Six Apple TV+ Shows Worth Watching Right Now

The Short Answer: Start Here

Apple TV+ has six shows right now that are genuinely worth your time, and three of them are already mid-season with episodes stacking up. That matters because the platform’s catalog is finally deep enough that you could spend an entire month watching only original content without recycling a single title. But Apple’s interface does a poor job of telling you what’s new versus what’s returning versus what just dropped a trailer, so half the battle is knowing where to look.

I pulled together this list after spending time tracking the wave of March premieres and comparing them against what’s already running. The quality gap between Apple TV+’s best and worst original programming remains wide, so a blanket “watch everything” recommendation would be dishonest. Some of these picks are excellent. One is a gamble. Here’s the breakdown.

Already Rolling: Two Shows Worth Catching Up On

Shrinking came back for its third season, and new episodes land every Wednesday through April 8. Jason Segel and Harrison Ford have settled into a rhythm that makes the therapy-comedy format feel less like a gimmick and more like a genuine character study. Jessica Williams continues to be the most underrated part of the cast. Season 3 picks up where the second season’s emotional gut-punch left off, and early episodes suggest the writers aren’t coasting.

This is the easiest recommendation on the list.

If you dropped off after season one, you can realistically catch up in a weekend — each episode runs about 30 minutes, and there are only 22 total across the first two seasons. The tone walks a line between comedy and genuine sadness that not every viewer will connect with, but when it works, it works in a way that very few streaming comedies manage right now.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a different proposition entirely. Season 2 premiered February 27 and runs weekly through May 1, which gives it one of the longest episode arcs on the platform this spring. Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell sharing the screen remains the show’s biggest draw, and Anna Sawai — fresh off an incredible run in Shogun — anchors the human storylines that hold the monster spectacle together. While I appreciate that not everyone wants a kaiju show in their rotation, season 2 has tightened up the pacing problems that dragged parts of the first season down. The creature design alone justifies the 4K HDR presentation if you have the hardware for it.

One friction point worth flagging: the Apple TV app’s “Up Next” queue doesn’t always surface shows you’ve been watching on other devices unless you have Sync Up Next enabled in Settings. I’ve seen people confused about why a new Monarch episode isn’t showing up on their Apple TV 4K when they started the series on iPhone. Check Settings, then Apps, then TV, then Sync Up Next and make sure it’s toggled on across all your devices. It’s a small thing, but it’s the kind of detail that makes you miss a weekly episode and fall behind.

Fresh This Month: The March Arrivals

Two very different shows launched in March, and they deserve different levels of enthusiasm.

Imperfect Women premiered March 18 with Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, and Kate Mara headlining a murder mystery built around long-buried secrets between three friends. The cast alone makes this a priority. Moss has proven repeatedly that she can carry dark, psychologically complex material, and pairing her with Washington — who brings a completely different energy — creates tension before the plot even kicks in. The marketing has leaned hard into the whodunit angle, but early descriptions suggest the show is more interested in the fractures between the three women than in the mechanics of the crime itself.

That’s a smart choice. Murder mysteries live or die on their characters, not their twists.

Then there’s The Hunt, a French-language thriller starring Benoît Magimel and Mélanie Laurent that premiered March 4 and runs weekly through April 1. This one comes with baggage. The show faced a plagiarism controversy that delayed its release, which is the kind of cloud that can follow a production regardless of how the final product turns out. Setting that aside and judging purely on what’s on screen: French thrillers on streaming platforms have a strong track record when they commit to atmosphere over action, and the cast here is among France’s best working talent. Magimel won a César — the French equivalent of an Oscar — and Laurent has been doing exceptional work in both French and English-language projects for over a decade.

Will the controversy overshadow the show? Possibly. Is it still worth watching on its merits? The early episodes suggest yes, though I’d understand anyone who wants to wait until the full season has aired before committing.

Coming Soon: Late March and April

For All Mankind returns for its fifth season on March 27, and this is the show that arguably defines Apple TV+ as a platform. Joel Kinnaman has been the emotional core since season one, and the addition of Mireille Enos to the cast signals the writers are expanding the world rather than retreating to familiar ground. Season 5 is set on Mars, the timeline has leaped forward again, and the 10-episode run stretching through May 29 gives the story room to breathe.

Here’s my honest take: For All Mankind is the single best argument for subscribing to Apple TV+. It does long-form alternate-history science fiction better than anything else on any streaming platform right now. Each season has raised the stakes without losing the human-scale drama that makes the premise work. If you haven’t started this show, begin at season one — do not skip ahead — and give it three episodes before you decide. The pilot is good. Episode three is where it becomes something special.

The other upcoming title is Outcome, a film arriving April 10. Jonah Hill directs, with Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz starring in what’s been described as a dark comedy. This is the gamble on the list. Hill’s directorial work is largely unproven at feature length, and the combination of Reeves and Diaz in a dark comedy could go in wildly unpredictable directions. I’m genuinely curious about this one, but I wouldn’t build a subscription decision around it.

A note on timing that catches people off guard: new Apple TV+ episodes and films technically drop at midnight Pacific Time. That’s 3 AM Eastern. If you’re on the East Coast expecting to watch a For All Mankind premiere at midnight on March 27, you’ll be staring at a placeholder for three hours. Set your expectations accordingly.

Is Apple TV+ at $12.99 a Month Worth It for This Lineup?

Six strong titles in a single month pushes Apple TV+ into territory where the subscription math starts working in the platform’s favor. At $12.99 per month, you’re paying roughly $2.16 per show if you’re watching all six — and that’s before accounting for the subscription perks that most people overlook, including access to Friday Night Baseball, MLS Season Pass content, and the expanding live sports catalog. If you’re already using your Apple TV 4K for F1, MLS, or other live sports, the original programming becomes a bonus rather than the sole justification.

The value calculation gets weaker if you’re only interested in one or two shows. Subscribing for Shrinking alone doesn’t make financial sense when you could wait until the season wraps and binge it in a single month. But the current lineup — with staggered weekly releases running from now through late May — means there’s something new almost every day of the week for the next two months.

That’s a density of quality programming Apple TV+ hasn’t consistently delivered before. Whether they can maintain it past spring is the real question — but right now, in this window, the platform is making a stronger case for itself than it has in years. According to Apple’s own 2026 lineup announcement, the back half of the year is stacked with returning favorites and new originals. What’s the first show you’re starting with?