Apple TV’s Cold War action comedy Mayday premiered globally on the streaming service on September 4, 2026, becoming the platform’s most-watched original movie to date.
The film stars Ryan Reynolds as U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy Kelly and Kenneth Branagh as Nikolai Ustinov, a former KGB agent who helps him after his spy plane is shot down over Soviet territory. The movie is written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the filmmaking team behind Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Mayday is available exclusively on Apple TV. The service offers a seven-day free trial for new subscribers, after which it costs $14.99 per month in the United States. Viewers can watch through the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Mac, smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO and TCL, Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox gaming consoles, and at tv.apple.com.
The film is rated PG-13 for violence and action, some strong language, suggestive references and smoking. Its runtime is 110 minutes.
Mayday was produced by Skydance Media and Reynolds’ Maximum Effort. David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger produced for Skydance, alongside Maximum Effort’s Ashley Fox and Johnny Pariseau. Reynolds and George Dewey served as executive producers through Maximum Effort, along with John G. Scotti.
The supporting cast includes Maria Bakalova as Anna Ustinov, Marcin Dorocinski as Alexander Volkov, and David Morse as Harold Kelly.
According to Luminate viewing data cited by analyst Ted Linhart, Mayday reached 12.0 million viewers in its first 18 days. In the U.S., the film opened at No. 1 in Luminate’s September 4-10 weekly rankings with 8.7 million views. It remained strong in Week 2, placing at No. 2.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Mayday holds an 83% score from 104 reviews with an average rating of 6.3/10. The critics consensus reads: ‘A spirited adventure that gets a lot of mileage from clever quips and Kenneth Branagh’s extremely amusing performance.’ The audience score stands at 66% based on over 100 ratings.
Metacritic reports a Metascore of 60 based on 24 critic reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews. The site shows 54% positive reviews, 33% mixed, and 13% negative.
Variety’s review called the film ‘entertaining as any of the blockbusters currently in theaters’ and said it is ‘a compliment to call Mayday a latter-day Top Gun riff, because it satisfyingly meets the needs of that film’s core audience — delivering a buddy comedy, a road movie and an international adventure, with surprising heart.’
The Los Angeles Times wrote that the film is ‘equal parts laugh-out-loud comedy and death-defying adventure.’ RogerEbert.com praised Branagh for ‘flexing his comedic and action chops in a way he’s rarely allowed to.’
Apple TV said Mayday became its biggest film debut on the platform to date over its first 18 days. The premiere contributed to the streamer’s largest weekly viewership ever for the week of September 14, which rose 67% year-over-year.
Mayday was reportedly completed since mid-2024 before Apple set a release date in July 2026. The film carried a production budget well into nine figures and skipped a theatrical release in favor of a streaming-exclusive debut.
Deadline reported that Mayday opened at No. 1 in Luminate’s September 4-10 weekly rankings with 8.7M views and remained at No. 2 in Week 2. Nielsen’s most recent weekly streaming report for the week of September 7 had Ted Lasso at No. 7 with 734 million minutes viewed as the only Apple TV title in the overall Top 10.
As of early October 2026, Mayday remains the No. 1 movie on Apple TV both in the U.S. and worldwide, according to FlixPatrol. The film has topped the platform’s streaming charts in 101 countries.