The 10 greatest sharks in movie history

Every shark movie has a shark. Obvious, right? But not all cinematic sharks are filmed equal. Some are created using multi-million dollar budgets and state of the art technology while others are created so badly they literally have lifeless eyes… like a doll’s eyes. So, with that in mind, Ross from The Daily Jaws picks his 10 greatest sharks in movie history.

10. Sharktopus (Various films 2010-2015)

“Trust me, okay? There is no such thing as a sharktopus.” - Captain Jack

Geneticist Nathan Sands and his daughter Nicole are hired by the U.S. Navy to create a new weapon; they create an intelligent shark that has the tentacles of an octopus, dubbed S-11, controlling the creature using electromagnetic pulses with a device attached to its head. During one of the test missions, S-11 discards the device before traveling to Mexican waters to find food.

While it could easily have been just another novelty shark species spin-off that swam off into obscurity, Sharktopus is a lot fun as a character. Yes, I used the world character. He’s a cheeky son of a gun and his kill-timing is beyond perfect!

9. The Jaguar Shark (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, 2003)

“Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.”

The ‘Jaguar shark’ is a fictional species of shark (not to be confused with the Jaguar Catshark discovered in 2012) that is being hunted by legendary (and also fictitious) Oceanographer and documentary filmmaker Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) to exact revenge on the fish that ate his partner Esteban.

What does the jaguar shark represent?

This represents Steve's deep search for happiness and the end of his journey. In a beautiful scene, they do encounter the gigantic and luminous shark, which is breathtaking unlike anything they could have expected. In a way, the jaguar shark represents Steve. He's on a mission to find — and destroy — himself.

8. Tiger sharks (Never Say Never Again, 1983)

In his final, unofficial outing as James Bond 007, Sean Connery once again has to battle Tiger sharks as he did previously in Thunderball (1965), which Never Say Never Again is often cited as a remake of.

What makes this sequence so intense is that Bond is the definite target as a magnetic device designed to attract sharks has been attached to his air tank. No matter where he goes, the sharks pursue. Tiger sharks are one of the few species that have accounted for most negative, sometimes, fatal encounters with humans. The sharks in this sequence are also real, no puppets, animatronics which made the achievement of the sequence even more amazing.

7. Megalodon (The Meg, 2018)

“Meg versus man isn't a fight... it's a slaughter.” - Jonas Taylor

If Bruce, the shark from Jaws is the godfather of the cinematic shark, then The Meg is the big daddy.

In the book, the Megalodons are pure white, almost luminescent, from living in an environment with virtually no light. This coloring proved too difficult to render in CGI while still looking realistic, so the megalodons were given the same coloring as great white sharks - grey backs with pale bellies - even though this coloration would only make sense in an environment with light.

"When we modeled the Meg using correct shark proportions, it looked too sleek and thin, with a too-small dorsal fin," comments Adrian De Wet (visual effects). "So we had to adjust proportions to director Jon Turteltaub's taste, which meant a fatter shark, with smaller eyes and a larger dorsal fin. There were many iterations of the Meg body shape, from long and sleek to shorter and fatter. Too much of a bulbous shape destroys scale and makes it look like a tuna fish or a giant guppy. Too lean and sleek makes it take on the appearance of an eel."

Being so large, powerful and most importantly CGI, we are able to The Meg do some spectacular things Bruce wasn’t capable of - such as clamping its jaws around a diver’s cage and swimming away with it. While The Meg isn’t a suspenseful, character driven piece like Jaws, the shark delivers on action and presence and we can’t wait to see the next instalment, Meg 2: The Trench.

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6. King Shark (The Suicide Squad, 2021)

“Nom-nom!” - King Shark

Out first talking shark on this list is King Shark, a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The character, also known as Nanaue, was created by writer Karl Kesel and artist Tom Grummett. King Shark's first key appearance was in Superboy #0 (October 1994) as a cameo before making his first full appearance in Superboy #9 (November 1994). The character serves as an adversary to Aquaman, Batman, and Flash.

But it is King Shark’s most recent incarnation in The Suicide Squad (2021) that secures his pace on this list. Voiced by megastar Sylvester Stallone, this King Shark is both innocent and ferocious at the same time.

As for how director James Gunn got Sylvester Stallone to voice the role of Nanaue/King Shark, it didn't take a whole lot of convincing. Gunn said to him, "I wrote this role for you in The Suicide Squad. It won't take too much of your time." Stallone replied, "Oh yeah?" To which Gunn said, "Yeah. It's a big, kinda chubby, human-eating shark." To which Stallone said, "Anything for you, brother."

