movie review apples

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

LISTEN & FOLLOW
Apple Podcasts
Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

In the Greek film 'Apples,' a mysterious condition leaves people without memories

Justin Chang

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

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

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

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

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

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

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

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

OK, got it!

About Rotten Tomatoes®
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

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

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Prime Video
Most Popular Streaming Movies
Certified Fresh Movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

74% Blink Twice Link to Blink Twice
96% Strange Darling Link to Strange Darling
86% Between the Temples Link to Between the Temples

New TV Tonight

98% Only Murders in the Building: Season 4
80% City of God: The Fight Rages On: Season 1
79% The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 2
-- Kaos: Season 1
-- Here Come the Irish: Season 1
-- Terminator Zero: Season 1
-- Horror's Greatest: Season 1
-- After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun: Season 1

Apples Reviews

This is a distinct new voice within the film industry and I certainly cannot wait to see what he does next.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 1, 2024

Nikou leverages 14842’s journey to illustrate that there is joy in embracing immense personal, past anguish over impersonal collateral sorrow at the hands of acquaintances and strangers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 16, 2023

If the conclusion to [Christos] Nikou's debut doesn't land as effectively as it could, he casts an enchanting spell through deft direction combined with [Aris] Servetalis's consistently compelling performance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 20, 2022

Christos Nikou’s film, rather ironically, lingers long in the mind following the end credits. Proving that at its core, Apples is an unforgettable debut.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 12, 2022

A social parable about an individual's autonomy against a political or scientific authority imposing absolute control on the psyche after redesigning it. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 12, 2022

Aris is the riddle, subtly unlocked in a fable where forgetfulness is as much an unexplained incurable disease as it is a salve for painful memories.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 25, 2022

You can come away from Apples chewing not only on weighty themes related to pandemics and “do it for the ‘Gram” culture, but on how the fallible space between what we remember and forget is endlessly, essentially human.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 27, 2022

A moody, meditative drama about an epidemic of amnesia. this Greek drama raises nettlesome questions about identity and how we relate to each other.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 21, 2022

Apples won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if it hits you right, it’ll stay in your bones for days afterward.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2022

Dystopia settles into each gesture, each movement... Nikou teases out notions of how and why we are haunted... no answers, but many quizzical questions. (Plus dancing. There must always be dancing in Greek movies.) “Apples” is a small, but beautiful poem.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 15, 2022

One of the most original, if understated, movies of the year, Nikou’s directorial debut relies upon the potency of the image above ponderous dialogue or showy close-ups.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2022

Nikou puts Aris on a profound journey as we wonder what our place is on this earth, and it pulls no punches.

Full Review | Jul 13, 2022

A gentle meditation on memory, being, belonging and abandonment, Apples is also a first feature from Greek director and co-writer Christos Nikou.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 12, 2022

Servetalis' stoic passivity is somehow endearing, the movie itself understated in a way that feels original if ambiguous...

Full Review | Jul 11, 2022

Nikou has taken some big risks for his directorial debut. Apples walks a line between humour and pathos that isn't easily definable. But his restrained and thoughtful approach results in a deeply rewarding film.

Full Review | Original Score: A-minus | Jul 8, 2022

We’re able to invest ourselves in Nikou’s world because we can so easily see ourselves in Servetalis’s character.

Full Review | Jul 7, 2022

Apples is a half-mocking parable of the individual invented realities in which we increasingly isolate ourselves.

Pick 'Apples'. Christos Nikou’s eccentric, minimalist dramedy is one of the year's best films so far.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 5, 2022

The pleasure of Apples lies in being able to savor the sheen of a deceptively simple story and then bite into the delicious puzzle Christos Nikou has planted inside.

Full Review | Jul 4, 2022

What this surreal microcosm ends up conveying about the human experience extends past the frame and into viewers’ hearts and minds.

Full Review | Jul 1, 2022

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

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

Copy Link URL Copied!

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

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

For your safety

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jan. 12, 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Review: In ‘Great Absence,’ a son puzzles out the dad he misunderstood, now fading into dementia

July 26, 2024

From left: Lisa Kudrow, Rune Temte, Kal-El Tuck, Tadhg Murphy, Charlyne Yi and Roger Jean Nsengiyumva in "Time Bandits," now streaming on Apple TV+.

A reimagined ‘Time Bandits’ takes viewers on a delightful historical adventure

July 24, 2024

‘Sunny,’ led by a powerful Rashida Jones, is best when focused on personal relationships

July 10, 2024

Only good movies

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

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

More From the Los Angeles Times

‘Honestly, I was terrified’: Winona Ryder on returning with ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’

Aug. 28, 2024

‘La Bamba’ is getting a remake. Luis Valdez isn’t sure why

Aug. 27, 2024

Hollywood, CA - June 05: Paramount Pictures studio lot at 5555 Melrose Ave. on Wednesday, June 5, 2024 in Hollywood, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Hollywood Inc.

Bronfman drops out of Paramount bidding; Skydance to claim prize

Collage of Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón

Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez star in Netflix’s new ‘Emilia Pérez’ trailer

Aug. 26, 2024

Screen Rant

Apples review: greek drama is a quietly effective meditation on memory.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

A 62-Minute Horror Movie With $800 Budget Is Going Viral & It Might Be One Of The Best Of 2024

Alien: romulus box office hits a huge global milestone, passing both ridley scott & james cameron-directed classics, avatar 3 art imagines fire na'vi tribe as menacing villains in james cameron's sequel.

At a time when memory and identity seem inextricably linked to social media (and the photographs along with it), a collective consciousness has been built around the outward appearance of the self. Apples asks what happens when the idea of the self is erased, when nothing is left and we have to build a new identity in an era where the very idea of it could become lost within the collective. The Greek film tackles memory and identity with a quiet rumination on what it means to be alive when those things are so susceptible to being lost. An effective portrait of ambiguity accompanied by a stellar lead performance, Apples ' contemplative nature hides nuanced questions about the modern age underneath its placid surface.

Apples follows Aris (Aris Servetalis) a man who, at the beginning of the film, wakes up with no memory of who he is and no identification to give him an idea of who he could have been. There's a pandemic sweeping the country (and quite possibly the world), one where people fall asleep and wake up with no memories. Sometimes their loved ones find them and set out to restore some semblance of identity, but those who go unclaimed are left to drift in a world populated with other amnesiacs and advertisements for a medicine called Memory+. In an attempt to rebuild some sort of life, Aris joins the "Learning How to Live" program where he will be given a place to live and instructions on how to, essentially, build a new identity.

Related: Poser Review: Unfocused Satire Still Feels Sharp, Fresh & A Little Scary

These instructions come in the form of recordings that tell Aris to do something (what may be considered a quintessential life experience) and document it via Polaroid camera. These experiences make up a new identity for Aris and these memories, documented in a scrapbook, are meant to stand in for the ones that are now missing. It's an interesting conceit, one handled with nuance and care. Aris is game for whatever the doctors throw his way, especially when it involves doing it with Anna (Sofia Georgovassili), a woman who is also part of the program. Together, they build a sort of collective memory, a book of shared (and unshared) experiences that may prepare them to live on their own one day.

Aris is childlike in his innocence, a hesitant but willful participant in these strange circumstances. Through these experiences, Apples is subtly asking questions about the things that make up who we are. Is it these prescribed experiences, like the task where Aris is told to go to a strip club and take a photo with one of the dancers, robotic-like in his interactions with the woman? Or is it in the spontaneity of everyday life, like when he and Anna struggle to find their car and accidentally set off the alarm of another? Aris and Anna run away from the vehicle with glee, happier than they looked while doing any of the tasks that were required of them.

Most of the time, Aris is almost a cipher; this feels intentional, as if viewers are supposed to imprint themselves onto him, imagining what it would be like to be in his situation. Apples also makes the audience question the very meaning of loss. After all, what did someone really lose if they can’t even remember what it was? This kind of ambiguous loss hovers over the film like a spectral presence; it's not quite grief, but it is something immeasurable. Sometimes, Aris seems as if he doesn’t even want to remember anything at all. His fascination with apples begins early on in the film — it’s one of the first things he eats in the hospital after waking up and it is something he associates with the first act of kindness shown to him after his hospital roommate gifts him one. Aris proceeds to spend much of the movie buying copious amounts of apples when he goes to the store. When a grocer eventually tells Aris that apples are helpful with memory, he stops buying them, switching to oranges instead.

Apples culminates in what may be Aris' most difficult task yet, climaxing with an emotional ambiguity that belies what the doctors are ill-equipped to see: These experiences Aris is supposed to go through aren't what makes him who he is. Apples doesn't even seek to answer that question and while that could be infuriating for some viewers, spoon-feeding answers to unanswerable questions would be disingenuous and the film knows this. Instead, it leaves the unknowable as is, mimicking the phantom loss that permeates the film and leaves the viewer moved by what has transpired.

