15 Scary Shark Attack Movies to Watch During Shark Week (June 20-26)
Want to be afraid to go in the water?
Although three-quarters of the planet’s surface is covered by water, the ocean might as well be another planet for all that we’re equipped to survive down there. If one ascribes to the theory of evolution, we all came from the water eons ago. If one believes that memories can be transmitted genetically, we also carry within us a distant dread of the morbid memories of those giant sharp-toothed predators that stalked and killed us in the dark, murky, salty water.
Even though industrialized fishing means that humans kill far more sharks than the inverse every year, whenever a shark attacks a human, it becomes a huge news story that conjures that ancient fear of an underwater conflict where we are at the mercy of killing machines, a bloody battle that we are not equipped to win. This list catalogs the scariest shark movies. For more water-based horror, check out our beach horror movies, swimming pool horror movies, and underwater horror movies lists.
Jaws (1975)
Based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley—which was inspired by a series of real-life shark attacks in New Jersey in 1916—Jaws follows small-town Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), who already fears the water, as he tries to protect his town against a killer great white and a mayor who cares more about tourism dollars than he does about safety. As the shark begins picking off swimmers and growing more emboldened, Brody teams with a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a crusty-but-tough fisherman (Robert Shaw) in a quest to slay the massive beast. Jaws is a cautionary tale about the clash between civilization and the untamed wild and had a tremendous impact on popular culture. It grossed nearly $500 million on a budget of $9 million.
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Deep Blue Sea (1999)
Working on a $200-million grant from a wealthy investor who seeks to cure Alzheimer’s, an unethical marine biologist in an isolated underwater research facility called Aquatica devises a way to enlarge shark brains. The underwater guinea pigs—a group of super-fast mako sharks—become so intelligent that they figure out how to escape their captivity and begin terrorizing the underwater crew. The team has to work together to outsmart the sharks and rise to the surface without being killed.
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Open Water (2003)
Open Water is based on the true story of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who traveled with a scuba-diving group to the Great Barrier Reef in 1998 and wound up stranded when the group’s ship left them behind after taking an inaccurate headcount. Stranded and drifting in the vast, cold sea, the couple, who are renamed Dan and Susan in the screenplay, must fight dehydration, stinging jellyfish, saltwater sickness, and the looming threat of a pack of sharks who have discovered them. Every shark in this movie is real, and the actors ended up spending 120 hours in the water with the sharks.
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Open Water 2: Adrift (2006)
Dan (Eric Dane) takes his friends for a weekend cruise on his new yacht. Unfortunately, when the friends jump in the water for a swim, they forget to let down the ladder, leaving all of them trapped in the water. Not only is one of the friend’s baby alone on the ship while they’re treading water indefinitely — they also fear sharks swimming in the depths below.
The Reef (2010)
The Reef is based on the real-life story of Ray Boundy, who survived an incident where his boat was capsized and a tiger shark killed two of his crew mates. In The Reef, five people—including the ship’s captain, Luke—go on a sailing trip when their boat hits a reef and capsizes. The passengers decide to swim toward Turtle Island for safety, while the captain stays on the floating boat because there are sharks in the water. The four swimmers are then stalked by a great white.
Shark Night (2011)
A scary shark movie that feels like a slasher film. Shark Night follows a group of college friends vacationing at a lake house for the weekend. Despite being located on fresh water, the friends begin to be picked off by sharks one by one. Eventually, they discover the attacks aren’t an accident.
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Bait (2012)
Bait is set in a coastal grocery store in Australia. A former lifeguard named Josh is working there a year after a near-fatal encounter with a great white shark. He is also forced to deal with some burdensome shoppers—his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend, a shifty shoplifter, and a robber who takes everyone hostage—but then a tsunami hits, trapping them all inside the flooded store with 12-foot great white sharks. A sequel to Bait that involved an oceanic plane crash was ultimately scrapped due to the screenplay’s “uncomfortable similarities” to the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The Shallows (2016)
The Shallows sees medical student and surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) mourning her mother’s passing by visiting a remote beach in Baja California that her mother loved. Nancy is attacked by a great white shark while surfing. She manages to make it to a small rock that is a mere 200 yards from shore, but with the tide coming in and no one around to come to save her, Nancy needs to decide if she’s going to die on that rock or take action.
47 Meters Down (2017)
Mandy Moore and Claire Holt star as two vacationing sisters who decide to be adventurous and do a caged shark dive. A snafu on the trip results in the sisters being trapped at the bottom of the ocean. While they are still protected by the cage, they have only an hour of oxygen left. Surrounded by great white sharks and needing to surface slowly in order to prevent deadly decompression sickness, the sisters struggle to survive.
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The Meg (2018)
This underwater action epic centers around Naval Captain Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), who five years previously had to abandon his mission in the Mariana Trench—the deepest part of the ocean on the planet—after an unknown predator forced him to abandon both his ship and half of his crew in the deep. He lost his career and his wife—not only due to the tragedy, but because of his claims that what caused the wreck was a 70-foot megalodon, a giant shark that is thought to have been extinct for a million years. As fate would have it, a submersible containing his ex-wife sinks and is stuck at the bottom of the ocean. Captain Taylor seeks to reclaim his pride—and his wife—by catching the beast that everyone claimed no longer existed.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)
A survival horror movie following a group of friends (and frenemies) who go scuba diving to explore the ruins of an underwater Mayan city. An accident causes some of the ruins to collapse, sending silt everywhere and separating the friends in the ensuing chaos. The girls attempt to leave but a shark appears and chases them deeper underwater.
The Reef: Stalked (2022)
An Australian horror movie following four friends on a kayaking adventure. While spearfishing, one of the women notices a shark in the water. She scrambles back to her kayak safely but her friend is killed by the shark. The remaining three friends must paddle back to land while a great white shark stalks them.
The Meg 2: The Trench (2023
A sci-fi action movie that follows the characters of The Meg (2018) five years later. Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is raising his deceased partner’s 14-year-old, Meiying (Sophia Cai) along with her uncle Jiuming Zhang (Wu Jing). All three are aboard a submersible when they discover an illegal underwater mining operation staffed by mercenaries. The group struggles to escape the mercenaries, a traitor in their ranks, the megalodons and other underwater dangers (like a lack of oxygen). This is a fun action movie with a few scary moments and lots of great comedic moments, especially scenes with DJ (Page Kennedy) who learned some valuable lessons from the original Meg film.
No Way Up (2024)
A plane crashes into the Pacific Ocean, leaving a group of survivors trapped underwater with limited oxygen. A group of sharks inhabit the waters around the crash site, making escape even more dangerous. The survivors search the ship’s luggage for diving supplies and argue about the best course of action.
Under Paris (2024)
After a traumatic shark attack took the life of her husband and dive team, marine researcher Sophia (Bérénice Bejo) relocates to Paris and gets a much safer job as an educator at an aquarium. An environmentalist, Mika (Léa Léviant), informs Sophia that the shark responsible for the attack on her team has found its way to Paris and is currently living in the Seine river, the location of an upcoming triathlon. The mayor refuses to believe there is a threat in the Seine, and things get catastrophic (and a bit silly) in this fun shark attack movie.
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