy Presents: To Mom (and Dad), With Love

In the latest Charlie Brown special for Apple TV+, Peppermint Patty grew up with a mother, so she isn’t quite as excited for Mother’s Day as everyone else. However, the Peanuts gang help to make her see that the day celebrates all kind of families too.

Snoopy Presents: It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown

In this brand new animated special, Charlie Brown looks to see how he can best make a positive impact on the environment. Starring Snoopy and all your favorite Peanuts characters, It’s The Small Things aired to help celebrate Earth Day 2022.

Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne

‘For Auld Lang Syne’ is a brand new Peanuts holiday special, featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang. In this special, Lucy tries to arrange the best New Year’s Eve party ever to make up for a somewhat disappointing Christmas.

Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues

Mariah Carey returns to Apple TV+ in a more subdued affair than her 2020 special. It features an exclusive performance of her new holiday song ‘Fall in Love at Christmas’, featuring Khalid and Kirk Franklin, as well as an interview with Zane Lowe.

This beautiful short film follows the journey of a nature-loving astronaut who is stranded on a small, desolate, planet. The astronaut visibly blushes at the arrival of a friendly, pink, alien lifeform.

9/11: Inside the President’s War Room

This documentary special features exclusive access to the highest-level of decison makers in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, including interviews with President George W. Bush and his chief of staff, as they break down — minute-by-minute — the government response to the events of that terrible day.

Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special

Mariah Carey leads a holiday celebration spectacular, featuring original performances of a dozen Christmas classics. The special includes the debut performance the new holiday track ‘Oh Santa’, sung by Carey, Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson.

Helpsters Help You

Shot on iPhone during the pandemic, Cody the monster broadcasts from the Helpsters workshop to demonstrate how it is still possible to learn, play, and have fun whilst stuck at home. Band Grouplove join Cody for a special celebration to thank all the people helping to keep others safe and healthy.

Fraggle Rock: Rock On!

The classic Fraggle Rock puppet show returns with a new series of shorts that show how friendship can bind us all. Amidst coronavirus lockdown measures, ‘Fraggle Rock: Rock On’ is recorded in the homes of the production team, shot on iPhone 11.

Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth

An animated short film that follows a young boy learning about wonders of nature, in celebration of Earth Day. The story is based on the best-selling book by Oliver Jeffers. The film is narrated by Meryl Streep.

Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10

Peanuts celebrates the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in this live-action mockumentary revealing Snoopy as the fourth member of the Apollo 10 mission, also starring Jeff Goldblum and Ron Howard.

Coming Soon: Upcoming TV+ Release Dates

• Loot Season Two : April 3 — Watch Trailer
• Girls State : April 5 — Watch Trailer
• Sugar : April 5 — Watch Trailer
• Franklin : April 12 — Watch Trailer
• The Big Door Prize Season Two : April 24 — Read the Book
• Acapulco Season Three : May 1
• Dark Matter : May 8
• The Big Cigar: May 17
• Trying Season Four : May 22
• Presumed Innocent : June 14
• Project Artemis (working title): July 12 (in theaters)
• Land of Women: Summer 2024
• Wolfs: September 20 (in theaters)
• Argylle : 2024 — Watch Trailer
• Camp Snoopy: 2024
• Fancy Dance : 2024
• Lady in the Lake: 2024

Back Catalog Content

Apple TV+ is focused on producing new TV shows and movies, which means exclusive originals make up the vast majority of the available content. However, the service includes a handful of older titles to stream: ‘Fraggle Rock’ , ‘Long Way Round’ , ‘Long Way Down’ , ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ , ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’ , ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ , ‘Happy New Year, Charlie Brown’ , ‘Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown’ , ‘It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown’ , ‘It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown’ , ‘The Peanuts Classics’ , ‘Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tales’ and ‘I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown’ .

These classics are now airing on Apple TV+ as Apple has reached deals to make new seasons, or reboot the franchise entirely, so the older episodes are made available for customers to catch up.

More Coming to Apple TV+

That’s a total of 235 TV shows and films to watch on Apple TV+ . Apple has a lot more originals in development, with new content being added every couple of weeks. We’ll keep this post updated with the latest official announcements of new Apple TV+ content.

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Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog . Message Benjamin over email or Twitter .

Benjamin Mayo's favorite gear

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