More: Rounding Review: Intriguing & Engaging Thriller Is Too Restrained [Tribeca]

Apples releases in theaters on June 24. The film 91 minutes long and is currently unrated.

Apples is a drama film directed by Christos Nikou. The story unfolds in an alternate reality where a sudden pandemic causes amnesia. The protagonist, Aris (Aris Servetalis), grapples with his memory loss while partaking in a government program designed to help individuals create new identities. Seamlessly blending surrealism and emotional depth, Apples explores themes of memory, identity, and human connection.

Movie Reviews
3.5 star movies

an image, when javascript is unavailable

‘Apples’ Review: Greek Memory Game Plays Like ‘Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV: The Movie’

A metaphorical plague of amnesia cases finds real-world resonance in Greek director Christos Nikou's gently absurdist look at loss and reinvention.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

‘Greedy People’ Review: All This Fictional Malfeasance Pales Next to Netflix’s True Crime Offerings 5 days ago
The Critics Are Raving (Mad): ‘Megalopolis’ Scandal Reminds How Blurbs Are Used and Misused in Movie Advertising 6 days ago
Colman Domingo and Directors of ‘Daddio,’ ‘Los Frikis’ and ‘The Bikeriders’ Discuss the Hustle and Flow of Filmmaking on Variety Southern Storytellers Panel 6 days ago

Christos Nikou couldn’t have anticipated the almost unrecognizable world into which he would be releasing his debut feature, “ Apples ,” but it’s a testament to the strength of this lonely and aloof tragicomedy’s central allegory that it adapts so well to our pear-shaped times. What might have been the latest oddity of the Greek Weird Wave — or else a surreal collection of live-action “The Far Side” cartoons — instead feels soulfully relevant as reality aligns with the speculative world Nikou imagined.

Tipped to play the fall-fest trifecta of Telluride, Venice and Toronto, “Apples” takes place amid what sounds suspiciously like a pandemic — an unexplained spike in amnesia cases — although the scientists and media are predictably unclear about what’s happening. This isn’t the near future but a sort of eerily simplified recent past, a nostalgically analog civilization before cellphones and social media, when human connections had to be forged the old-fashioned way. Something is selectively wiping people’s memories, although in certain cases, it can be a blessing to forget, like clearing the cookies from one’s browsing history.

2024 Live Music Business Is Driving Record Revenues, but Some Data Points Raise Concerns

Stockard Channing, Michael Praed to Headline 'The Gates of Kyiv' - Global Bulletin

Not everyone’s as keen on their recall as you-know-who, whose peculiar “person, woman, man, camera, TV” refrain suggests an ideal tagline for “Apples.” The person in this equation is played by bearded, blank-faced Aris Servetalis, a sullen Athens man who can’t seem to remember his name. Early on, he’s discovered sitting vacant-eyed on the bus, evidently a victim of this spontaneous amnesia phenomenon. He has no identification, nor any loved ones to claim him, so the authorities take him to the nearby Neurological Hospital, where doctors working in the Disturbed Memory Dept. have developed an experimental technique to help patients begin a new life.

Popular on Variety

The approach operates like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in reverse, and indeed, there are traces of Charlie Kaufman’s influence on Nikou’s understatedly absurdist script: The doctor prescribes the man a series of tasks — riding a bike, fishing for carp, paying for a lap dance — and a Polaroid camera with which to chronicle them. The resulting snapshots offer a wry commentary on 21st-century selfie culture, documenting what happened without any trace of enjoyment or enthusiasm. Will doing these things spark his memory? They’re certainly funny-sad to witness, like a Kafka character performing a silent-film comedy routine, as he awkwardly struggles with various situations.

As part of the program, our protagonist also gets a new apartment, which feels as forlorn and empty as the inside of his head. There’s more going on up there than lead actor Servetalis lets on, although it’s more effective for audiences to be left to speculate as he sits, eating an apple or staring off into the distance, like one of those melancholy humans lost in thought in an Edward Hopper painting.

At times, the man’s solitude is interrupted by stabs of recognition — not flashbacks (the movie remains stubbornly exterior to his experience throughout), but behavior that suggests some of his memories might still be intact. Of course, he’s actively building new ones through the hospital’s “New Identity” program. During a recommended outing to the cinema, he encounters a fellow patient, a woman (Sofia Georgovasili) who’s a few steps farther along in her recovery. She invites him to assist in her activities, which has the peculiar effect of allowing someone with no memory a chance to sample his future, since he’ll be getting the same assignments a few days later.

Will they fall in love? The question hovers as Nikou shows these two damaged people getting to know each other. The woman seems more responsive, more alive and open to the world, although there’s an explanation as to why the man appears so depressed, so reluctant to form connections. It’s treated as a twist, and sure enough, the movie deserves a second look with this new information in mind — unless your memory is good enough to replay it all in your head.

Nikou comes to this project having worked as an assistant director on Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth” and Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight,” but his voice feels distinct, more mature than those found in the disruptive debuts of his Greek peers. “Apples” has a ruminative quality that’s fairly uncommon in modern cinema, leaving space for audiences to project themselves into the man’s situation. But it also hides key information in the space between cuts, misleading us in ways that are consistent with the characters’ unreliable state of mind.

Overcast, underpopulated and squeezed into a subconsciously oppressive 4:3 frame, the movie isn’t meant to be realistic (authorities would surely have some other way of identifying people struck by amnesia, whether by fingerprints or DNA). Rather, it tickles the imagination, inviting us to consider the prospect of being given a new beginning, and whether starting from scratch would be such a terrible thing.

Reviewed online, Los Angeles, Sept. 1, 2020. (In Venice, Telluride film festivals.) Running time: 90 MIN. (Original title: “Mila”)

Production: (Greece-Poland-Slovenia) A Boo Prods., Lava Films production, with the support of the Greek Film Center, Polish Film Institute, ERT, EKOME, Creative Europe Media Program, in co-production with Perfo Prod., Musou Music Group. (Int'l sales: Alpha Violet, Paris.) Producers: Iraklis Mavroidis, Angelo Venetis, Aris Dagios, Mariusz Wlodarski, Christos Nikou. Executive producer: Nikos Smpiliris. Co-producers: Ales Pavlin, Andrej Stritof, Stefanos Ganos, Stavros Raptis.
Crew: Director: Christos Nikou. Screenplay: Christos Nikou, Stavros Raptis. Camera: Bartosz Swiniarski. Editor: George Zafiris. Music: The Boy.
With: Aris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovasili, Anna Kalaitzidou, Argiris Bakirtzis. (Greek dialogue)

More from Variety

Luke Grimes on Bidding Farewell to ‘Yellowstone,’ Being the Face of Stetson Cologne and His Debut Country Album: ‘I Was Very Nervous to Put Music Out’

Olympics Screenings in Movie Theaters Highlight Exhibitors’ Need for Alternative Content

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - SEPTEMBER 27: Matthew Fox attends the global premiere of C*A*U*G*H*T at Sydney Opera House on September 27, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff ‘The Madison’ Casts Matthew Fox

YELLOWSTONE, from left: Kelly Reilly, Cole Hauser, One Hundred Years Is Nothing', (Season 5, ep. 501, aired Nov. 13, 2022). photo: ©Paramount Network / Courtesy Everett Collection

‘Yellowstone’ Eyes Surprise Season 6 as Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser in Talks to Continue Series

Photo illustration of a robot's hand dropping a coin into a human palm

Training AI With TV & Film Content: How Licensing Deals Look

‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff ‘The Madison’ Casts Patrick J. Adams, Elle Chapman, Beau Garrett

More from our brands, trump’s campaign is running tv ads around mar-a-lago to make him happy.

This Speedy 70-Foot Power Catamaran Is Designed to Cut Through Rough Waters

Bengals’ Vote Against NFL Private Equity Is Par for the Course

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

Netflix’s Starting 5 to Follow LeBron James, Anthony Edwards and Others — Watch Teaser, Get Release Date

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘apples’ (‘mila’): film review.

Debuting Greek director Christos Nikou reflects on memory and loss in this enigmatic account of one man's efforts to reprogram himself in a society afflicted by viral amnesia.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Send an Email
Show additional share options
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest
Share on Reddit
Share on Tumblr
Share on Whats App
Print the Article
Post a Comment

Yorgos Lanthimos ‘ dark absurdist comedy Dogtooth in 2009 ushered in the so-called Greek Weird Wave, which blossomed at least partly out of national chaos triggered by the country’s financial crisis that same year. Christos Nikou, whose background includes working as an assistant director on that film, establishes himself as an exciting new voice in the movement with his assured feature debut, Apples . Simultaneously deadpan and dour, somber and surreal, this is a haunting meditation on the manipulation of memory to anesthetize pain, crafted with a meticulous attention to visual and aural composition that makes for arresting viewing.

