Tom Hanks' Acclaimed WWII Drama Is Quietly Dominating Apple's TV Charts

Published Jun 29, 2026, 11:31 AM EDT

The underrated Jon Hamm vehicle Your Friends and Neighbors is a spiky satirical dramedy, while Apple TV’s upcoming William Gibson adaptation Neuromancer hopes to reinvent the cyberpunk genre after Prime Video’s The Peripheral lasted only one season despite its positive reception. Meanwhile, after years at HBO, screen veteran Tom Hanks has moved his new projects to one of the producer’s most reliable genres at Apple TV.

The ambitious 20-part docuseries World War II with Tom Hanks is the culmination of two multi-decade career trends for the iconic actor. Hanks has worked on ambitious docuseries about 20th-century history since 1998’s underrated HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, which chronicled the space race from the perspective of NASA’s employees. Meanwhile, since 2001’s miniseries Band of Brothers became a massive success, Hanks has produced numerous ambitious shows about World War II, including its follow-ups The Pacific and Masters of the Air.

World War II with Tom Hanks Is Tom Hanks’ Latest Acclaimed Docuseries

Hanks serves as the main narrator and presenter of World War II with Tom Hanks, a History Channel production that has risen to dominate the Apple TV streaming charts since its May 25 release. A sprawling and extraordinarily ambitious documentary on the war and its global impact, the show’s massive twenty-part story is constructed in roughly chronological order, but occasionally doubles back on itself to fill in missing details when moving from one nation to another.

Like Band of Brothers and The Pacific, the series attempts to humanize the combatants of the war, but World War II with Tom Hanks aims for much more than just this already lofty goal. The show hopes to be an all-purpose primer on everything related to the eponymous historical conflict, prompting some reviewers to complain that the series ends up feeling underdeveloped despite its gargantuan runtime.

One reviewer for The Guardian said World War II with Tom Hank was a perfect introduction to the topic, but despite its length, the show's ambitious attempt to cover everything about the war meant that much of its storytelling was superficial and lacking in depth. However, this clearly wasn’t an issue for many viewers, as the show has proven a huge hit on Apple’s streaming platform.

World War II with Tom Hanks Proves The Actor Has Switched Streaming Services For Good

Although shows like Project Blue Book saw the History Channel branch out into scripted drama, the staggering popularity of World War II with Tom Hank proves that the docuseries format Hanks helped popularize in the ‘90s and ‘00s isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Heavy on talking heads and archival footage, World War II with Tom Hanks often feels like the Platonic ideal of this Ken Burns-influenced approach.

The fact that the show was produced by the History Channel and became a breakout hit on HBO seems to further cement the reality that Hanks has moved on from the network that started his small-screen love affair with both the docuseries format and the subject of World War II. Both From the Earth to the Moon and Band of Brothers were HBO productions, as was 2010’s Band of Brothers sequel, The Pacific.

However, when it came time to produce a sequel to The Pacific that would act as the final chapter of this epic trilogy, Hanks moved from HBO to Apple TV for the expensive follow-up Masters of the Air. Debate rages on over whether this follow-up was a worthy successor to its two legendary predecessors, but the Apple TV success of World War II with Tom Hanks proves the actor has a new streaming home.