Apple TV Officially Got It's Biggest Upgrade in 7 Years and Netflix Better Watch Out

Published Aug 18, 2026, 5:42 PM EDT Charlie Ridgely is a writer from Maryland, currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee. He may be new to Collider, but he's been writing, editing, conducting interviews, and podcasting around the industry for 10 years. From 2016 to the start of 2026, Charlie was a full time writer and critic at ComicBook.com. A lifelong movie fan, avid reader, and renowned (fictional) dungeon explorer/dragonslayer, Charlie is a jack-of-all-trades throughout the fandom multiverse and has covered everything under the sun. While Netflix essentially kicked off the era of streaming that we find ourselves in today, the service has slowly started to see its biggest rivals catch up. Sure, it's unlikely that any other streamer will overtake Netflix anytime soon, but services like Disney+, HBO Max, and Apple TV have closed the gap significantly. Surprisingly, it appears as though Apple TV may be in the strongest position to emerge as the best streaming option moving forward, thanks in large part to a recent addition that has flown under the radar. Apple TV has been known for delivering some of the best television options around, with original hits like Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Silo, Widow's Bay, and numerous others. As far as ongoing originals go, it has been one of the strongest streamers for quite a while now, right alongside HBO. However, Apple's biggest weakness has been the size of its library. There have rarely been many good options to watch on the service outside of its original shows. That changed this week, however, as Apple TV added a slew of beloved movie titles to its library, which are free to watch for all subscribers. This could be the next step in Apple TV's streaming evolution, and could spell trouble for rivals like Netflix in the future. Beloved Movies Now on Apple TV Image via Universal Pictures This week, Apple TV quietly added a bunch of previous film hits to its streaming library. 19 popular titles ranging from 1982 to 2016 are now available to stream with an Apple TV subscription, and they've even been given their own section on the service's home page. Genres like sci-fi, comedy, and action are all represented, along with a couple of monumental blockbusters from the last few decades. The list is headlined by Steven Spielberg's iconic sci-fi classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which absolutely torched the box office back in 1982. Also on the roster is James Cameron's epic romance Titanic, which was the first billion-dollar movie in box office history. Two more recent sci-fi standouts, Rian Johnson's Looper and Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, have already started to appear on the Apple TV streaming charts, showing that subscribers have been craving these kinds of additions. Here's the full lineup of Apple's new movie additions: 21 Jump Street, Arrival, The Aviator, A Beautiful Mind, The Bourne Identity, Charlie's Angels, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Gone Girl, I, Robot, Looper, The Martian, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, The Proposal, The Rookie, The Sixth Sense, Titanic, Zodiac, and Zoolander. Apple TV Additions Spell Trouble for Netflix Boosting the Apple TV library with classics that people want to watch was always going to be a big boon for the streamer. What might be even more appealing, though, is just how curated the selection seems to be. This handful of movie titles offers a very small selection, but it avoids one of the biggest frustrations about Netflix — it's much easier to decide what to watch. Every film on this new list of Apple TV additions feels handpicked for viewers. There's obviously a lot more that goes into these licensing deals than that, but there is some kind of curation to be found here. Each of those films is well-liked in its own right, and many of them could be easily recommended to fans of popular Apple TV originals. "If you love Shrinking, why not try out Forgetting Sarah Marshall?" "If you enjoyed The Last Thing He Told Me, you should really check out Gone Girl." On a service like Netflix, there are thousands upon thousands of titles to choose from, and many of the good options that people would enjoy get lost beneath the surface of an algorithm. This Apple TV selection is small, efficient, and especially mighty. Most of these are all-timers, which is a stark contrast to the flash-in-the-pan success of many Netflix movie additions. Apple TV hasn't revealed how long these movies are going to be available. Nor has the service announced if this is going to be some kind of ongoing rotation. We could see this lineup of hits disappear in a couple of weeks. That said, this is a big step in the right direction for a service that has been stringing together a lot of wins. Release Date November 11, 2016 Runtime 116 minutes Director Denis Villeneuve Writers Eric Heisserer Producers Aaron Ryder, David Linde, Karen Lunder, Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Dan Cohen