Brothers on Apple TV: Release Schedule, How to Watch and Cast
- 🔑 Brothers is an eight-episode Apple Original comedy. Episodes 1 and 2 premiered on Wednesday 23 September 2026, and Apple says one new episode follows every Wednesday through the finale on 4 November 2026.
- It streams only with an Apple TV subscription, listed on Apple’s US page at $14.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. Apple One and the $17.99 Apple TV and Peacock bundle also include it.
- 🔴 Apple has not published a release hour. Episodes 1 and 2 were listed as available by about 4 a.m. ET on premiere day, and this page does not print a drop time Apple has not stated.
- Apple has published titles only for Episodes 1 to 3. Titles for Episodes 4 to 8 come from the Australian Classification Board’s database, and the table below marks which is which.
- McConaughey and Harrelson play fictionalized versions of themselves who learn they might be brothers, with Holland Taylor as Matthew’s mother, Ma Mac.
- The creator credit is unsettled. Apple’s 2023 order credited David West Read, who left as showrunner in 2025 according to Deadline. Lee Eisenberg now runs the show, and Apple’s 2026 materials name no creator.
Brothers is the Apple Original comedy in which Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play fictionalized versions of themselves, and it streams only on Apple TV, at $14.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. Episodes 1 and 2 premiered on Wednesday 23 September 2026. Apple says one new episode follows every Wednesday until the eighth and last on 4 November 2026.
When do new episodes of Brothers come out?
New episodes of Brothers come out on Wednesdays. The first two premiered together on Wednesday 23 September 2026, and Apple says one new episode follows every Wednesday through 4 November 2026. That makes eight episodes in all, with the finale on 4 November.
Apple has given the same schedule in three press releases, on 18 June, 25 August and 18 September 2026. The dates from 30 September onward are our arithmetic from that statement, and every one is a Wednesday. Apple’s show page already flags Episode 3 as coming on 30 September.
| Date | Ep | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Wed 23 Sep | 1 | On the Road (Apple, 33 min) |
| Wed 23 Sep | 2 | The Hunt (Apple, 28 min) |
| Wed 30 Sep | 3 | Little Woody (Apple, 30 min) |
| Wed 7 Oct | 4 | The Band (ACB listing) |
| Wed 14 Oct | 5 | Valentine’s Day (ACB listing) |
| Wed 21 Oct | 6 | The Dance (ACB listing) |
| Wed 28 Oct | 7 | The Interview (ACB listing) |
| Wed 4 Nov | 8 | On the Road Again.Again (ACB listing), finale |
Apple has published titles for the first three episodes only. The other five come from the Australian Classification Board (ACB), a government body whose public database lists all eight episodes as classified between 6 and 10 August 2026. The Episode 8 title is printed exactly as the board spells it. Treat Episodes 4 to 8 as titled by the board, not announced by Apple.
The same database gives the directors: Trent O’Donnell for Episodes 1 to 4 and 8, Jason Winer for Episode 5, and Erin O’Malley for Episodes 6 and 7. Apple confirms that O’Donnell directed several episodes, including the pilot.
What time does Brothers come out on Apple TV?
Apple has not said. None of its press releases, and not its show page, gives an hour, so this page does not print one. We can confirm that Episodes 1 and 2 were already listed as available on tv.apple.com when we checked at about 4 a.m. ET (1 a.m. PT) on Wednesday 23 September.
Apple commits to the day, not the hour. For the weekly episodes, check the app on Wednesday morning ET rather than waiting up on Tuesday night for a time nobody official has named.
How can you watch Brothers in the US?
You need an Apple TV subscription, the service Apple used to call Apple TV+. Apple’s US page lists it at $14.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. Brothers plays in the Apple TV app or in a browser at tv.apple.com.
| Route | Cost |
|---|---|
| Apple TV alone | $14.99 a month after a free 7-day trial |
| New Apple device | 3 months free, redeemed within 90 days |
| Apple One | From $21.95 a month; tiers at $21.95, $27.95 and $39.95 |
| Apple TV + Peacock | $17.99 a month for the bundle |
| Apple Music Student | Apple TV is included in the plan |
The Apple TV app runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro and Mac, and on smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO and TCL. It also runs on Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation and Xbox, and on the web.
The show is rated TV-MA, with advisories for language and violence. Apple gives a typical runtime of 32 minutes an episode.
Make sure you open the right Brothers. The Apple TV app also lists Brothers, a 2024 R-rated film with Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage. It is a different title and not an Apple Original. The McConaughey series is labeled TV Show · Comedy, and its page is tv.apple.com/us/show/brothers . If you look up reviews, note that Metacritic’s older Brothers TV page is a 2009 sitcom.
