A coating apparatus and method are disclosed for coating tablets with a film, in which the tables transit through a drilled first container where they are coated, then exit the first container and are removed from a rotating element provided on the periphery of a plurality of removal members that are spaced angularly apart from one another, in which each removal member removes a quantity of tablets, raises the removed tables as far as a certain height and then discharges the tablets into a chute that conveys the tablets into a second rotating drilled container, with delicate transfer of the coated tablets from one container to the next.