Apple’s latest programming presentation outlined a densely packed 2026 for Apple TV. The schedule is built less around a handful of breakout sensations and more around steady, year-round output across drama, comedy, genre television, original film and live sport. The slate puts forward a platform increasingly comfortable behaving like a traditional studio: Commissioning long-running series, cultivating franchises and spacing major film releases across the calendar.

Amy Adams in Cape Fear, premiering June 5

What stood out most is the breadth of material being showcased as weekly viewing. Psychological thrillers sit alongside feel-good comedies, expansive science fiction runs parallel to small-town horror, and star-heavy films are treated as seasonal events rather than constant content churn.

Returning hits

At the centre of Apple’s long-term approach are series that now function as brands. Ted Lasso returns for a fourth season with a narrative pivot toward women’s football, a shift that allows the show to preserve its emotional tone while refreshing its dramatic stakes. Rather than stretching the original arc indefinitely, the series appears to be reinventing its world.

Similarly, Shrinking continues to expand its exploration of grief, therapy ethics and personal reinvention. Its longevity reflects Apple’s increasing confidence in character-led storytelling that evolves slowly over multiple seasons, rather than chasing rapid narrative hooks.

This emphasis on returnable worlds suggests the platform is prioritising subscriber retention through familiarity, offering audiences ongoing relationships with characters rather than a constant cycle of disposable limited series.

Harrison Ford during Apple TV Press Day

Building franchises and large-scale storytelling

Apple’s push into franchise television becomes clearer with the second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. By embedding human drama inside a larger cinematic universe of giant creatures and shadowy agencies, the show mirrors the expansion strategies of major film studios. Rather than relying solely on spectacle, it invests in serial mystery and generational storytelling, encouraging viewers to follow its mythology across seasons.

Long-form speculative drama also remains a priority through For All Mankind, now entering its fifth season. What began as an alternative Cold War space race has gradually transformed into a multi-decade chronicle of human expansion beyond Earth. The latest chapters focus on the social and political realities of a populated Mars, shifting the show from exploration narrative into questions of governance, inequality and frontier conflict.

Crime, psychology and moral complexity

Thriller storytelling forms one of the strongest throughlines of the 2026 slate. The Last Thing He Told Me continues its family-centred mystery, deepening its exploration of trust, secrecy and survival in the aftermath of long-running deception.

More overtly political is Criminal Record, which places contemporary extremism, policing ethics and intelligence networks at the centre of its second season. Its tone reflects a broader trend in British and European crime drama, where institutional tension and moral compromise have largely replaced traditional whodunits.

Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds star in Mayday, premiering September 4

New psychological territory arrives with Imperfect Women, adapted from a novel about friendship fractured by violence. Rather than framing crime as puzzle-solving, the series treats it as a catalyst for emotional reckoning: A model increasingly favoured in prestige television, where trauma, guilt and unreliable memory drive narrative momentum.

Reworking familiar stories

Apple is also diving into reinterpretation rather than pure originality. Cape Fear transforms a classic revenge thriller into a serialised psychological drama. The shift to episodic storytelling allows the narrative to focus less on immediate suspense and more on long-term fear, manipulation and domestic breakdown.

Genre blending continues with Widow’s Bay, where supernatural folklore collides with economic decline in a struggling island community. The premise reflects a contemporary horror trend: monsters as metaphors for social anxiety, whether tourism, gentrification or communal guilt.

Meanwhile, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed pushes into suburban paranoia, mixing blackmail, murder and the everyday pressures of parenting. The show’s half-hour structure suggests Apple is experimenting with faster-paced genre storytelling without abandoning thematic weight.

Films positioned as seasonal events

Rather than flooding the service with constant movie premieres, Apple continues to release original films in carefully spaced intervals. Romantic comedy Eternity (featuring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner) explores love through an afterlife framework, turning emotional choice into literal existential stakes.

At the darker end, Outcome (with Keanu Reeves) uses Hollywood satire to interrogate celebrity, scandal and self-reinvention... themes that mirror real-world cultural reckonings around image and accountability.

Mainstream action and adventure arrive via Mayday (Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds) and Matchbox The Movie (starring John Cena, Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris and Arturo Castro), both designed to draw global audiences accustomed to theatrical spectacle.

Jude Hill, Linda Cardellini and Chris Pratt star in Way of the Warrior Kid, premiering globally on November 20

Rounding out the film slate is Way of the Warrior Kid (Chris Pratt and Jude Hill), which targets younger viewers and families with a story about confidence, mentorship and personal growth.

Sport as long-term infrastructure

Beyond scripted entertainment, Apple is steadily transforming live sport into a core subscription driver. With Formula 1 joining its existing football and baseball coverage, the platform is showcasing itself as a hybrid service: part premium drama outlet, part live-event broadcaster.

Sport offers something streaming has struggled to replicate — appointment viewing. Races and matches create habitual engagement, keeping subscribers active even between major series premieres.