The 15 Best Shark Movies Of All Time, Ranked

As the poet Tracy Jordan once told Kenneth the Page, “Here’s some advice I wish I would have got when I was your age: Live every week like it’s Shark Week.” The “30 Rock” legend was referring to the Discovery Channel’s yearly celebration of all things shark, a programming event where they fill every hour of airtime with nature specials about the terribly toothy monsters. There are enough fictional movies about sharks, however, that you can easily live every single day like it’s Shark Day.

If we’re being honest, though, many shark movies are pretty bad. That’s what made SyFy’s “Sharknado” franchise so good — at least for the first few movies. The franchise expertly skewered shark movies made on the cheap, celebrating questionable CGI as something to be cheered rather than jeered. Shark movie fans know that we have to put up with a garbage to find a gem.

There are plenty of good shark movies, though, but they’re often good for different reasons. Some are so-bad-they’re-great, while others are legitimately excellent. Some go for gore and over-the-top nonsense, while others prefer to build tension and aim to unnerve rather than shock. We love shark movies for many reasons, and this list celebrates the best shark movies out there.

Every shark movie fan knows that, on the whole, most shark movies are pretty bad. That’s part of the fun of being a fan, though. It’s a blast to sift through the dreck that comes out every year, hoping for a flash of sharky brilliance. “Shark Attack 3: Megalodon,” a straight-to-video film from 2002, makes this list because it’s the best of the worst. This movie is ridiculous from start to finish, and we mean that in the best way. It’s a poorly-acted, over-the-top catastrophe about a conspiracy involving underwater power cables. They attract a megalodon to swim up out of a trench, leading to mayhem on the beaches of Mexico.

“Torchwood” legend John Barrowman stars as Ben, and he’s giving a bad-movie performance for the ages. See, for example, the mega-viral moment where he asks his female co-star, “What do you say I take you home and…” You know what, we’ll just let you watch it, but beware that the language is NSFW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1XOfHax6Q8

Still, there are flashes of sharky brilliance here. There’s a sequence involving a parasailer’s tow rope being pulled underwater, and the shoddy compositing in the climax of the film simply has to be seen to be believed.

“The Meg” actually has a lot in common with “Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.” Like that movie, it’s about a not-so-extinct prehistoric shark many times larger than your average underwater chomper. The titular Meg also chases our heroes up out of an underwater trench, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting swimmers. 

However, this movie has a Hollywood budget.

That mostly means recognizable actors — lots of them. The cast includes Rainn Wilson, Bingbing Li, Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, Ruby Rose, and most of all, Jason Statham. If you’ve ever wanted to see Statham punch a shark directly in the face, this is the movie for you. (Shame that there’s an R-rated cut of “The Meg” we’ll never see).

For our money, shark movies are at their best when they’re played straight. “The Meg” lands lower on this list because it’s a little too “in on the joke” for its own good, but again, Statham punches a shark, which is more than enough to earn a spot in shark movie history. You can practically see Statham rolling his eyes the entire film. You’re not too good for this, sir!

Plenty of shark movies sprang up in the wake of “Jaws,” trying to recapture the glory of the biggest monster movie of all time. Lots of them basically follow the formula exactly, including “Tintorera,” a Mexican/British co-production that’s also occasionally titled “Tintorera …Killer Shark” or “Tintorera …Tiger Shark.” One of the best “Jaws” knockoffs, it’s about a shark researcher down in Mexico who becomes sexually involved with some British tourists, while also trying to help the locals avoid a killer tiger shark. Like “Jaws,” there’s even a long scene at night on a boat.

“Tintorera” is especially fun, though, because they realized early that shark movies work well as exploitation films. After all, a shark-attack plot pretty much requires you to have a bunch of scantily-clad actors, and “Tintorera” leans into that by featuring copious amounts of nudity. It’s steamy!

When the sharks finally do get around to attacking, there are some underwater sequences that are pretty impressive for their time. One climactic scene takes place at night, the dark red blood filling the moonlit water, and it’s surprisingly good-looking.

Produced at the height of the post-“Avatar” 3D craze, the 2011 film “Shark Night 3D” uses the format as an excuse for all sorts of sharky bedlam. It’s about a group of college kids who head out for a vacation at a lake house, where they find bloodthirsty sharks ready to gobble up anyone who goes in the water. You may be wondering whether sharks can usually be found in lakes, and the answer is: No, they cannot. That’s where “Shark Night’s” main villain comes into the picture, taking this movie over the finish line from trash to beautifully-stupid trash.

Like lots of post-“Jaws” shark movies, this one thrives thanks to its attractive young cast of victims. You’ll spot “American Idol” vet Katharine McPhee alongside “Schitt’s Creek” breakout Dustin Milligan, and Sara Paxton’s there too, along with Chris Zylka. You may even recognize the film’s first victim, a blonde woman who goes swimming in a white bikini that found its way onto the film’s poster. She’s Christine Quinn, who would later be one of the most delicious reality television villains of all time on “Selling Sunset.” Guess those Oppenheim Group girls aren’t the only sharks she has to worry about.