5. Bruce (Finding Nemo, 2003)

“I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food.” - Bruce

Bruce, a Great White shark struggling with his identity as a predator, meets an expecting-to-be-eaten Nemo and they become friends. An active attempt to show sharks in a positive way, the filmmakers made the genius choice of casting comedian Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage) as the hapless Great White and naming him Bruce is indeed a direct tribute to the animatronic shark also named Bruce by the crew (after Jaws director Steven Spielberg’s lawyer Bruce Ramer).

4. The Great White shark (The Shallows, 2016)

[timing the shark's swimming] “I've got you.” - Nancy

The Shallows is a near perfect shark movie - we voted it number 1 on our THE 10 BEST SHARK MOVIES THAT AREN'T JAWS (OR IT'S SEQUELS) - and the shark plays a big part in that ranking. Not only is it the most realistic looking CGI Great White shark ever, it also behaves and moves like the apex predator. The initial encounter with Nancy (Blake Lively) and the way the shark circles and stalks her afterwards is is very accurate. As the action heightens as we reach the story’s climax, the intensity builds and the action looks real - partly because the CGI effects were modelled and mapped on top of practical.

The Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra teamed up with the art department for the design of the shark. "I came to the conclusion that the shark had to be female", says the director. "Females are slightly bigger and have great scars from mating. Visually they're scarier, as they are more protective." Creating the shark generally took thousands of hours of research, so the film crew watched every Shark Week episode to get the idea of creating the shark he further added "she's a female shark, we know exactly how much she weighs. Every scar that she has has a story behind it. It's really an incredible job of artistry and research".

3. The Mako (Deep Blue Sea, 1999)

[after slashing her hand to use the blood as bait] She may be the smartest animal on the planet, but she's still just an animal. Come to mama. - Dr Susan McCallister

Deep Blue Sea is a great shark movie. It takes the standard shark-movie convention of the mindless killer shark and makes the sharks smart and huge. Searching for a cure to Alzheimer's disease, a group of scientists on an isolated research facility become the prey, as a trio of intelligent sharks fight back. This combination of smart and huge makes these sharks very dangerous and worthy adversaries. The other thing to keep in mind is that these animals have been captured, kept in captivity and experimented on. The sharks are not the bad guys… the humans are and they are reaping what they have sewn.

Special effects team headed by Walt Conti spent eight months on the animatronics sharks, "The number one thing about capturing sharks is getting their energy. They're always cruising kind of slowly, then they snap and just go with this incredible burst of energy. In that way, most of the time, sharks are somewhat lethargic, so probably our biggest challenge was replicating that speed and energy for those lunges. Also, a shark's jaws actually float in their skulls, giving them a specific kind of motion. As far as I know, we're the first animatronics team to totally mimic the multifaceted jaw of the shark."

2. Caribbean Reef Sharks (Open Water 2003)

“Was that a shark?” - Susan Watkins

Based on the true story of two scuba divers accidentally stranded in shark infested waters after their tour boat has left. The truly incredible thing about Open Water is that neither CGI or practical effect sharks were used - the filmmakers used the real thing. The sharks used in this film were Caribbean Reef Sharks. The cast wore chain mesh under their diving suits for protection and though none of them was bitten by the sharks, Blanchard Ryan (Susan) was nipped by a barracuda on the first day of filming. In the movie, after Susan is bitten, her boyfriend says, "It was probably a barracuda seeing what you taste like."

The ultra realism and knowing that no tricks were used to create the shark effects makes Open Water makes it a truly terrifying experience.

1. ‘Bruce’ the Great White shark (Jaws, 1975)

“It's a carcaradon carcharias. It's a Great White” - Matt Hooper

Bruce (a.k.a. Jaws) is the titular main antagonist of the 1974 novel Jaws by Peter Benchley and the 1975 summer blockbuster film of the same name. He is nominated in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains, 100 Heroes & Villains - American Film Institute, IGN's top 100 Villains. He is a 25 foot, 6,000 pound great white shark that fed on Amity Island swimmers throughout the entire Jaws (1975) movie.

The team that made the first shark for the whole jaws franchise was composed by a team of some of the most prominent special effects specialists in Hollywood at the time, amongst them was Robert A. Mattey, Roy Argobast and Michael Wood. This explains why and how it was even possible to build a 20ft realistic looking (and moving) shark (remember, this was in 1975, and the most convincing and lifelike monster in a movie we had so far was well….nada. Unless you consider counting in Godzilla or King kong as ”convincing”).

But most of us remember the stories of how many times the shark did NOT work as intended, and as a result we do not see it that much in the first film – some would argue that it heightens the suspense, which is true – but most of its no-shows was due to malfunctioning issues, and not a creative choice. Well, except for maybe that scene which was cut by Spielberg himself after viewing it in editing and deeming it too ”distasteful”.

The thing that separates Bruce from other movie sharks is the way he is kept our of sight and placed in our minds, making us work to create our own personal version of the shark - which is infinitely more terrifying than any other film fish - or movie monster - for that matter.