The central allegorical element of a dystopian environment in which standardized experience is offered as a remedy for societal malaise specifically recalls Lanthimos’ The Lobster . But Nikou, who co-wrote Apples with Stavros Raptis, also cites the work of Spike Jonze, Leos Carax and especially Charlie Kaufman as influences, touches of which are apparent in the film’s creation of a world both commonplace and alien. The unnamed protagonist could almost be a postmodern Buster Keaton, played in a wonderful performance by Aris Servetalis that seems affectless but slowly uncovers concealed layers of feeling.

Full credits

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Horizons) Distribution: Cohen Media Group Production companies: Boo Productions, Lava Films Cast: Aris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovasili, Anna Kalaitzidou, Argiris Bakirtzis Director: Christos Nikou Screenwriters: Christos Nikou, Stavros Raptis Producers: Iraklis Mavroidis, Angelo Venetis, Aris Dagios, Mariusz Włodarsk, Christos Nikou, Nikos Smpiliris Executive producers: Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, Coco Francini Director of photography: Bartosz Świniarski Production designer: Efi Birba Costume designer: Dimitra Liakoura Music: The Boy Editor: George Zafiris Sound designer: Leandros Ntounis Casting: Stavros Raptis Sales: Alpha Violet, CAA

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Raw talent, method intensity and surprise compliments: ‘1992’ cast remembers ray liotta, sigourney weaver tears up pondering legacy of ‘alien’s’ ripley and the rise of kamala harris, winona ryder on returning for ‘beetlejuice 2’: “one of the more special experiences of my life”, tim burton says he “was a little bit lost” before returning to his roots with ‘beetlejuice beetlejuice’, rebecca ferguson joins andrew garfield, claire foy, nicola coughlan in ‘the magic faraway tree’, michael mann makes surprise appearance at sold-out screening of ‘miami vice’ in los angeles.

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘Apples’ Review: An Amnesia Pandemic Strikes Athens in a Tender but Flavorless Debut

David ehrlich.

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Share on LinkedIn
Show more sharing options
Submit to Reddit
Post to Tumblr
Print This Page
Share on WhatsApp

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2020 Venice Film Festival . Cohen Media Group releases the film in theaters on Friday, June 24.

Pandemics come in a handful of different varieties — some we accurately diagnose, and some we don’t even notice. A highly contagious outbreak of coronavirus (to pick a random example) leaves behind a trail of bodies that makes it rather easy for right-thinking people to recognize the disease for what it is. Other global health crises, however, can be harder to spot. The ones that poison our mental health. The ones that disguise themselves as progress. The ones that seduce us into forgetting who we are.

Set in an analog and uncertain version of the recent past (or perhaps in a parallel universe where the iPhone was never invented), Christos Nikou’s “Apples” begins in the midst of a slow-rolling plague that spreads mysteriously and leaves its victims with severe amnesia. Details are scant, but the crisis has been around long enough that people in Greece have learned to live around it; the healthy go about their normal business, while the sick are corralled into the “New Identity” program the government hosts at local hospitals and advertises on the radio in between Simon and Garfunkel songs.

It’s not as nefarious as it sounds. In fact, the Disturbed Memory Department is more humane than most Americans could imagine — it’s like a rehab for remembering. Or at least it would be if people could remember anything. Instead, “unclaimed” patients like Aris (Aris Servetalis) are tasked with building new identities, a process that involves following the bizarre instructions his doctors record for him on a cassette tape and taking Polaroids as proof that he followed through on each increasingly specific assignment. Ride a bike. Go to a costume party. Meet a girl in a bar, have sex with her in the bathroom, and then leave without saying goodbye.

If Nikou is never shy about following in Yorgos Lanthimos’ footsteps (the first-time helmer served as assistant director on “ Dogtooth ”), that signature deadpan strangeness only grows more pronounced as “Apples” starts to ripen. But this dry modern fable is softer and more delicate than “Alps,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” and the rest of its unmistakable blood relatives. It’s hazy where Lanthimos’ work is razor-sharp; vague instead of violently literal. There’s even a twinkly music box-like score that wouldn’t be out of place in a Drake Doremus movie (composer The Boy gilding the images with string flourishes that sound like synapses fusing together).

But if Nikou’s debut seems poised to become the most opaque movie ever made about the mind-obliviating corruption of digital technology — less a screed than a gently urgent reminder to exercise our memories instead of outsourcing them to the cloud — the film, like it’s drifting hero, struggles to forge an identity of its own.

Aris’ participation in the New Identity program will be familiar enough to anyone who’s seen “The Favourite.” He’s bashing his head against the living room wall of his distressed Athens flat the first time we meet him, handsome yet blank in a way that makes it hard to tell if he’s already forgotten who he is. From there, Aris falls asleep on a bus, and wakes up at the end of the route with no idea of where, what, or why he is where, what, and why he is. The authorities know exactly where to take someone in that condition.

The kind but clinical doctors who work in the Disturbed Memory Department insist that Aris’ family will find him soon enough and sort things out, but no one shows up. A taste for apples is Aris’ only connection to the person he was — some things are hardwired, but the tantalizing aftertaste of an unknown past has a way of making people hungry for a satisfaction they may never have. The doctors promise Aris that he can make a new beginning, but the implication is that he has no other choice.

Much of this terse and coiled film is devoted to watching Aris live out that reality, both alone and with other people like him. The script is fractured into cute, largely self-contained scenes that sketch out what life would be like for a man without a memory. None of the exercises that Aris is prescribed seem all that scientific, but most of them are endearing. At one point he attends a costume party with his fellow patients; everyone is dressed up like astronauts and superheroes, but even they don’t know who they are to begin with. Later, Aris visits a strip club and awkwardly asks a topless dancer to pose for a Polaroid selfie so that he can prove he was there.

In the movie’s best moments, the veneer of Lanthimos-like affectlessness that’s layered over Aris’ behavior reflects the sterility of our own social media use — of living in a world where personal identity has blurred into a series of symbolic disguises, and most of us have been conditioned to do things just for the sake of documenting them. “Apples” conveys a sense, palpable but unspoken, that emotion is the crucial difference between data and memory, and distancing ourselves from the feeling of our experiences makes us liable to forget who we are.

At times, it seems as if Nikou is trying to peel back the layers of Lanthimos’ ultra-blunt comic methodology and explore how it reflects our growing inability to feel things, as if the goal-oriented directives of modern living have dried up all the dopamine our brains can produce. The film’s delightful meet-cute takes place at a screening of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” where Aris notices a fellow amnesiac (Sofia Georgovasili) scared out of her mind and hiding under her chair. Later, she tells him the plot of “Titanic,” and admits that it made her cry her eyes out.

Getting to see every movie as if for the first time is something of a silver lining for these lost people who can’t feel anything of their own. Emotional responses — even terror and heartbreak — are what get under our skin and make us who we are. If this Charlie Kaufman-tinged fairy tale has a moral, it’s that people are the sum of the things they feel and don’t forget. Erasing painful memories or living at a remove from our own reality might seem appealing, but that numbness amounts to a kind of self-annihilation.

These ideas bob up and down throughout the short course of “Apples,” and Servetalis’ searching and cipher-like performance suggests a restless internal tension as Aris finds himself confronted by the vague possibility of remembering who he was. Is? But the movie, like its protagonist, struggles to navigate a path through a whole lot of nothing. We’re eventually given hard and clear answers about what happened to Aris before his amnesia, and even what might have prompted it, but it’s hard to elevate a story above the level of parable when its basic conceit prevents the hero from becoming a recognizable person until the final moments.

This is a movie full of lovely and lilting moments that invite you to reflect on the value of your own painful memories, and yet precious little of it is specific enough in a way that makes it hard to forget. Listening to someone relay the plot of “Titanic” is as acutely emotional as it gets. Odd bits stick out here and there — watching Aris dance an eerily slow version of the twist alone in his hospital bedroom suggests all sorts of buried meaning, but hints are all we get. They could belong to anybody. While Nikou skins this story with great tenderness, “Apples” ends without ever finding its core.

“Apples” premiered in the Orizzonti section of the 2020 Venice Film Festival.

Most Popular

Top cast 99+

Program Manager

Elder Patient

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

More like this

Did you know

Trivia Official submission of Greece for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021; however, the film did not ultimately receive a nomination.
Connections Features The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Soundtracks Another Day Written & performed by Antonis Georgou P+© Musou Music Group

User reviews 14

Come-and-Review
Sep 1, 2020
How long is Apples? Powered by Alexa
June 3, 2021 (Greece)
Official site
Official site (Japan)
Athens, Greece
Boo Productions
Greek Film Centre (GFC)
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 31 minutes

More to explore

Apples Review

Apples starts as it means to go on. Close-ups of a banal house interior are cut to the beat of a dull, steady drumbeat. The noise, it turns out, is a man, Aris (Aris Servetalis), rhythmically banging his head on a door jamb, oblivious to any pain. It’s an oddball note that Christos Nikou ’s film not only runs with but amplifies, delivering a deadpan but weirdly moving treatise on the relationship between memory, identity and grief. Nikou, an assistant director on Richard Linklater ’s Before Midnight , is often bracketed with Yorgos Lanthimos as a leading light of the so-called ‘ Greek Weird Wave ’. Working with Emma Stone and Oscar nominations may be a long way off, but Apples is a bizarre, small-scale delight that delivers a texture and voice all of its own.

