Editor’s Note: This list was originally published in July 2023 and has since been updated with new entries honoring Discovery Channel’s Shark Week 2024.
There are few human obsessions that fit our devouring fascination with sharks. They are one of the few animals to have a national commemorative birthday (or a “holiday” depending on their investment in Shark Week) and their almost mythical prestige within the animal kingdom has provided inexhaustible material for cinema.
The boneless cartilaginous arrangement of sharks places them in the classification of “elasmobranch” fishes, grouping them in combination with rays, sawfish, and rays. While it’s well known that sharks aren’t as keen to feast on human flesh as they are in the science fiction, adventure, and horror that paint them for who they are, most people would rather not risk getting close enough to confirm it. With films dating back to Jerry Hopper’s “The Sharkfighters” in 1956 (and in all likelihood before), filmmakers have been making shark movies for about seven decades and will most likely continue to do so as long as sharks exist. (Editor’s note: Sharks will definitely outlive directors. )
Discovery helped fuel the cultural phenomenon with the debut of Shark Week in 1988, making it one of the longest-running television programming events. Featuring stories from survivors of the attacks, the exhibit highlights moments when surfing, diving and other deep-sea activities went wrong.
While shark videos capture the species’ disturbing killer instinct, other animated videos add personality and a sense of lightness to their characters. DreamWorks and Disney have reinvented the nutrition of wonderful whites, which live respectfully among other sea creatures.
Read on for a list of the most notable and cult shark movies, in chronological order.
Santa Sardine, “Batman: The Movie!” » The theatrical setting of everyone’s favourite caped crusader, precisely packed with sharks and sea creatures. But its opening series perfectly exemplifies the gleefully goofy, self-aware camping that makes the Adam West NBC TV series such a kitschy classic. While mounting a rescue project aboard a yacht, West’s stoic Batman is discovered with a shark biting his leg. Luckily, he prepared himself with his trusty batshark spray, which launches the sea creature into the water. When it comes to the story of shark attack scenes in movies, Batman’s brush with a wonderful white is precisely as skillfully staged as “Jaws,” but the poor quality and absurdity of the total encounter is what makes it so charming. -BATH
Steven Spielberg’s paintings in “Jaws” laid the groundbreaking groundwork for shark movies, while also scaring beachgoers in the ’70s. Authenticity was imperative for the director who chose to shoot in the middle of the Atlantic rather than in a controlled location and more convenient studio environment. Although the shots were more plausible than they would have been on a film set, this cost the film crew much more time, as the rough waters proved to be a hindrance to the production, soaking appliances and tilting the cameras. The mechanical sharks built for “Jaws” would break while filming, restricting their screen time. This would become a trademark of the hit film; Not seeing the monster that often, the worry and suspense increased.
“It’s my luck and I think it’s the audience’s luck too, because it’s a scarier movie without seeing so many sharks,” Spielberg said.
The second film in the four-part Jaws franchise had no fewer problems in its production than the original. He struggled with issues similar to those Spielberg faced years earlier, which is likely why the director turned down a sequel. However, despite filming difficulties and the replacement of the production director, “Jaws 2” was a box office success, making it one of the top 10 highest-grossing films of the year. year. It’s a minor film that intensifies the bloodshed with six human deaths: the most of any film in the franchise (not counting animal deaths).
Samuel L. Jackson had his hands on those sharks in this underwater lab years before he took on snakes on airplanes. His character, Russell Franklin, is partly to blame for this mania: conducting investment studies on Mako sharks to apply to humans. After one escapes and attacks a nearby ship, Franklin is sent to Aquatica: the experimental facility where genetically modified sharks have greater brain capacity, making them smarter and much more deadly.
A tall animated white man with an Australian accessory who promises to be a “friendly shark” and a “dumb eating machine” is a little less terrifying than some of the other cold-blooded killers on this list. Until Bruce’s killer intuition kicks in and his three-week break from eating fish is almost interrupted when he smells blood in the water. Luckily for Nemo and Dory, Bruce’s less carnivorous partners, Anchor and Chum, hold him back while the two manage to escape.
Even before the monster reaches the audience, the premise of “Open Water” leaves audiences impatient. After a group of divers are stranded in the middle of the ocean when their excursion boat forgets them, worry about danger slowly eats away at the travelers before the sharks do the same.
