Even if you live nowhere near the ocean and its dark, watery depths, there’s a good chance you have a fear of sharks. And who could blame you? When Jaws first broke the surface in 1975, director Steven Spielberg jump-started Hollywood’s creature-feature obsession — with sharks at the helm. That horror classic paved the ocean floor for flicks like 47 Meters Down, The Meg, and Thrash, a new Netflix survival thriller about a Category 5 hurricane that decimates a small town … and lures ravenous sharks into the water-logged streets.
Sure, some sharks are more “Baby Shark” (doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo) than Jaws theme (dun-dun … dun-dun), but anything with gills and razor-sharp teeth makes for a good time. So if you’re hungry for some sharks on your screen, mako your day by adding these fin-tastic movies and series to your watch list.
It’s just a little bit of weather, right? When a Category 5 hurricane decimates a coastal town, its residents are cut off from any rescue attempts and therefore left to grapple with the aftermath of devastation and chaos themselves. As if that weren’t enough, the storm surge is packed with ruthless and ravenous sharks. Produced by Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up), the survival flick stars Bridgerton breakout Phoebe Dynevor as expectant mother Lisa, alongside Djimon Hounsou (Rebel Moon) as marine researcher Dale and Whitney Peak (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as Dale’s niece Dakota.
When the half-eaten remains of a young woman wash up on shore, Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to shut down Amity Island’s beaches to be safe. But Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) writes it off as a boating accident and insists beaches remain open for an extremely busy tourist season. After more people start getting attacked in the water, Brody recruits oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and grizzled shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) to help him destroy the great white that’s terrorizing the town. The 1975 Spielberg (Jurassic Park) film, which won three Oscars, also stars Lorraine Gary, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Jonathan Filley, and Ted Grossman.
Four years after the explosive ending of the first movie, Brody’s paranoia finally catches up with him. He sees evidence of shark attacks wherever he looks, and after one false flag too many, Brody is fired from his position as chief of police. But Brody knows the signs better than anyone on Amity Island, and when his sons sneak out to go sailing and scuba diving against his orders, he races to save them from the new threat that’s lurking in the shallows. Scheider, Gary, Hamilton, and Kramer return for Jaws 2, which is directed by Jeannot Szwarc (Supergirl); it also stars Joseph Mascolo, Colin Wilcox Paxton, Ann Dusenberry, Mark Gruner, Barry Coe, and Susan French.
Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid), son of retired Police Chief Martin Brody, is all grown up and just as obsessed with the ocean as his father is. The chief engineer at SeaWorld Orlando is busy ensuring the smooth opening of a new lagoon exhibit, complete with underwater tunnels for aquatic animals to move between habitats. But one day, the underwater gates get stuck open, and a baby great white slips into the lagoon, terrorizing guests and attacking employees. Though the baby shark is captured, the attacks only increase in fervor, and Mike realizes the baby shark’s mother — a far more dangerous threat — is searching for her child. Directed by Joe Alves, Jaws 3 also stars Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale, Louis Gossett Jr., John Putch, Lea Thompson, P.H. Moriarty, Dan Blasko, Liz Morris, and Lisa Maurer.
Sophia Assalas (Bérénice Bejo) was once a leading marine researcher traveling the world to study short fin mako sharks. But after losing her husband and half her crew to Lilith, a behemoth they tagged in open waters, Sophia quietly accepts a job at an aquarium in Paris. She’s content to grieve and live out the rest of her life on land, until she realizes that Lilith somehow found her way from the ocean to the Seine. With a giant killer shark on the loose and the Paris triathlon — and the Olympics — right around the corner, Sophia teams up with Adil (Nassim Lyes), a police diver, to save hundreds of competitors from becoming shark bait. The 2024 creature feature was directed by Xavier Gens (Hitman).
How far will you go to protect what you love? For Ocean Ramsey, her passion for sharks takes her to the furthest depths of the sea. This documentary zooms in on the marine conservationist who fearlessly free-dives with tiger sharks and great whites. With her partner and videographer, Juan Oliphant, the Oahu native then shares the footage with her millions of Instagram followers — all in an attempt to change the public’s perception of one of the ocean’s most feared predators, whom she feels are gravely misunderstood and unfairly maligned.
This shark-based reality competition series follows four teams of shark experts and enthusiasts as they travel to six locations around the globe — the Maldives, Galápagos Islands, the Bahamas, South Africa, Japan, and Australia — to find the most elusive shark species. The more shark photographs they collect, the more points they earn, with more unusual sharks (like the epaulette shark that “walks” on land) being worth more points. The team with the most points in the end wins bragging rights and a $50,000 donation to a charity of their choice.
Naomi (Mãdãlina Ghenea) is leisurely sailing home one day when she comes across a couple stranded in the middle of the ocean. When they tell her that one of their brothers is trapped in their sunken boat beneath the waves, she suits up and dives to find him. But upon swimming toward the wreckage, she comes to a horrible realization: She’s rescued drug traffickers, and they expect her to retrieve their waterlogged cocaine stash from shark-infested waters. Can she dodge the bloodthirsty beasts and her captors’ bullets and make it home unscathed? Ed Westwick (White Gold) co-stars in this thriller directed by Marcus Adams (The Marksman).
This nature documentary series brings audiences well below the surface of the Earth’s five oceans — Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, Arctic, and Southern. Utilizing cutting-edge research and newly developed underwater filmmaking technology, Our Oceans spends time with well-loved animals like dolphins and sea turtles while featuring other sea creatures and natural phenomena that have never before been captured on camera. All five episodes — the first of which features a 50-foot-long whale shark in the midst of a hunt — are narrated by President Barack Obama, and illustrate just how much we have in common with the animals that populate our waters.