That _Apples_ ends up strangely moving is down to Nikou’s deft handling of tone and an engaging performance from Servetalis

Nikou’s film is Rod Serling meets Franz Kafka meets Charlie Kaufman . The world has been hit by a mysterious pandemic of irreversible amnesia. In Greece, the lucky few are found and reclaimed by family, the rest are either kept in hospital or put into the Disturbed Memory Department, which helps them build a new personality. Waking up on a night bus with no idea where or who he is, Aris is inducted into the recovery programme. Here he is given a new apartment and a set of daily tasks (that come from a C90 cassette — remember them?) that are designed to form his new personality and must be captured on an old-school Polaroid camera to form a photo album of new memories.

Initially Nikou plays these tasks as almost silent-movie skits, as Aris rides a bike, goes fishing and ‘enjoys’ a lap dance. Things get more complex when Aris meets fellow patient Anna (Sofia Georgovassili) at a horror-film screening (they both have their picture taken with the poster). Anna is at a different stage of her recovery, and what plays out is a tentative connection complicated by having to abide by the rules of their strange therapy. There are musical moments — as Aris starts to embrace the dance moves to ‘The Twist’ or remembers the words to ‘Sealed With A Kiss’ — that indicate Ari is perhaps engaging with his previous life. Yet a twist in the tale suggests something else.

Nikou sews in strange-sad, Kaufman-esque vignettes — Aris in his room in a fancy-dress astronaut’s costume or watching a pair of lovers on TV through a shop window — that marinade the high-concept idea in melancholy. The film is set in a timeless world where everyone still uses Polaroid cameras — the film is shot in a squared- up 4:3 ratio that mimics the outdated technology — but also offers a sly commentary on social media as capturing the moment becomes more important than actually experiencing it. That Apples ends up strangely moving is down to Nikou’s deft handling of tone and an engaging performance from Servetalis, whose mono-expression makes Buster Keaton look like Jim Carrey .

Stranger Things Season 5
Deadpool and Wolverine
The Batman 2
Spider-Man 4
Yellowstone Season 6
Fallout Season 2
The Last of Us Season 2
Entertainment

Apples review: Accidental COVID allegory is Lanthimos Lite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editors’ Recommendations

What’s new on Apple TV+ this month (August 2024)
The best movies on Apple TV+ right now (June 2024)
7 great Christmas movies you can watch for free
The School for Good and Evil review: Middling magic
Slash/Back review: The kids are all right (especially when fighting aliens)

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

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

Well, that's finally over.

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

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

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

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

Start a new list…
Add all films to a list…
Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Where to watch

Directed by Christos Nikou

Could it be that we are the things we don't forget?

As an unpredictable, sweeping pandemic causes people to develop sudden amnesia, a man finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help him build a new life. His treatment: performing daily tasks prescribed by his doctors on cassette tape, and capturing those with a Polaroid camera.

Aris Servetalis Sofia Georgovassili Anna Kalaitzidou Argyris Bakirtzis Kostas Laskos Costas Xikominos Alexandra Aidini Babis Makridis Antonis Kyriakakis Thanasis Stefosis Nikos Panagiotopoulos Stratos Papadelis

Director Director

Christos Nikou

Producers Producers

Mariusz Włodarski Christos Nikou Angelos Venetis Aris Dagios Iraklis Mavroidis Andrej Štritof Aleš Pavlin

Writers Writers

Stavros Raptis Christos Nikou

Casting Casting

Stavros Raptis

Editor Editor

Giorgos Zafeiris

Cinematography Cinematography

Bartosz Świniarski

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Cate Blanchett Coco Francini Nikos Smpiliris Andrew Upton

Production Design Production Design

Efi Birba Sevi Morou

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Composer composer.

Alexander Voulgaris

Sound Sound

Leandros Ntounis Kostas Koutelidakis Tom Lemajič Saso Kalan Nikos Linardopoulos

Costume Design Costume Design

Dimitra Liakoura

Makeup Makeup

Kyriaky Melidou

Boo Productions Lava Films Perfo Production Musou Music Group

Greece Poland Slovenia

Greek (modern)

Releases by Date

02 sep 2020, 13 nov 2020, 25 apr 2021, 17 aug 2021, 21 aug 2021, 29 oct 2021.

Theatrical limited

24 Jun 2022

26 may 2021, 03 jun 2021, 26 aug 2021, 01 sep 2021, 04 sep 2021, 17 dec 2021, 13 apr 2022, 08 jul 2022, 02 nov 2020, 11 mar 2021, 31 mar 2021, 07 may 2021, releases by country.

Premiere Melbourne International Film Festival
Theatrical M
Premiere Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Premiere Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Theatrical Κ
Premiere Venice International Film Festival

Netherlands

Premiere Leiden International Film Festival
Premiere Moscow International Film Festival
Theatrical 16+

South Korea

Theatrical 12
Theatrical El Sur Films

91 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by ˗ˏˋ suspirliam ˊˎ˗ ★★★★ 3

don't you just love it when a film turns out to be as good as its poster

Review by Eric J ★★★★½ 12

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Upon a re-watch, it seems that this film is less about memory loss and more about the intentional construction of individual identity. What makes this film compelling is how it draws a line from trauma and pain to self-doubt and the desire for personal reinvention projects.

The “scientists” who are “helping” him learn how to live are really idiots. The tasks that they recommend to him are just dumb, silly things, and many of them are actually dangerous and self-destructive. None of them make him happy or feel more connected to who he is. It’s amazing how silly this all is, but, the first time I watched this, I took the doctors and their assignments so seriously and completely fell…

Review by davidehrlich ★★★ 1

Review by Lucy ★★★½

AFI 2020: film #14

“a lot of people have forgotten”

i thought i was ready for whatever this threw at me, but somehow wasn’t expecting a subtle character study. it feels like a yorgos, but with a much lighter touch, more reminiscent of alps than anything else. i was fully engaged with it all, but it still didn’t give me enough, ending as simply as it began. i dig this concept more than i love the outcome

(i do have to add that the titanic reference made me yelp because of how some of the dialogue is phrased: “i cried my eyes out the other day. have you seen this movie?”)

Review by john ★★★

boy does the title deliver

Review by tuur ★★★★½ 1

On the edge between nostalgia and melancholia, i’ve never felt so peaceful watching a movie... With an original but very relevant concept and an aesthetically mellow narration, this is in my opinion truly a tremendous piece of art

Btw if you’re gonna watch this, get you some apples first, you’ll thank me later

Review by Mario Melendez ★★★½ 3

After a series of more or less efficient titles, although not particularly dazzling, Greek cinematography and its particular style guide seemed stagnant and doomed to repeat formulas without finding the spark that dazzled in my very humble opinion with Dogtooth. Films like Chevalier or Pity address essential themes with that singular aesthetic, although without really offering anything truly memorable and much less transcendental. The same direction of the actors seeks to dramatize the sense of loss of humanity, reinforced by some old-fashioned and impersonal environments, some resources of the theater of the absurd and a philosophical yet ironic air; a certain amount of black humor that served to crumble essential issues in the contemporary modern society of that country.

Review by Sarah ★★★★

damn these Apple ads are getting pretty weird

Review by Jack ★★★½

Christos Nikou’s debut feature, Apples , is a deadpan yet delightful rumination on memory and identity that has the austere dryness of a Lanthimos film and the absurd existentialism of Kaufman. It’s a very promising debut that is coming from a strong, fresh voice within Greek cinema. And for that, I’m excited to see what Nikou ends up directing next.

Review by aaron ★★★ 2

can we discuss this sexy poster and aspect ratio though !!!

Review by nick ★★★½

Apples is as quirky and bizarre as its great poster suggests, although it's definitely not at Yorgos Lanthimos' level. The story may be too toothless for my liking, but the effective tragedy hidden underneath its uneventful surface eventually adds to its charms and emotional strengths.

As a symbolic spin on modern loneliness, Apples is ultimately about a lonely man caught between past and future memories. With its daring premise of an amnesia pandemic in Greece, Apples takes a microscopic insight into the protagonist's new life, where memories are created merely as a result of medical experiments rather than genuine occurrences.

From riding children's bike, to purposefully crashing cars, the man without an identity, played by a highly restrained Aris Servetalis,…

Review by Ian Floodgate ★★★★

While some people might be craving a return to “normal life” with a potential end to the COVID-19 pandemic visible, other people might question what “normal life” is. Coronavirus is likely to change some of our daily habits, like our cleanliness. However, most of us are unlikely to change how we use technology because it has not been directly affected. Nevertheless, because of the harm social media can cause, which is part of our so-called “normal life”, it may be seen as an epidemic itself, and indeed the lasting consequences of this pandemic and social media’s role in it are troubling. This pandemic has also raised further awareness of mental health, with many people struggling to cope with isolation and…

Mentioned by

Select your preferred backdrop

Select your preferred poster, upgrade to remove ads.

