Masters of the Air is another Apple TV Plus hit – here are 4 more shows with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes you can’t miss

Masters of the Air
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

Masters of the Air, Apple TV Plus's epic wartime adventure series from Steven Spielberg, is another critical hit for the streamer: it's currently sitting at 83% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes and early reviews are mainly positive. 

Vanity Fair says it's an "at once dense and scattered series about barely post-adolescents hurling themselves into a sky-bound hell", while the Chicago Sun-Times says it's "an unblinking chronicle of the almost unimaginable cost of war, and a glowing tribute to the 100th Bomb Group, who just kept on coming and would not be stopped".

And there's plenty more where that came from. Apple TV Plus may not have the quantity of shows that rival streamers offer, but it more than makes up for it in terms of quality. Here are four more series with more than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes to watch on one of the best streaming services

Criminal Record

I don't know how this one ends yet – I'm streaming it weekly like everybody else –but I'm totally with the critics who've given this cop drama its 90% rating. Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi are magnificent as detective June Lenker and Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty. What begins with a panicked emergency call regarding an apparently solved murder becomes something much bigger as Lenker's investigation raises inconvenient questions about institutional racism and the age old question, who watches the watchmen? Both Jumbo and Capaldi are exceptional here and the show itself is deeply unnerving.

Slow Horses

I'm not going to stop banging on about Slow Horses until everybody has watched it, and the critics agree. It's sitting at 97% from the critics and 94% from viewers. Gary Oldman is a hoot as the truly awful MI5 boss in charge of a motley crew of agents who keep landing in the worst kind of trouble, but while he chews the scenery at every opportunity this is an ensemble piece with great performances all round and absolutely superb writing throughout. The recently completed third season's finale was so tense I thought I'd forget to breathe. There's more good news too, with Apple TV Plus recently green lighting a fifth season of the hit show. 

Black Bird

Despite its 98% critics rating and 95% audience score, Black Bird seems to have travelled under the radar somewhat, and that's a shame because in our opinion it's one of the best Apple TV Plus shows. Written by crime legend Dennis Lehane and with a cast including Taron Egerton, Ray Liotta and Greg Kinnear, this tale of a prisoner asked to befriend a serial killer is a gripping watch. There's just one season but its six episodes fly by, driven largely by some great performances. As Empire put it: "This is a tense true-crime story told with immense confidence and care — but it’s the performances, especially from Paul Walter Hauser and Ray Liotta, that really makes Black Bird sing."

For All Mankind

With four seasons under its belt, For All Mankind seems to defy the gravity that makes so many shows drift after a season or two. The newly finished fourth season has 100% from the critics and is one of our favorite sci-fi series on the Apple TV Plus. This alternative history of the space race starts in the 1950s and travels far into the future, but while space is of course at the centre of its stories it's really a show about people – not just the early test pilots and astronauts but the people in their lives and the people whose efforts put them into space. If you haven't watched it yet i'm really jealous, because right now you have 40 episodes of truly amazing, exciting and sometimes heartbreaking TV to enjoy. 

You might also like

Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.