Apple TV is having a strong spring, and May is where the lineup gets even more interesting.
The streaming service is adding two new original series, its first major film of the year, and the Miami Grand Prix, all while continuing five critically praised shows that are already airing.
Here is everything coming to Apple TV in May 2026 and what you need to know about each one.
The Miami Grand Prix – May 3
Apple TV subscribers in the United States get full access to every Formula 1 race of the 2026 season at no additional cost.
May 3 is particularly significant for American viewers because it marks the first US-based race of the year.
The Miami Grand Prix has become one of the most anticipated stops on the F1 calendar since it was added to the schedule, combining the spectacle of a street circuit with the kind of entertainment programming that has made Formula 1 one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States.
Access is available directly through the Apple TV app at no extra charge for existing subscribers.
For anyone who has been curious about Formula 1 but has not had an easy way to watch, Apple TV’s F1 coverage, which extends to bonus content beyond the races themselves, is a genuinely compelling reason to subscribe.
Unconditional – May 8
The first new scripted series of May is a thriller with a premise that is as emotionally immediate as anything Apple TV has put out this year.
When 25-year-old Gali, played by Talia Lynne Ronn, is arrested for drug smuggling in Moscow while on a vacation with her mother, what begins as a trip turns immediately into a nightmare of international legal bureaucracy and fear.
Her mother Orna, played by Liraz Chamami, refuses to accept the charges and begins fighting to free her daughter.
That fight pulls her into a web of crime and corruption that goes significantly deeper than a straightforward legal battle.
The show’s structure, a mother and daughter separated by an international incident in an unfamiliar country, gives it an emotional engine that most thrillers either do not have or do not need. This one is built on it.
It premieres May 8.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed – May 20
The title is designed to make you ask questions. The show is designed to answer them in ways you did not anticipate.
Tatiana Maslany, best known for Orphan Black, the 2013-2017 BBC America series in which she played multiple cloned characters in a science fiction thriller, plays Paula, a newly divorced mother who becomes convinced she witnessed a crime.
That conviction sets off a chain of events that involves blackmail, murder, a custody battle and, in the detail that has generated the most conversation since the show was announced, youth soccer. Jake Johnson co-stars.
The genre is described as thriller-comedy, which is a combination that Apple TV has shown a genuine aptitude for, the ability to be genuinely unsettling and genuinely funny inside the same hour of television.
Maslany’s track record with complex, layered female characters is one of the more impressive in contemporary television.
Paula, convinced she is onto something real while simultaneously fighting for her family, sounds like exactly the kind of role she builds careers out of.
It premieres May 20 with new episodes through the end of the month.
Propeller One-Way Night Coach – May 29
This one requires a specific piece of context that changes the way you think about it. Propeller One-Way Night Coach is John Travolta’s directorial debut.
Travolta has had one of the most discussed and analyzed careers in Hollywood history, from Saturday Night Fever to Grease to Pulp Fiction to a period of commercial decline and back again.
He has never directed a theatrical or streaming feature. That changes May 29 on Apple TV.
The film is set in the golden age of aviation and follows Jeff, a young airplane enthusiast played by newcomer Clark Shotwell, and his mother as they take a one-way cross-country trip to Hollywood.
The journey is supposed to be simple and becomes something else entirely, a trip that unfolds through airline meals, charming flight attendants, unexpected stopovers, larger-than-life passengers and what the film’s description calls “a thrilling glimpse at first class.”
The sum of it is supposed to chart the course of Jeff’s future.
Two of the flight attendants in the film are played by Ella Bleu Travolta, John Travolta’s daughter, and Olga Hoffmann.
The golden age of aviation setting gives the film a visual palette that should feel distinct from most contemporary streaming content.
Whether Travolta proves to be as compelling behind the camera as he has been in front of it is one of May’s genuinely interesting questions.
Star City – May 29
The most ambitious project in Apple TV’s May lineup is also the one with the most immediate connection to one of the service’s signature shows.
Star City is described as inspired by For All Mankind, Apple TV’s acclaimed alternate history drama about the space race, and it takes the premise of that show’s universe to its logical counterpart.
For All Mankind depicts an alternate history in which the Soviet Union beats the United States to the moon, creating a world in which the space race never ends.
Star City, the name for the real-world Soviet cosmonaut training facility outside Moscow, focuses on the Soviet side of that moment, the cosmonauts who made it possible, the engineers who designed the technology, and the intelligence officers embedded among them in a program that was simultaneously a scientific achievement and an instrument of Cold War political power.
The show is described as a “propulsive paranoid thriller,” language that suggests it is less interested in the wonder of space exploration and more interested in the human cost and political pressure of being the people responsible for winning the race.
The Soviet cosmonaut experience, which has been far less explored in Western popular culture than the American astronaut experience, gives the show a setting that should feel genuinely fresh even to viewers who have followed For All Mankind closely.
The connection to that show’s universe creates an interesting viewing dynamic. Star City premieres May 29, the same day as Propeller One-Way Night Coach, which makes the last weekend of May the busiest single day of additions in Apple TV’s May calendar.
The Shows That Are Already Running
Five series that premiered in recent weeks continue through May with new episodes, and several of them represent some of the better television currently airing anywhere.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles has been described as an acclaimed comedy and continues through May 20.
For All Mankind, the space-race drama that Star City draws from, continues through May 29, which means the two shows will briefly overlap on the service as the original transitions toward its season finale and the spinoff launches.
Your Friends & Neighbors, the Jon Hamm crime series, continues through June 5.
Criminal Record, a London-set detective thriller that returned for a new season in late April, continues through June 10. Widow’s Bay, a dark comedy starring Matthew Rhys, continues through June 17.
The overlap of continuing series with five new additions makes May unusually dense for Apple TV.
The service has built a reputation for quality over quantity, fewer shows than Netflix or HBO, but a higher batting average on critical reception, and the May slate reflects that approach.
The two new series both have cast and creative pedigrees that justify attention. The film has a directorial debut that makes it a cultural event regardless of how it turns out.
The F1 coverage is a genuine sports perk for American subscribers. And the spinoff launch at the end of the month is the kind of universe-expanding move that keeps long-running shows feeling vital rather than exhausted.
Apple TV is available at $12.99 per month or at a reduced price through the Apple One bundle.