The rise of streaming services has meant an even greater opportunity for shark movies to find an audience. Tubi pumps them out with some regularity, as does Shudder. That’s also the streaming service that gave us “Sharksploitation,” a great 2024 documentary about horror’s wettest subgenre.

Featuring expert interviews with aquatic monster movie royalty like legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman, “Sharksploitation” traces the rise of the shark as one of cinema’s greatest monsters. It features a brilliant collage of shark movie clips, making connections between “Jaws” and everything from “Despicable Me” to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon “Jabberjaw.” It’s a fun road trip down memory lane, celebrating the toothy predators in all their glory. You’ll learn that the 1995 film “Cruel Jaws” straight-up lifts footage from the “Jaws” series, and you’ll hear about the Bollywood film “Aatank,” and there’s even a compilation of the stupidest shark movie deaths, which is, of course, a compliment.

Sequels are hard. Making a sequel to one of the best movies of all time is even harder. When Steven Spielberg refused to direct “Jaws 2,” Jeannot Szwarc got the job. The task must’ve seemed insurmountable, but thankfully, he managed to pull it off. “Jaws 2” is a very solid, worthy follow-up to the iconic original.

As in the first movie, Roy Scheider plays Chief Brody, a cop tasked with keeping the citizens of Amity Island safe from a shark that’s menacing the beach. Yet again, Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) resists any attempt to acknowledge the danger that lurks just offshore. This time, though — now that we’ve seen the shark in the first movie — the kills are bigger, bolder, and bloodier. Sure, it’s not as subtle, but it’s its own beast.

The movie itself is good, but “Jaws 2” would deserve a place on this list for its tagline alone, which is one of the best of all time. The film’s posters warned viewers, “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…” We hope whoever thought that up got a hefty raise.

There’s a subgenre of shark movie that sees characters trapped in an enclosed space, unable to escape as sharks swim all around them. “47 Meters Down” is one of the best of this bunch, thanks to its ingenious setup. The movie is about two friends on vacation, Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt). They agree to go cage diving, excited and scared by the opportunity to see some sharks up close. After a malfunction, however, their cage plummets down to the ocean floor … 47 meters down.

This is a very claustrophobic movie, which does a great job at amping up the tension. So many of the shots are extreme closeups on Moore and Holt’s faces, their eyes wide and terrified behind their goggles. There are sharks all around them, after all, just waiting for an opportunity to chow down. Ultimately, when the girls finally make their break for the surface, “47 Meters Down” features some genuinely stunning sequences that provide some of the most memorable imagery in all of sharkdom.

“Bait” is another enclosed-space shark thriller, but this time, it all takes place in an Australian supermarket. Just as the place is being robbed by a gang of thugs led by Julian McMahon, a tsunami hits, flooding not just the underground car park but the grocery store itself. The main characters find themselves trapped atop the store shelves by rising waters, and they soon realize they aren’t alone. There are Great Whites swimming up and down the aisles. Will the sharks be more or less dangerous than the criminals in their midst? What about the people trapped in their cars as sharks patrol the garage? What about the poor little dog?

This is another one that was shot in 3D, and there are some deliciously dumb, eye-popping visuals. It’s all very colorful, too, in that sweaty mid-aughts Platinum Dunes kind of way, before we forgot how to light movies. The oranges and blues leap off the screen just as the sharks leap out of the water to grab the hapless humans. 

“47 Meters Down” is a very solid shark movie, so how did “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” up the ante? By going bigger and dumber, two solid choices if you have to make a sequel. This time, as the silly subtitle suggests, there are no cages to be found. Instead, a group of girls go diving into some underwater ruins, unfortunately becoming trapped in a labyrinthine nightmare full of sharks.

This is one of those movies that starts out boring-to-fine and just gets better and better as it goes along. The third act is positively zany, including a fish that roars, an inexplicable massive whirlpool, and a climax involving a desperate swim to safety. As he did in the sorely-underrated “The Strangers: Prey at Night,” director Johannes Roberts makes great use of the brilliant contrast between bright red blood and sparkling blue water. It all comes down to a frightening showdown between a girl and a glass-bottom tourist boat that can’t seem to stop chumming the water, and it’s downright delightful.

As big-budget, star-studded shark movies go, they don’t get much more fun than Renny Harlin’s 1999 thriller “Deep Blue Sea.” You’ve got Thomas Jane, LL Cool J, Saffron Burrows, Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, and Samuel L. Jackson battling for survival against a super-smart species of genetically-engineered sharks. Throw in some awesomely-awful CGI, some massive explosions, and the most incredible “big star dies early” death scene this side of “Scream,” and you’re in for a good time.