Letterboxd is an independent service created by a small team, and we rely mostly on the support of our members to maintain our site and apps. Please consider upgrading to a Pro account —for less than a couple bucks a month, you’ll get cool additional features like all-time and annual stats pages ( example ), the ability to select (and filter by) your favorite streaming services, and no ads!

The Best Live TV Streaming Services With Free Trial

The cheapest live tv streaming services (< $40).

Power Book III: Raising Kanan
Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials

Which Netflix Country has Interstellar?

Which netflix country has each movie of the hunger games.

Lost Cities Revealed with Albert Lin
Which Netflix Country Has Attack on Titan?
Which Netflix Country Has One Piece?
Dragons: The Nine Realms
Interstellar
Each Movie of The Hunger Games
Attack on Titan
The Big Bang Theory
Each Harry Potter Movie
The Walking Dead
Rick & Morty
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Science Fiction
Documentary
To Her (2017)
Kingdom 3: The Flame of Fate (2023)
Totally Killer (2023)
Stranger Things
Barbie (2023)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
The Queen's Gambit
Peaky Blinders
Breaking Bad
The Last of Us
The Dark Knight (2008)
The Buccaneers
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)
King Kong (2005)
Sherlock Holmes
Pride and Prejudice
Scrooge (1951)
Grease (1978)
The Departed (2006)
I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016)
Men in Black (1997)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Mosquito Coast
Prime Video
CBS All Access

Apples’ memory-destroying pandemic proves a juicy, multilayered vehicle for its musings.

Apples opens with a series of thuds. With each one, we move in until we’re close-up on details. These are little seeds of a world. Such is the process through which director Christos Nikou peels back the skin of his story. He repeatedly plants tiny granular clues that one would be tempted to spit out and dismiss, but which make all the difference to the growth of the narrative.

The thuds we hear are Aris (Aris Servetalis) banging his head against the wall. Feeling dejected, he shuffles onto the street. Though it may look similar to ours, once outside, Nikou immediately begins planting his peripheral hints that there’s something surreal about this world. An unknown virus is creeping through this reality, causing people to develop amnesia. Society is slowly setting adrift amongst itself.

As sure as there’s a crisis, there’s government bureaucracy. Aris is taken in, documented, and processed by the hospital. After a series of tests, the doctors diagnose him with the same incurable disease and set him aside to be claimed by friends or family. When no one comes to “claim” him, he’s ushered into the “New Life Program.”

The government has designed this program to help victims of this disease adapt to their new reality. Given a tape player with instructions and a Polaroid camera to document their progress, patients are given a series of tasks to complete. These social errands should, according to the nameless physicians in charge (Anna Kalaitzidou & Argyris Bakirtzis), build a new life and identity.

During these tasks, he encounters Anna (Sofia Georgovassili), a woman in the same program for “unclaimed people.” Their two form a fleeting yet affirming bond that triggers something inside Aris’ spirit. The most important thing he remembers is that life is like an apple: sweet and delicate with an unshakeable core.

Servetalis is perfectly calibrated to play Aris. It’s a difficult task to achieve the level of detachment and disaffection required to play this role, yet Servetalis peels back the skin with ease. His Aris is appropriately aloof, guarded, and empty, simulating a void that fits perfectly into the story the director is trying to tell.

Apples is a very cerebral tale. Christos Nikou’s style is dry and contemplative, making for melancholy surrealism whose power doesn’t quite hit until the credits roll. Apples doesn’t reach “great pith and moment,” rarely are there moments that break out of its droll atmosphere. The film risks becoming too contemplative to be memorable. But if you understand the flavor profile of the apple before you bite, you’ll enjoy the complexity much more.

During his “processing,” Aris goes through a series of tests to determine if he has amnesia. After the memory test, there’s a peculiar cultural exam in which he must match music to the cultural context. Not only are Aris’ mismatches telling, but so are his options. Amongst the Jingle Bells and Swan Lake Suite, there isn’t a single traditional Greek choice. Cultural identity is solely determined and remembered through a Northern European lens.

Such a cultural splitting surely leads to a schism of self. But Nikou isn’t interested in diagnosing and pathologizing the unknown amnesia virus. Apples is about building and navigating a world that’s collectively adrift. As we approach the core of the story, you may notice there are some delicious wrinkles in the flesh of this reality, where some things don’t seem to add up.

The pleasure of Apples lies in being able to savor the sheen of a deceptively simple story and then bite into the delicious puzzle Christos Nikou has planted inside. Though there are morsels of lethargy as the pieces are set in place, once the seeds have sprouted, this becomes an unforgettable tale of memory, identity, and the fruits of selfhood.

Apples is now playing in theaters.

Apples Trailer:

Bad Monkey? Good, Actually.

Against expectations, Bill Lawrence and Vince Vaughn’s sensibilities merge to create an eminently watchable crime comedy offering for AppleTV+.

Streaming guides

The praises of live TV streaming services don’t need to be further sung. By now, we all know that compared to clunky, commitment-heavy cable, live TV is cheaper and much easier to manage. But just in case you’re still on the fence about jumping over to the other side, or if you’re just unhappy with ... The Best Live TV Streaming Services With Free Trial

Cord-cutting once carried the promise of reducing live TV costs, but with most services nearing a $100 per month, that statement checks less every day. That said, there is a handful of cord-cutting services with reasonable monthly prices. Below we list them.

How to Watch Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 3

Season 3 of the hotly anticipated Power spin-off, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, is arriving on Starz soon, so you know what that means: it’s the ’90s again in The Southside, and we’re back with the Thomas family as they navigate the ins and outs of the criminal underworld they’re helping build. Mekai Curtis is ... How to Watch Power Book III: Raising Kanan Season 3

How to Watch Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re so back! To celebrate Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary, the BBC is producing a three-episode special starring none other than the Tenth/Fourteenth Doctor himself, David Tennant. And to the supreme delight of fans (that would be me, dear reader), the Doctor will be joined by old-time companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) and ... How to Watch Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials

Maybe you’ve just seen Oppenheimer and have the strongest urge to marathon—or more fun yet, rank!—all of Christopher Nolan’s films. Or maybe you’re one of the few who haven’t seen Interstellar yet. If you are, then you should change that immediately; the dystopian epic is one of Nolan’s best, and with that incredible twist in ... Which Netflix Country has Interstellar?

For whatever reason, The Hunger Games series isn’t available in the same countries around the world. You’ll find the first and second (aka the best) installments in Hong Kong, for instance, but not the third and fourth. It’s a frustrating dilemma, especially if you don’t even have a single entry in your region, which is ... Which Netflix Country Has Each Movie of The Hunger Games?

How to Watch ESPN With A Free Trial

One of the major concerns people have before cutting the cord is potentially losing access to live sports. But the great thing about live TV streaming services is that you never lose that access. Minus the contracts and complications of cable, these streaming services connect you to a host of live channels, including ESPN. So ... How to Watch ESPN With A Free Trial

How to Watch Paramount Network With a Free Trial

To date, Paramount Network has only two original shows on air right now: Yellowstone and Bar Rescue. The network seems to have its hands full with on-demand streaming service Paramount+, which is constantly stacked with a fresh supply of new shows. But Yellowstone and Bar Rescue are so sturdy and expansive that the network doesn’t ... How to Watch Paramount Network With a Free Trial

How to Watch WE TV With a Free Trial

Previously “Women’s Entertainment,” We TV has since rebranded to accurately reflect its name and be a more inclusive lifestyle channel. It’s home to addictive reality gems like Bold and Bougie, Bridezillas, Marriage Boot Camp, and The Untold Stories of Hip Hop. And when it’s not airing original titles, it has on syndicated shows like 9-1-1, ... How to Watch WE TV With a Free Trial

How to Watch TNT Sports With A Free Trial

For many sports fans, TNT is a non-negotiable. It broadcasts NBA, MLB, NHL, college basketball, and All Elite Wrestling matches. And, as a bonus, it also has reruns of shows like Supernatural, Charmed, and NCIS, as well as films like The Avengers, Dune, and Justice League. But while TNT used to be a cable staple, ... How to Watch TNT Sports With A Free Trial

How to Watch Comedy Central With a Free Trial

It’s no coincidence that many of today’s biggest comedians found their footing on Comedy Central: the channel is a bastion of emerging comic talents. It served as a playground for people like Nathan Fielder (Fielder For You), Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson (Broad City), Tim Robinson (Detroiters), and Dave Chappelle (Chappelle’s Show) before they shot ... How to Watch Comedy Central With a Free Trial

How to Watch FX With a Free Trial

You’d be hard-pressed to find a bad show airing on FX. The channel has made a name for itself as a bastion of high-brow TV, along with HBO and AMC. It’s produced shows like Atlanta, Fargo, The Americans, Archer, and more recently, Shogun. But because it’s owned by Disney, it still airs several blockbusters in ... How to Watch FX With a Free Trial

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

The Big Story
Newsletters
Steven Levy's Plaintext Column
WIRED Classics from the Archive
WIRED Insider
WIRED Consulting

The 21 Best Movies on Apple TV+ Right Now

Billie Eilish and Finneas OConnell on stage in “Billie Eilish The Worlds A Little Blurry” now streaming on Apple TV.