Who is in the cast of Brothers?
McConaughey and Harrelson lead as Matthew and Woody, with Holland Taylor as Matthew’s mother, Ma Mac. Apple’s show page lists ten main cast members.
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Matthew McConaughey | Matthew, a fictionalized version of himself |
| Woody Harrelson | Woody, a fictionalized version of himself |
| Holland Taylor | Ma Mac, Matthew’s mother |
| Natalie Martinez | Valentina, reported as Matthew’s wife |
| Brittany Ishibashi | Joy, reported as Woody’s wife |
| Nolan Almeida | Wyatt, Matthew’s son |
| Ella Grace Helton | Clara, reported as Matthew’s child |
| Noah Carganilla | River, reported as Matthew’s child |
| Highdee Kuan | Olive, reported as Woody’s child |
| Oona Yaffe | Kai, reported as Woody’s child |
Apple’s own pages confirm only two of these relationships: Ma Mac as Matthew’s mother, and Wyatt as Matthew’s son, from the Episode 2 synopsis. The others come from Deadline’s casting reports of 21 February and 6 March 2025, the second citing sources close to the production. Both predate the June 2025 production pause described below, so “reported” means exactly that.
What is Brothers about?
Brothers follows two famous friends whose friendship is upended when they uncover a decades-old secret. In Apple’s words, “they might actually be brothers.” The secret comes out after Woody moves his family to Austin for an extended stay at Matthew’s ranch. There, Matthew’s mother lets it slip, while Matthew is weighing a possible run for governor of Texas.
Apple describes what sends Woody to Texas in two different ways. Its 25 August and 18 September releases say his daughter’s engagement falls apart. Its 18 June release and the Apple TV Press show page say her wedding falls apart. Apple has not reconciled the two, and we do not pick one.
The first three synopses set up the arc. In Episode 1, a surprise visit from the Harrelsons goes wrong when Matthew’s mother drops a bombshell. In Episode 2, Matthew takes his son Wyatt on his first hunting trip. In Episode 3, Ma Mac wants the Harrelsons gone, and Woody comes up with a plan to buy time.
Are Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson really brothers?
Nothing public has shown that they are. Apple presents Brothers as a comedy about fictionalized versions of the two actors, and none of Apple’s pages says the premise is true.
Some coverage ties the premise to a real family story involving the two actors’ parents. We could not trace that story to a primary source, so we do not repeat its details, and nothing we read shows it has been proven.
Who created Brothers?
The credit is unsettled, and official-looking sources disagree. Apple’s 2023 order announcement credited David West Read as creator. Lee Eisenberg took over as showrunner after Read’s exit in 2025, and Apple’s 2026 materials name no creator at all.
The show changed a lot on its way to the screen. On 14 March 2023 Apple ordered an untitled 10-episode half-hour comedy from Skydance Television, created by Emmy winner Read. It had a different premise, with the two families living together on Matthew’s ranch and no brothers secret or governor run. On 20 June 2025, Deadline reported that filming in Austin had been paused and the cast sent home. Read, then the showrunner, had left with 8 of the 10 ordered episodes shot, and Eisenberg was in talks to take over for the last two and likely reshoots.
The finished season has eight episodes. Apple’s 2026 releases say Eisenberg, a multi-Emmy nominee and Peabody winner, is showrunner and executive producer, and that Paramount Television Studios produced the show for Apple TV. Deadline had reported in February 2025 that Winer would direct the pilot. Apple and the classification board now credit O’Donnell with the pilot and Winer with Episode 5.
Other sources list four creators. Metacritic’s Created By field names Read, McConaughey, Harrelson and Eisenberg, and Wikipedia’s infobox lists the same four. We could not check the Writers Guild’s own credit. Our reading is that Apple credited Read as creator in 2023, and that Eisenberg runs the show now.
Apple TV Press lists the executive producers as Eisenberg, McConaughey, Harrelson, Natalie Sandy, Read, Trish Hofmann, Bill Bost, Winer, David Finkel, Brett Baer and Jeremy Plager.
What are critics saying about Brothers?
Early reviews are mixed. At about 4 a.m. ET on 23 September 2026, Metacritic gave Brothers a Metascore of 51, labeled Mixed or Average, from 12 critic reviews. At the same time, Rotten Tomatoes showed no Tomatometer score yet, with a single review counted.
Both figures will move as more reviews come in, so treat them as a first reading, not a verdict. The show had its world premiere at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on 17 September 2026.
What should you do?
- If you already subscribe, Episodes 1 and 2 are available now. Episode 3 arrives on Wednesday 30 September, and a new episode follows each Wednesday to 4 November.
