10 OF THE BEST SHARK DOCUMENTARIES EVER MADE
“A perfect engine. A miracle of evolution.” This is how ichthyologist Matt Hooper in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws described the Great White shark. And he wasn’t wrong. Having survived multiple mass extinctions, sharks have remained largely unchanged and top of the food chain for the majority of their existence.
This seemingly perfect dominance is what makes sharks so fascinating and with advances in underwater technology, we can now get closer than ever. Shark scientists and photographers are going deeper and spending more and more time with sharks in an effort to understand what makes these creatures tick and how we can coexist in an ever changing climatory landscape.
The continued study of sharks has resulted some of the greatest wildlife documentaries ever produced. Below are our picks of 10 of the best shark documentaries ever made.
10. FIN (2021, DISCOVERY+)
Discovering that sharks are being massacred by the hundreds of thousands to further the gain of criminal enterprises, director Eli Roth sets out on a mission to expose the truth. Along the way, he talks to a team of researchers and activists to get information on what is happening to sharks, and puts himself in danger when he boards an illegal fishing vessel that’s been stopped by Marine security in Asian waters.
9. SHARK GIRL (2014)
For 20-year-old Madison Stewart, nothing feels safer or more natural than diving straight into shark-infested waters. Since childhood, growing up by the Great Barrier Reef, she's treated these predators as family. But they're vanishing from existence, and because of their bad reputation, few people seem to care. Follow Madison on her mission to protect our sharks, a battle that began when she put her studies on hold, grabbed a camera, and set out to save these incredible, misunderstood creatures.
8. SHARK WATER: EXTINCTION (2018)
Filmmaker Rob Stewart exposes the illegal fishing industry that threatens the survival of the world's sharks.
7. GALAPAGOS: REALM OF GIANT SHARKS (2012)
Follow a group of researchers traveling to Darin Island determined to track sharks and learn their migration patterns. To do so, they must strategically place tracking devices on the beasts, which proves to not always be easy. Dangerous currents intervene and the sharks can deliver bone-crushing swipes with their tails. Find out how the sharks and scientists fare!
6. RISE OF THE GREAT WHITE SHARK (2017, AMAZON PRIME)
This film traces the rise of the Great White Shark 11 million years ago in the wake of dramatic changes in Earth's oceans and climate. At the end of an age dominated by giant ocean predators, white sharks evolved in tandem with seals and other pinnipeds in response to cooling conditions. This film is the result of a decade of filming white sharks by renowned "Shark Week" cameraman Andy Casagrande.
5. OF SHARK AND MAN (2015)
A thirty-two year old man, trapped in a dead end job in England's industrial north, his life going nowhere, gambles everything to tell an inspiring untold story, a story which finds him in the middle of a feeding frenzy with sixty of the world's most dangerous sharks.
4. SHARKWATER (2006)
An investigation of sharks' importance to ecosystems and humankind's mass destruction of shark species worldwide.
3. MISSION BLUE (2014, NETFLIX)
Feature documentary about legendary oceanographer, marine biologist, environmentalist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle , and her campaign to create a global network of protected marine sanctuaries.
2. PLAYING WITH SHARKS: THE VALERIE TAYLOR STORY (2021, DISNEY+)
Pioneering scuba diver Valerie Taylor, who has dedicated her life to exposing the myth surrounding our fear of sharks.
1. BLUE WATER, WHITE DEATH (1971)
“In April, 1969, a movie crew arrives in South Africa determined to find the great white shark and to film it underwater,” so begins the expedition that would become one of the greatest wildlife documentaries ever filmed — and the best shark film ever made: BLUE WATER, WHITE DEATH.