About that death scene — Harlin told /Film that he had to fight with Warner Bros. not to spoil it. “I said, ‘No way. That is the surprise of the movie. If you give it away in the trailer, then there’s nothing left,'” he recalled. Thank goodness he won, because there’s nothing quite like it.

“Deep Blue Sea” spawned two sequels: The 2018 film “Deep Blue Sea 2” is pretty bad, but 2020’s “Deep Blue Sea 3” — “Deep Blue 3,” if you will — is worth your time. This is a series that loves sharks leaping out of nowhere to gobble people up, and we could all use a little more of that in the world.

In the run-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, there was much debate over whether the city’s famous Seine River would be safe enough to host various swimming competitions. Everyone was worried about pollution, but Xavier Gens’s 2024 film “Under Paris” proposed a different problem: What if there were sharks in the Seine? What if there was a big sporting event coming up that definitely wasn’t the Olympics, but would see hundreds of people swimming in the river? What if no one believed sharks had an appetite for swimmers?

With a cast led by “The Artist” star Bérénice Bejo, “Under Paris” features two all-time-great shark sequences: The aforementioned athletic competition is one, and the other comes a bit earlier, as researchers descend into the city’s infamous catacombs to see what’s going on, well, under Paris. They find flooded pathways that lead them directly into what turns out to be a shark-filled meat grinder, and the resulting pandemonium is deliciously demented.

Whereas most of the shark movies on this list could best be described as “fun,” the 2010 Australian thriller “The Reef” is just straight-up upsetting. It’s about a group of people who take a boat out to a remote island. After it capsizes, they must choose between waiting around in hopes of rescue or embarking on a 10-mile swim back to land through shark-infested waters. Four of them go for the swim, and most of the movie follows them as they themselves are followed by a very hungry fish.

The deaths here aren’t wacky and fun; they’re disturbing and sad. We are watching people witness the graphic deaths of their loved ones, and all of the performers really sell the emotion. Also, lots of shark movies amp up their tension by including pulsating music; call it the “Jaws” effect. Much of “The Reef,” on the other hand, is nearly silent. After the horrified swimmers are picked off one by one, the final act of the film is a real-time swim to the safety of the titular reef, and the only sounds are lapping waves and screams of pain and fear.

On many levels, the digital video revolution made independent filmmaking easier. In 2003, writer/director Chris Kentis put digital video to good use in what must be one of the most ingeniously-produced shark thrillers on this list. “Open Water” tells the story of Susan and Daniel (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis), a couple on vacation who decide to go on a scuba-diving expedition. After they explore the open water, everyone climbs back on the boat and leaves … everyone, that is, except our lead couple. They’re left all alone, floating out in the middle of the sea, and the sharks are closing in.

The film’s low-fi aesthetic gives it an immediacy that you’re not likely to find in many other shark films. We are right up in the characters’ faces for most of the movie, watching their dawning terror as they realize that they’re facing an awful, inevitable end. It’s a movie as much about accepting death as it is about sharks, but there are certainly sharks here, too. In fact, they filmed with real sharks, and you can definitely tell.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra is a master of high-concept thrillers. From Liam Neeson vehicles like “Non-Stop” and “Run All Night” to horror movie delights like “House of Wax” and “Orphan,” the man knows how to craft tension. His best film is “The Shallows,” a movie where a surfer played by Blake Lively gets stuck on a rock with a shark in the water nearby. Collet-Serra told /Film that it was tough to film the movie without knowing what the real shark would look like. “It’s a fear that lasts a year,” he said. “It’s not like we do a movie and jump into the movie knowing we can do it; we hope we can figure it out.”

Well, he figured it out. Buoyed by Lively’s excellent performance — highlighted often in close-up reaction shots that merely show her reacting in horror and pain to what’s happening — “The Shallows” is a masterclass in single-location horror storytelling. She’s not far from shore, and all she has is a seagull for company, but the tide is rising and the shark smells blood in the water … what’s a girl to do?

How could it be anything else? The shark movie that started it all is still the best of the bunch, a towering achievement in not only the shark movie subgenre but horror films in general. Steven Spielberg’s seminal 1975 film is about a series of shark attacks on Amity Island, a bustling beach town led by a mayor who’s just not interested in protecting his people. The action takes place around the 4th of July, cementing “Jaws” as a distinctly American story of the battle between science and government, and between civilization and nature. In other words, it’s still as relevant as ever.

Where to even start? We could wax poetic about that iconic cello-sting score, or the way Spielberg smartly holds back the shark in its full glory until the latter part of the film. We could talk about Richard Dreyfuss’ affable scientist, Roy Scheider’s desperate police chief, or Robert Shaw’s harrowing monologue about the wreckage of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. To keep things short, though, suffice it to say that “Jaws” still has a lot to offer, and it’s still the pinnacle of what the fearsome predator of the sea has to offer on screen.