- If you only want Brothers, time the trial. The season runs six weeks and the free trial lasts seven days. Starting the trial on or after 4 November lets you watch all eight episodes, about four hours at Apple’s typical 32-minute runtime, inside the trial, if you qualify for it.
- If you bought an Apple device recently, check for the three-month offer before paying. It must be redeemed within 90 days and would cover the rest of the run.
- Search carefully. Open the series labeled TV Show · Comedy, not the 2024 Josh Brolin film with the same name.
- Don’t wait up on Tuesday night. Apple names the day but not the hour, so check on Wednesday morning ET.
For another Apple TV series that ran weekly on Wednesdays, see our guide to Lucky’s cast and episodes .
How we verified this
The schedule was checked against Apple’s own wording, which is identical across three press releases. The 18 June, 25 August and 18 September 2026 releases all describe an eight-episode comedy opening with two episodes on Wednesday 23 September, then one every Wednesday through 4 November 2026. The six dates from 30 September onward are our arithmetic from that sentence. Each is a Wednesday, and two plus six makes eight. Apple’s show page independently flags Episode 3 as coming on 30 September.
Episode titles come from two different sources, and the table labels each one. Titles and runtimes for Episodes 1 to 3 are from Apple’s show page. The first research pass attributed the titles for Episodes 4 to 8, and all the director credits, to Wikipedia alone. The adversarial re-check opened the Australian Classification Board’s own title database, a government primary source, and found all eight episodes there, classified between 6 and 10 August 2026, with directors. The same check found that Wikipedia’s director column carries no citation at all. The air dates for Episodes 4 to 8 still come from Apple’s weekly-Wednesday statement, not from the board.
⚠️ No release hour is printed because Apple has not given one. We observed Episodes 1 and 2 as available, with Episode 3 flagged as coming soon, between about 4:06 and 4:11 a.m. ET on 23 September 2026. Apple’s data feed stores a release stamp for the first two episodes of 00:00 UTC on 23 September, which would be 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday 22 September. Other titles in the same feed carry the same midnight stamp, so the field records a date, not a drop time, and we did not turn it into one. A Forbes article on the release time, dated 22 September 2026, returned an access error on two attempts and was not read.
🔴 The creator credit was re-checked, and the first draft got Metacritic wrong. The research pass said Metacritic credits David West Read alone. Only Metacritic’s descriptive blurb does that; its visible Created By field and its structured data both list Read, McConaughey, Harrelson and Eisenberg, the same four names as Wikipedia’s infobox. The research pass also said Wikipedia cites the Writers Guild for that credit. In fact the infobox carries only a hidden editor’s note, and the Guild’s directory sat behind a CAPTCHA that was not bypassed, so the Guild credit is unverified. The re-check also found that Apple’s 2023 order announced an untitled show with a different premise, which is context the credit question needs.
Prices and ways to subscribe were read from Apple’s own US pages on 23 September 2026. The apple.com Apple TV page gives $14.99 a month after a free seven-day trial, the Apple One tiers, the Peacock bundle price and the new-device offer. The show page on tv.apple.com and the 25 August press release repeat the $14.99 and seven-day figures. The device list is from the press release.
⚠️ Most family relationships in the cast table come from casting reports, not from Apple. Apple confirms Ma Mac as Matthew’s mother and, through the Episode 2 synopsis, Wyatt as Matthew’s son. Deadline reported on 21 February 2025 that Valentina and Joy are the two men’s wives, and on 6 March 2025, citing sources close to the production, which children belong to which family. Both reports predate the June 2025 production pause. Guest stars listed on Wikipedia are left out because Apple’s pages do not name them.
⚠️ Apple’s own pages disagree on two small points, and both versions are reported rather than one being chosen. The 25 August and 18 September releases say Woody’s daughter’s engagement falls apart. The 18 June release and the Apple TV Press show page say her wedding falls apart. On executive producers, the consumer page on tv.apple.com adds David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Matt Thunell, leaves out Jason Winer and spells one name Dave Finkel. Apple TV Press’s cast and crew page matches the 2026 releases, and that is the list used here.
🔴 The real-life family story behind the premise is not repeated here, because we could not trace it to a source we read. We saw it only in a Wikipedia citation of a Complex article of 22 August 2026 that we did not open, and Apple’s pages do not mention it.
🔴 This page carries no forecasts. It does not guess at reviews still to come, at viewership or at a second season. Paramount Television Studios is named only as the producer credited by Apple, and nothing here comments on any company’s shares. The review figures are readings with a time attached, not a trend.