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

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

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

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more .

The World’s a Little Blurry

When it originally came out in 2021, The World's a Little Blurry proved to be an unprecedented look into the life of pop phenom Billie Eilish as the then-teenager recorded her debut LP When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Director R. J. Cutler got amazing access for the film, which chronicles everything from Eilish’s songwriting process with her brother Finneas to her frank talk about her Tourette’s. But it also was only a small chapter of the singer's life. Now that she's won multiple Grammys and Oscars, started singing about eating girls for lunch, and performed at the Olympics Closing Ceremony, watching Blurry feels like opening a time capsule—in all the best ways. It’s the kind of music documentary that redefines the music documentary.

The Velvet Underground

You may think that director Todd Haynes only makes intense dramas like Carol and May December , but for this film he went deep into the art scene in New York City in the 1960s to unearth what happened when the Velvet Underground exploded a lot of people’s ideas of music. Piecing together new interviews with archive footage and even old Andy Warhol films, it captures a moment in music history that changed things forever.

Fancy Dance

Set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma, Fancy Dance follows the journey of Jax ( Killers of the Flower Moon ’s Lily Gladstone), a woman who has been caring for her niece Roki ever since her sister, Roki’s mother, went missing. After the authorities deem Jax unfit to care for her niece, Roki is sent to live with her grandfather. Looking for answers, Jax takes Roki on the road to try to find her mother and ends up trying to escape the same authorities, who aren’t putting the same effort into finding her missing sister as they are in trying to find her. An examination of life on colonized land, Fancy Dance is also a thoughtful look at protecting community.

Like a few things on Apple streaming services, this movie has a weird connection to Taylor Swift—but unlike many of those things, this connection has been debunked. In the film, Bryce Dallas Howard plays Elly Conway, a spy novelist whose stories end up becoming a little too real. Because her character carries a cat in a backpack, like Swift, there were rumors the singer was involved in writing the script, rumors that Howard dispelled in a late-night interview . Is Argylle worth your time despite the lack of Swift involvement? Reviews are mixed, but if you are part of the camp that wants to see Henry Cavill be a Bond-like hero, this is your shot.

Girls State

Do you remember the 2020 documentary Boys State , about a group of young men in Texas who attend a summer program where the are challenged to form their own government? Girls State is similar—it even comes from the same filmmaking team of Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine—but it follows a group of people who have never seen someone of their gender hold the office of US president. It's also set in Missouri, not Texas. Expect all the same wild ambition and hearbreak—and more than a few life lessons learned.

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

Killers of the Flower Moon

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

Fingernails

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

Flora and Son

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

Stephen Curry: Underrated

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

Beastie Boys Story

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

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

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

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

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

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

Cha Cha Real Smooth

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

The Tragedy of Macbeth

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

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues

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

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

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

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

Tim Ballard’s Claims to Fight Sex Trafficking Made Him a MAGA Star. These Women Told Police He Abused Them

Apple Rethinks Its Movie Strategy After a String of Misses

“Wolfs,” a new film starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, was going to get a robust theatrical release. But the company is curtailing that plan.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney seated across from each other at a table in a restaurant.

By Nicole Sperling

When Apple won a bidding war in 2021 for the rights to make the action comedy “Wolfs” with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, it did so in part because it promised the stars it would put the movie into a large number of movie theaters.

“Brad and I made the deal to do that movie where we gave money back to make sure that we had a theatrical release,” Mr. Clooney said last year in an interview with the Hollywood trade publication Deadline.

But this month, just six weeks before the film was set to show up in thousands of theaters around the United States, Apple announced a significant change in plans. “Wolfs” will now be shown on a limited number of movie screens for one week before becoming available on the company’s streaming service on Sept. 27. (Internationally, it won’t appear in theaters at all with the exception of the Venice Film Festival, where it will premiere on Sept. 1.)

“‘Wolfs’ is the kind of big event movie that makes Apple TV+ such an exceptional home for the best in entertainment,” Matt Dentler, the head of features for Apple Original Films, said in a statement. “Releasing the movie to theaters before making it widely available to Apple TV+ customers brings the best of both worlds to audiences.”

The film’s director, Jon Watts, told Vanity Fair that he had found out about the change in plans only days before the announcement. “The theatrical experience has really made an impression on me, of how valuable this thing is and how important it is,” Mr. Watts said. “I always thought of this as a theatrical movie. We made it to be seen in theaters, and I think that’s the best way to see it.”

Despite the filmmakers’ desires, the about-face follows a middling run at the box office for Apple, which began releasing films into theaters around the country via partnerships with traditional studios in October.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

Search Please fill out this field.
Manage Your Subscription
Give a Gift Subscription
Newsletters
Sweepstakes
Pies & Tarts

The Best Apples for Apple Pie, According to Pastry Chefs

Make sure your pie is filled with tart, firm, and tasty apples…and not mush.

Food & Wine / Getty Images

The best apple pies put the focus on the whole fruit — they’re not called applesauce pies, after all! For the perfect apple pie, you want to look for apples that can maintain their structure and flavor when baked for a long time (and on that note, you should be baking your pie for longer than you think ).

There are thousands of apple varieties out there, many of which will make for a delicious pie. “Firm, tart, and tasty are the three things I always tell people [to look for],” says baker and F&W contributor Martin Sorge, who won season 6 of The Great American Baking Show . “If you remember those three things, it doesn’t necessarily matter which variety of apple you’re using, as long as it’s firm and not soft or mealy.”

Caroline Schiff, pastry chef and 2022 F&W Best New Chef

“I want the apples to be cooked through, but I don’t want them to be mushy. If you start with something that’s really crisp and firm and has great structure, by the time it cooks down, you’re still going to get a little bit of a bite with that finished dessert.”

2022 F&W Best New Chef Caroline Schiff , who most recently ran the much-lauded pastry program at Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn, agrees. “Personally, when I am making something like an apple pie, I want the apples to be cooked through, but I don’t want them to be mushy. I want there to be a little bit of a toothsome quality to the filling,” she says. “If you start with something that’s really crisp and firm and has great structure, by the time it cooks down, you’re still going to get a little bit of a bite with that finished dessert.”

Here are some rules of thumb when choosing the best apples for a pie, plus common varieties at the supermarket that are up for the job.

How to choose an apple for pie

Pick a tart, firm apple.

It might sound counterintuitive, but you don’t want to reach for overly-sweet apples when making an apple pie or tarte tatin . “I want the rest of the sugar and sweetness in the recipe to be balanced out by the apples’ tartness,” says Schiff. Sweeter, milder apples like Macintosh, Fuji, and Red Delicious don’t work well for pies; they also tend to break down more quickly when baking.

Instead, lean toward sweet-tart apples like Honeycrisp, or tart and tangy ones like Granny Smith. As for texture, “you want something that feels fairly hard, maybe even more firm than you would normally eat,” says Sorge. Schiff also suggests avoiding any apples with an overly waxy texture, which you’re more likely to see with supermarket apples than ones from the farmers market.

Use a mixed bag!

Both Schiff and Sorge recommend playing around with a mixture of apples for an interplay of flavors and textures. You could combine tart Granny Smith apples with sweet Pink Lady apples, for example. “My favorite thing to do is go to this orchard in Wisconsin and get a mixed bag of what I think are good apples to bake with, then put them in a pie,” says Sorge. “You get a lot of complexity and different flavors when you do that.” Schiff adds that her ideal apple pie filling would consist of Honeycrisp and Winesap apples.

Try something new

Apple varieties vary regionally, and there are plenty of pie-worthy apples beyond the supermarket stalwarts. Schiff and Sorge both suggest asking the farmer at your local orchard or farmers market to recommend tart baking apples — they might even give you a sample! “I have this awesome orchard near me that grows 48 varieties of apples,” says Sorge. “I like to play around and say, ‘Oh, look at this heritage apple that’s lumpy and weird-looking, but it’s really firm and delicious.’ So I’m going to get that and make my pie with that this year and see how it goes.”

Frans Rombout / PicturePartners / Getty Images

Best sweet-tart variety: Honeycrisp

Red-yellow Honeycrisps are a favorite of Sorge’s and Schiff’s for their crispness and sweet-tart, apple-forward flavor. Other good options include Mutsu, Braeburn, and Winesap. Rosy-hued Pink Ladies have a naturally beautiful color and sweeter flavor that can pair well with more tart varieties like Granny Smith. And while Schiff steers away from sweeter Golden Delicious varieties for baking, Sorge says they can hold up well in pies; it’s really a matter of personal preference. He suggests that you might opt to add less sugar if working with slightly sweeter apples like Golden Delicious.

