It doesn’t matter what time of year it is – I’m always ready good shark movie. From the day I saw it Jaws I was hooked as a child. To this day, I refuse to go out into the open water. There’s no boat big enough to make me feel safe, and that’s exactly what you want from these types of movies.
Netflix’s latest shark thriller Thrash It had me living in the “shark-infested waters of a massive hurricane” and that strained common fears of drowning in open water and being decimated by a bloodthirsty predator. If Thrash If that wasn’t enough for you, here are five other intense movies to watch in the US. Our top pick may not be a true shark movie, but it captures one’s predatory spirit to heart.
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Shallow
No one is safe in open water
When horror movies It’s basically just one actor, you know you’re in for an unsettling hour. The horror begins when this character is alone in the open water. This is the situation in 2016. Shallow.
Blake Lively (Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants) stars as Nancy, a medical student who travels to a secluded beach for some time off after her mother’s death. Despite the known dangers of surfing alone, he grabs his board and heads out to sea. When a great white attacked and forced him to swim to a nearby reef for safety, he was left injured, stranded, and hunting at a shark feeding site 200 meters from shore. As the tide rises, the rock won’t be enough to keep him safe, and he knows it.
This movie had an effect on me. It highlights the tired tropes of a shark attack and then tops them off with frenzied thrills and a stunningly powerful performance from Lively. So good, in fact, that it received nominations from multiple outlets for Best Thriller of 2016.
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47 Meters Down
A cage diving excursion gone terribly wrong
What’s scarier than being stranded on the surface of shark-infested waters? Get stuck in them and 2017 is here 47 Meters Down drops us.
Mandy Moore (This is Us) and Claire Holt (The originals) play as sisters looking for fun and adventure in Mexico by cage diving in shark-infested waters. It’s just a bad decision from the start. When the cage they’re in breaks from their boat, the sisters fall straight to the bottom of the ocean. Worse, their oxygen supply is rapidly diminishing. When sharks circle, they need to figure out how to free themselves and swim to safety without becoming shark bait and suffering from decompression sickness, which occurs when they come up too fast during a dive.
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Its intense, claustrophobic survival horror relied on high tension, shark attacks and a ticking-clock scenario with limited air to draw audiences in, making it a compelling thrill ride for lovers of deep-sea horror. The memorable shark movie found its intended audience and was so successful that it spawned a sequel in 2019, and a third installment is expected to be released sometime in 2026.
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Reef
Pay attention to what lurks beneath the surface
My favorite shark movies are the ones based on or inspired by true events, like the 2010s. Reef. The film is based on an incident in 1983 in which two people were killed by sharks in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Damian Walshe-Howling (Abdomen) as Luke, who sails to Indonesia with four friends. His boat capsizes after hitting part of a coral reef, destroying the boat. Desperate for survival, some of the group decide to risk swimming to a nearby island, only to be followed by a great white shark, which taunts them and eats two of them.
The film does a solid job of bringing the scares and in contrast Thrashit’s not full of shark attacks or big special effects set pieces. Instead, it relies mostly on unsettling tension, punctuated by expertly choreographed bouts of shark-inflicted terror. Its sequel, Reef: StalkedReleased in 2022.
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Open water
Everyone’s worst nightmare
Another shark movie is claimed to be inspired by a true story in 2003 Open water it’s best digested as a work of fiction because it only draws from the bones of the story that inspired it. The gist of the film happened, but the details shown were the result of creative liberties.
A couple on a scuba diving excursion are accidentally abandoned in their group due to a logistical error, not realizing they are missing. The rest of the film focuses on the pair wading through the water trying to figure out what their options are but to succumb to death when hungry sharks start circling.
What is so cold Open water is its physical effect on the audience. Its realism is so palpable that it works under your guard and embraces the whole “it’s just a movie” reflex to create a visceral feeling that lingers long after the film is over.
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drive
Like Thrash, but with angry alligators instead
I went in though drive Unfortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by its completely new angle on water horror. Instead of a lake or ocean, the film’s protagonists are stuck in their home, specifically the crawl space beneath their house, after the hurricane’s floodwaters rush in and trap them.
Honestly, the thought of running from a flooded house would produce enough adrenaline to keep me hooked, but drive went a step further and fell upon giant, bloodthirsty alligators, more terrifying than sharks. Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan) and Kaya Scodelario (Skins) he stars as a father-daughter duo who find themselves at a complete disadvantage after an immediate split, making their situation not just a matter of survival, but of keeping the blood out of the water.
While it’s 2019 survival thriller very well made, it’s a performance by scream queen Kaya Scodelario that secures its place in the pantheon of water-based survival horror movies with its clever blend of throwback summer horror and modern self-awareness. It really is a must see.
Enjoy these shark movies
While there are many shark movies that will give you chills and thrills to the max, these are the five that are most similar. Thrashas they all survive dangerous waters as the main conflict, and a few even see a hurricane as a catalyst.