Dreamworks didn’t abandon big-name actors for this admittedly average (perhaps inferior) animated comedy about shark mobsters. Film mobsters have portrayed characters in their careers, with talents such as Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese and several stars of “The Sopranos”. The parody follows an organization of wonderful whites who run the underwater metropolitan area of the city of Southside Reef. When one of the sharks, Lenny, shows himself to be a vegetarian to his father and mob boss Don Lino, the father orders his other son to show Lenny the ropes and have him hunt his first meal.
Wes Anderson, Bill Murray, and other A-list stars team up to create an action-adventure comedy that’s radically different from most of the other titles on this list. “Life Under Underwater with Steve Zissou” reverses the roles of hunter and hunted. when oceanographer Steve Zissou sets off with his team of divers and cameramen to kill the jaguar shark that ate his spouse Esteban. Leaving aside his clinical professionalism, Zissou fortunately seeks revenge.
Robert Rodriguez’s eye-catching sequel to his hit “Spy Kids” franchise garnered negative reviews at the time, and it’s hard to argue that the ridiculous action-adventure story about a boy who enters his global dream to save the truth works exactly. But it’s a nostalgic favorite of those who grew up with it, and part of what makes it so adorable despite its flaws is how obviously it came from a child’s mind (Rodriguez founded the concept on his children’s ideas). ). A good example is one of the titular heroes, Taylor Lautner’s impulsive and temperamental Sharkboy. It’s a boy who was raised through a shark!And I’ve become part of a shark because of it!Does it make sense? Not really, but still, Lautner’s Power Rangers-style shark uniform and mouth full of triangular fangs can elicit a sense of childlike joy. -BATH
If you’re making plans to sail through shark-infested waters to Indonesia with an organization of friends, a reliable captain is non-negotiable. The organization of divers at “The Reef” is not so sensible, getting on a poorly piloted sailboat that capsizes and leaves them stranded in open water. With no sign of land beyond miles of water, one part of the organization swims aimlessly to where they expect there to be dry land while the others check their luck on the sinking ship. The film is based on crisis survivor Ray Boundy, who experienced events in 1983.
Staying out of the water is the most effective way to take on a shark, but when a hurricane floods the city, making ground and air attacks possible, the fight against monsters can be relentless. This Syfy B-movie has gained enough of a cult following to get six more shark cyclone movies. While the makers didn’t go out of their way to cover up the visibly animated CGI sharks plaguing the city, “Sharknado” features epic homicide scenes on all fronts. From diving into the mouth of a wonderful white guy with a chainsaw. From the start at the other finish line to being crushed by the Hollywood sign, those heroes live a lot of gore.
Surfing and shark encounters go hand in hand in mystery movies. “The Shallows” centers on medical student Nancy Adams and a trip to Mexico that allows her to get high by beating up a wonderful white man. Most of the film takes place in the water. Two hundred meters from shore, after an attack leaves Nancy bloodied and injured. She rows from the rock to the buoy to the whale’s floating carcass, avoiding the shark circling in the water.
Johannes Roberts’ “47 Meters Down” is a classic survival movie about getting caught between a rock and a hard position; In this case, the “rock” is a shark and the “hard position” is a diving cage that detaches from its cable and sends its tourists several meters further into the ocean. The deficient fools in this terrible scenario are sisters Lisa and Kate (played by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt), and Roberts follows well the duo’s desperation to escape the hell their vacation in Mexico has become: one where sharks circling in circles are the least of their worries when they have to deal with a dwindling source of oxygen. This is one of the few shark movies where the elements of the ocean as a whole are just as terrifying as the wonderful white killers. -BATH
If there’s one mind-blowing action movie fighter you’d need by your side to fight a 75-foot aquatic killing machine, it’s Jason Statham. In the blockbuster “The Meg,” Statham’s rescue diving character, Jonas Taylor, descends into most of the ocean floor to rescue survivors trapped in the Mariana Trench. There, they are trapped and tormented by the megalodon that is believed to be extinct. Loosely based on Steve Alten’s 1997 novel, “The Meg” may have been directed through Disney, which bought the rights to the film shortly after the book was published. But in the end, it was Warner Bros. who stepped in to direct the film more than 20 years later.
It stands to reason that an animated shark voiced by Sylvester Stallone would have a tough build. Although Nanaue is a character of few words, his broad shoulders, large arms, crushing jaw, and webbed hands make him an unstoppable force, capable of even dodging shots with ease. Also known as the Shark King, the wonderful white humanoid is the son of a shark god with the mutant ability to take the form of a human or sea creature. Originally from the Big Island of Hawaii, Nanaue is an enforcer of The Suicide Squad (you know, the one directed by James Gunn) who swallows enemies whole.