Best tart variety: Granny Smith

Green, crunchy, and tart Granny Smiths can hold their own against the spices and sugar used in an apple pie. “Granny Smith will make a great pie. It’s tart, it’s generally really crisp, and it has a nice bright flavor,” says Schiff. “Granny Smith is super-tangy, but really stands up well to strong flavors and a little more sugar,” adds Sorge. Both chefs suggest balancing Granny Smith’s tanginess with a more sweet-tart apple like Honeycrisp or Pink Lady.

Which apples should you avoid?

Sweeter snacking apples like Macintosh, Gala, Fuji, and Red Delicious can all be delicious when eaten out of hand, but they’re generally too soft and mild-flavored for baking. Reserve them for applesauce , apple butter , apple bread , or other recipes that benefit from the apples breaking down. If you’re making an apple upside-down cake or a cake with chunks of apples, “you can lean towards a slightly sweeter apple, like Red Delicious,” says Sorge. “It’ll get a little more tender, and you don’t want a hard chunk in there.”

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

These XR glasses cured my Apple Vision Pro FOMO - at a fraction of the cost

ZDNET's key takeaways

I'd recommend the Viture One XR glasses to traveling professionals, gamers, and those who want a more private but accessible display experience.
They're priced fairly at a retail cost of $439 and offer myopia adjustment dials for improved clarity.
Still, expect some blurred edges as you look around the virtual 120-inch display.

As I make my way to the back of the commuter bus, I pull out what looks like an ordinary pair of sunglasses (with only slightly thicker frames), connect its MagSafe-like power adapter to my MacBook, sit, and start to click, drag, scroll, and type.

This almost sounds like the Vision Pro dream that only a few experience, but it's achieved through a $439 wearable, not a front-heavy headset that costs an arm and a leg.

Also: I returned my Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 for these XR glasses - and they're much cheaper

From a bystander's view, I look like the mightiest of keyboard warriors, churning out bodies of text without ever needing to look down at the QWERTY layout on my laptop. From my view, I'm staring at a 120-inch display projected two feet in front of me thanks to a meticulous arrangement of light and mirrors within the Viture One's XR Glasses .

Instead of transmitting you into a virtual or augmented reality like Apple's Vision Pro , the Viture glasses simply extend from -- and are powered by -- the source they're connected to, serving as an ultraportable, on-your-face monitor. To be clear, comparing the XR Glasses to a $3,500 productivity wearable is an apples-to-oranges affair. Unless you consider yourself an early adopter, the target customers of the two gadgets are notably different.

Viture is pitching its glasses to people who want to game, watch movies, or surf the web without needing to be physically in front of a TV or office desk. The glasses' 120-inch projection is more suited for folks who would rather binge-watch shows while lying in bed or are on a flight and seek privacy when using a phone, tablet, or laptop. But the overlap in use cases is uncanny and not unintentional.

Also: I've tried Vision Pro and other top XR headsets and here's the one most people should buy

My use case slots right in between: I want a larger platform to draft news and reviews and answer secretive emails as I sit in the make-believe comfort of public transit. The glasses are also practical for when your partner wants to watch The Bachelor on the living room TV, but you're more interested in the marriage of basketball and the spirit of competition.

A mock-up of what it looks like to wear the Viture glasses.

Thanks to the single USB-C cable needed to power the device, I can easily pair the Viture glasses to my MacBook or Android phone . Bonus points if the latter is a Samsung Galaxy that supports DeX mode or a Motorola handset that supports Ready For; in those two platforms, you'll be greeted with a desktop interface of your usual mobile apps and services.

Also: I demoed Xreal's AR glasses for spatial computing and they're better than I expected

Here's the killer feature of the Viture glasses: spatial video support, the same 3D playback capability as found on the Vision Pro. While an adapter is necessary for the glasses to pair with an iPhone, the company has developed a new SpaceWalker app on iOS that lets users watch spatial videos recorded by an iPhone 15 Pro or Vision Pro. I played a couple of clips that I had previously reserved for the Apple headset, and reliving those moments with such depth and realism was quite eye-opening.

Of course, there's no standard of spatial video playback quality for me to compare with, but based on what I saw, the essence of the format was there. I could see the separation between the subjects in the videos, and that remained consistent so long as my camera was well-distanced and in focus.

You can also watch 3D videos and movies on the Viture One XR Glasses.

As far as the visual experience of the glasses goes, it's adequate, but nothing groundbreaking. For prescription wearers like myself, there are two Myopia rotary knobs (think focus dials) on the top of the Viture One that can be adjusted to your vision. That means you don't have to, and shouldn't, wear the XR glasses over your existing pair. You also don't need to fork up $150 for tailor-made prescription lenses like you would with the Vision Pro.

Also: The best VR headsets right now (and how Apple Vision Pro stacks up)

I found the best way to calibrate this was to keep the opposite eye closed as I was tuning each side. However, finding the perfect focus will take some trial and error, and even when you think you've struck the right distance, the corners and edges of the 120-inch projection will remain blurry.

That seems to be unavoidable due to how large but close the projections are to your eyes. For example, if you hold an object an inch from your eyes, you'll notice how difficult it is to focus on it.

Still, Viture has integrated some clever mechanisms with the lenses, like a self-dimming electrochromic film that you can toggle on or off depending on how bright your environment is. It's basically a built-in projector shade and helps the most when you're using the glasses outdoors.

My best attempt at capturing what's shown when the glasses are worn.

Viture partnered with Harman to develop and tune the side-firing speakers of the wearable, and I'm impressed. They remind me a lot of bone-conduction headphones where audio beams against the side of your head and into your ears. Since the speakers are lying against you, no one but you can hear the audio output, which adds to the privacy focus that the company is going for.

Perhaps the biggest question with such wearables is whether or not they cause symptoms of dizziness and motion sickness. From my experience, which includes one- to two-hour stints, I never felt discomfort when using the glasses.

Also: Apple Vision Pro review: Fascinating, flawed, and needs to fix 5 things

I credit that to two factors: the lightness of the wearable compared to traditional headsets and the wearer's ability to retain spatial awareness. Remember, the glasses are not standalone devices with their own operating systems. They're simply an external monitor reshaped into something more pocketable. And thanks to the transparency of the lenses, you'll never feel like you're drawn into another reality when you have them on.

ZDNET's buying advice

At the time of writing, the Viture One XR Glasses are selling for $439 , and that includes the power adapter, a carrying case, and nose pads at various heights. For the price, I'd recommend these to traveling professionals, gamers, and those who want a more private but accessible display experience. The Viture One XR Glasses won't beat the Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro, but they bring enough to the table to ease any FOMO you might have as more expensive headsets hit the market.

Featured reviews

These $400 xr glasses gave me a 200-inch screen to game and watch movies on, this $50 meta quest 3 accessory is a game-changer for people with glasses, the best ar glasses: pro-level ar and xr headsets available now.

We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article.

Only Murders in the Building season 4 lands near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes rating

Charles, Oliver and Mabel are back!

preview for Only Murders in the Building season 4 trailer (Hulu)

The Disney+ show sees Steve Martin , Martin Short and Selena Gomez return as Charles-Haden Savage, Oliver Putnam and Mabel Mora, respectively. The amateur podcasting trio are going global as a Hollywood film based on their exploits is being made.

As the group meet the stars who play them – Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria – they are quickly drawn back into their everyday lives as another murder occurs.

steve martin as charles, selena gomez as mabel, martin short as oliver, sitting in the back of a car together in a scene from only murders in the building season 4 episode 1

Related: Best streaming service UK 2024

Though the action might be a bit more expansive this time around, critics are still in love with the crew behind the titular podcast, with the season landing an impressive 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from its first 29 reviews.

You can read a selection of reviews below:

Daily Telegraph

"The charm of Only Murders goes beyond the celebs and the steady stream of one-liners and slapstick humour. Alongside the comedy, the show has always been dutifully about constructing a compelling whodunnit."

Financial Times

"That the show tackles themes of loss and loneliness, growing up and ageing, self-doubt and self-certainty without ever succumbing to earnestness is a testament to the light-touch writing and charming performances."

RogerEbert.com

"For its star-packed fourth outing, Only Murders in the Building blends the celebrities-playing-a-heightened-version-of-themselves with the ever-precious play-within-a-play, and the result is pretty fun."

"Season 4 never loses a step in its commitment to deliver a compelling whodunnit."

The Daily Beast

"Elicits more laughs than any small-screen comedy since last year's instalment."

San Francisco Chronicle

"None of its satire of Tinseltown – stars who act like divas, manipulative producers – seems terribly original, but there are many pleasures."

Only Murders in the Building streams on Disney+ and Hulu.

