Apples
Cohen Media Group | Release Date: June 24, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
77
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Screen DailyWendy IdeSep 14, 2020
A meditation on memory, identity, grief and loss, with the narrative device of a global pandemic thrown in for good measure: Apples might initially sound like a tough sell. But this hugely accomplished, satisfyingly textured first feature is really something special. Read full review
91
Original-CinKaren GordonJul 8, 2022
Greek director Christos Nikou makes an impressive feature film debut with Apples, a subtle, offbeat and quietly affecting movie about amnesia, identify and grief. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarJun 23, 2022
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. Read full review
90
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 14, 2020
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. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 14, 2020
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. Read full review
85
SlashfilmMarshall ShafferSep 14, 2020
Apples maintains the droll wit and entrancing abstraction of Lanthimos, but the film does not feel quite as drenched in irony. Nikou’s storytelling remains deliberately opaque while also leaving plenty of room for genuine emotional connection. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJonathan ChristianSep 14, 2020
Despite its dower subject matter, Apples arrives bearing gifts of uplifting encouragement and pensive meditations on the nature of the human experience. Equipped with deadpan humor and numbing silence, Nikou’s philosophically minded dramedy strives to create conversation as much as it actively attempts to entertain. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithJun 24, 2022
The film is a sort of jigsaw puzzle that demands either paying minute attention or viewing it twice. Seemingly unimportant and easily forgotten details from the opening minutes turn out to cohere and create a conclusive emotional impact of the kind that everyone in the movie is missing. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeMay 11, 2021
It’s the eerie mystery of sadness that rings most clearly through Nikou’s film, a meditation on the construction of personality that, like all the best ghost stories, combines wistful melancholia with a hint of wish-fulfilment, of lost souls who, in forgetting, are trying to remember. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeMay 7, 2021
Apples works both as an unintended record of the times and as a wry comment on the ancient human condition. Dare we call it “memorable”? Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyMay 6, 2021
While occasionally too muted for its own good, Apples does benefit from not pushing its quirk factor too hard – that would only have set up a barrier between us and Servetalis’s hollow detachment. It’s a braver choice for Nikou to invite our empathy. Read full review
80
CineVueMatthew AndersonMay 6, 2021
For all its misdirection and confusion, Apples reaches a conclusion of unexpected emotional weight. An intelligent and clear-sighted piece of filmmaking, it is a highly accomplished first directorial outing by Nikou. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerMay 4, 2021
Apples is an offbeat treat that manages to embrace ironic distance and emotional weight through a prism of perfectly judged absurdism. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenApr 30, 2021
Apples is less sharp-edged satire, more humanist exploration of the importance of memory. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlex SavelievOct 21, 2020
The filmmaker performs an astounding feat of maintaining the perfect balance between self-awareness, alienation, warmth, comedy, and pathos. Apples is a singular experience. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 14, 2020
What prevents Apples from becoming a simple Lanthimos copycat is its comparative kindness and its abiding direction of travel. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJun 28, 2022
At times, Apples feels superficially slight, even — pardon me — forgettable. But Nikou, in his feature directorial debut after working as an assistant director on sets with such filmmakers as Yorgos Lanthimos (“Dogtooth”) and Richard Linklater (“Before Midnight”), has pulled off a neat little trick: He’s told a story that, for reasons that are more easily felt than explained, is hard to shake off. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Sep 14, 2020
The droll Twilight Zone absurdism is not without its pleasures, many of them comic. Read full review
75
The Film StageEli FriedbergSep 14, 2020
Having come upon a provocative allegory for the endemic dissociation of the hyper-digital age, though, Nikou does not interrogate it as intensely or from as many angles as possible in the lean, character-driven 90-minute film. Read full review
70
Screen RantGraeme GuttmannJun 24, 2022
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. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 20, 2022
The symptoms may be far from covid-like, and the mortality rate, as far as we can gather, is blessedly low, but what Nikou evokes, with a haunting prescience, is the air of a stunned world. Read full review
69
Paste MagazineNatalia KeoganJun 23, 2022
Apples’ metaphorical backbone feels malnourished, its focus ever-inclined toward careful imagery as opposed to unraveling its inherent mythos. Nonetheless, Nikou’s debut offers interesting insight into the human psyche as it relates to memory and personhood while hinting at the fractured national identity of Greece itself. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 14, 2020
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. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comJourdain SearlesJun 24, 2022
In his first outing as a feature filmmaker, Nikou blends subtle comedy and tragedy to create a quietly moving cinematic experience. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 20, 2022
The picture’s a bit dry and too quiet for my taste. The puzzle at its center is funny and intriguing, and hardly enough to drive the narrative. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 6, 2021
Apples is intriguingly deadpan and sometimes funny, though I couldn’t help feeling that it is also contrived, and even a bit flippant in a middleweight-arthouse mode, not quite as profound as it thinks but certainly displaying some impressively choreographed mannerisms of dysfunction. Read full review
50
The New York TimesBeatrice LoayzaJun 23, 2022
The movie never manages to hit above a dim emotional pitch, and a final-act awakening lands with a shrug. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonApr 28, 2021
The film's rendering of the interplay of memory, identity, and grief is disappointingly vague. Read full review
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