August 2024 gift ideas and deals

Glen Powell Twisters T-shirt

Richard Osman: We Solve Murders

PS5 Slim Consoles

Amazon Music Unlimited free trial

Deadpool & Wolverine's 'best friends' necklace

Audible free trial

Apple TV+ 7-day free trial

Sign up for Disney+

Buy Alison Hammond's outfits

The Street of Lies: An Official Coronation Street Interactive Novel

Shop Sky TV, broadband and mobile

Reporter, Digital Spy George is a freelance writer who specialises in Movies and TV. After graduating with a degree in Film Studies and Journalism from De Montfort University, in which he analysed the early works of Richard Linklater for his dissertation, he wrote for several websites for GRV Media. His film tastes vary from blockbusters like Mission: Impossible and John Wick to international directors such as Paolo Sorrentino and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and has attended both the London and Berlin film festivals.

.css-15yqwdi:before{top:0;width:100%;height:0.25rem;content:'';position:absolute;background-image:linear-gradient(to right,#51B3E0,#51B3E0 2.5rem,#E5ADAE 2.5rem,#E5ADAE 5rem,#E5E54F 5rem,#E5E54F 7.5rem,black 7.5rem,black);} Disney

jon bernthal as the punisher, charlie cox as daredevil filming daredevil born again in new york

The Acolyte star on "surprise" cancellation

doctor who s1,11 05 2024,generics,the doctor ncuti gatwa ruby sunday millie gibson ,bbc studios,yoshitaka kono

Disney boss says Doctor Who "really good fit"

David Tennant's '80s-set drama confirms release

Stephen Graham in first look at new East End drama

When is Inside Out 2 coming to Disney Plus?

joy, embarrassment, envy, anxiety, disgust, anger, fear, sadness, inside out 2

Inside Out 2 is now available to watch at home

Star Wars: The Acolyte cancelled after 1 season

When will Alien: Romulus be released on Disney+?

michelle keegan in brassic, lennie james in mr loverman, sophie turner in joan

13 shows to watch out for this autumn

red, yellow and orange remotes on a pink background

Best TV and movie streaming services

Andor s2 confirms return of big-screen villain

IMAGES

'Apples' Review: A Pandemic Movie, But Make It Greek Weird Wave [TIFF 2020]
Review
Apples movie review & film summary (2022)
Apples movie review
Apples (2020)
The Movie Waffler

COMMENTS

Apples movie review & film summary (2022)
Apples. In a world where amnesia has become commonplace, a solitary Greek man named Aris ( Aris Servetalis) tries to rebuild his life after the spontaneous loss of his memory. Aris is a quiet, secretive soul with soft eyes and a palpable sense of melancholy. After a stay in the amnesiac ward, he enrolls in a program that provides him with ...
Apples
Rated 3.5/5 Stars • Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Surprisingly well-made, Apples is a fine example of what one can achieve despite the small budget.
'Apples' review: A Greek film about memory loss : NPR
Aris Servetalis plays a man who inexplicably loses his memory in Apples. I first watched Apples about two years ago, several months into COVID lockdown. At the time, the movie felt eerily of the ...
Apples
Pick 'Apples'. Christos Nikou's eccentric, minimalist dramedy is one of the year's best films so far. Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 5, 2022. The pleasure of Apples lies in being able ...
'Apples' Review: Forget Me Not
June 23, 2022. Apples. Directed by Christos Nikou. Comedy, Drama. 1h 31m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate ...
'Apples' review: What is lost and gained when we forget?
Aris Servetalis in the movie "Apples.". Memory, by choice or by accident, fails the aching characters in director Christos Nikou's unassumingly superb first feature "Apples," executive ...
Apples Review: Greek Drama Is A Quietly Effective Meditation On Memory
3.5. Apples is a drama film directed by Christos Nikou. The story unfolds in an alternate reality where a sudden pandemic causes amnesia. The protagonist, Aris (Aris Servetalis), grapples with his memory loss while partaking in a government program designed to help individuals create new identities. Seamlessly blending surrealism and emotional ...
Apples Review: Think of It as 'Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV: The Movie'
'Apples' Review: Greek Memory Game Plays Like 'Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV: The Movie' A metaphorical plague of amnesia cases finds real-world resonance in Greek director Christos Nikou ...
'Apples' Review
Apples. Crisp and flavorful, with a lingering aftertaste. Release date: Friday, June 24. Cast: Aris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovasili, Anna Kalaitzidou, Argiris Bakirtzis. Director: Christos Nikou ...
Apples Review: Tender Debut from Yorgos Lanthimos ...
Editor's note: This review was originally published at the 2020 Venice Film Festival.Cohen Media Group releases the film in theaters on Friday, June 24. Pandemics come in a handful of different ...
Apples (2020)
Apples: Directed by Christos Nikou. With Aris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovassili, Anna Kalaitzidou, Argyris Bakirtzis. Amidst a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities.
The movie 'Apples' is a funny, heartbreaking fable about memory, grief
In the movie 'Apples,' a man enters a strange therapy program after waking up on a bus with no memory of who he is. ... Review by Michael O'Sullivan. June 28, 2022 at 2:31 p.m. EDT
'Apples' Review: A Fantasy About Forgetting
Listen. (3 min) Sofia Georgovassili and Aris Servetalis in Christos Nikou's debut film, 'Apples' Photo: Cohen Media Group. "A lot of people have forgotten," observes a stone-faced ...
Apples Review
Apples starts as it means to go on. Close-ups of a banal house interior are cut to the beat of a dull, steady drumbeat. The noise, it turns out, is a man, Aris (Aris Servetalis), rhythmically ...
Apples Never Fall movie review (2024)
These elements, combined with its smart script and editing, build upon each other so that "Apples Never Fall" avoids the problems of the missing-or-dead-woman-as-learning-device. Bening never lets Joy fade. She is powerful when she needs to be, vulnerable and pensive all at once. In her, we see a portrayal of a flawed and dynamic woman who ...
Apples (film)
Apples (Greek: Μήλα, romanized: Mila) is a 2020 internationally co-produced drama film directed and produced by Christos Nikou in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Nikou and Stavros Raptis. It stars Aris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovasili, Anna Kalaitzidou, and Argiris Bakirtzis. Cate Blanchett serves as an executive producer with her production company Dirty Films involved in making ...
Apples
"Apples" is a contained narrative, but it bursts with enormous perceptions of the human condition through examples of societal order, individual connections, and grief. Actual apples - maybe McIntosh or Red Delicious - figure into the movie, but this review will not reveal the ways.
Apples review: Accidental COVID allegory is Lanthimos Lite
The Greek comedy-drama Apples is an accidental COVID movie with shades of Yorgos Lanthimos that is ultimately unsatisfying. ... For more reviews and writing by A.A. Dowd, visit his Authory page.
‎Apples (2020) directed by Christos Nikou • Reviews, film + cast
As an unpredictable, sweeping pandemic causes people to develop sudden amnesia, a man finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help him build a new life. His treatment: performing daily tasks prescribed by his doctors on cassette tape, and capturing those with a Polaroid camera. Remove Ads. Cast. Crew. Details.
Apples
Amidst a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities. Prescribed daily tasks on cassette tapes so he can create new memories and document them on camera, Aris slides back into ordinary life, meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a woman who is also in recovery.
Apples movie review
Apples' memory-destroying pandemic proves a juicy, multilayered vehicle for its musings. NOW STREAMING: Powered by JustWatch Apples opens with a series of thuds. With each one, we move in until we're close-up on details. These are little seeds of a world. Such is the process through which director Christos Nikou peels back the skin of his story. He repeatedly plants tiny granular clues that ...
All Apple TV+ Shows and Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer
(Photo by Apple TV+) All Apple TV+ Shows and Movies, Ranked by Tomatometer. Updated January 3, 2022. Apple's streaming service launched in November 2019 with a suite of buzzy, high-profile shows, including The Morning Show with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, Jason Momoa in sci-fi series See, and Hailee Steinfeld as the titular poet in Dickinson.
The 21 Best Movies on Apple TV+ Right Now
Set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma, Fancy Dance follows the journey of Jax (Killers of the Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone), a woman who has been caring for her niece Roki ever since ...
Apple Rethinks Its Movie Strategy After a String of Misses
Apple is still planning a big theatrical release next July for its movie "F1," from the director Joseph Kosinski ("Top Gun: Maverick"), in partnership with Warner Bros. Mr. Pitt is playing ...
The Best Apples for Apple Pie, According to Pastry Chefs
2022 F&W Best New Chef Caroline Schiff, who most recently ran the much-lauded pastry program at Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn, agrees. "Personally, when I am making something like an apple pie, I ...
These XR glasses cured my Apple Vision Pro FOMO
MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air: How to decide which Apple laptop to buy; Buy a Samsung Galaxy A35 at Amazon and get a pair of Buds FE free; How to download YouTube videos for free, plus two other methods
Only Murders in the Building season 4 lands near-perfect Rotten
The fourth season of Only Murders in the Building has finally premiered, with the show landing a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. As the group meet the stars who play them - Eugene Levy ...