In 2026, Hollywood has embraced the spirit of Tracy Jordan's advice to live every week like Shark Week, as shark movies enjoy a year-long renaissance in volume if not quality. Two new entries, The Devil's Mouth on Prime Video and Above & Below as a paid VOD rental, arrive just in time for Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week programming, but they are far from the only recent releases. Earlier this month, The Bay (starring Clint Eastwood's daughter) hit VOD; June brought Chum with Alice Eve; May saw Renny Harlin's Deep Water (his return to the subgenre after Deep Blue Sea); and Thrash became a Netflix hit. That makes half a dozen shark movies so far this year, yet no one has arranged a 10th-anniversary re-release of The Shallows.
The Shadow of Jaws
Shark thrillers tap into a baseline interest in all-natural slashers—horror movies that stretch just beyond familiar beach and ocean settings into heightened but not outlandish territory. They are the water equivalent of masked killers stalking the woods, with the added realism that sharks are real and deadly, even if less gruesome or vengeful than movies suggest. However, the pursuit of new shark movies is quixotic because of one universally acknowledged masterpiece: Jaws. Steven Spielberg's film, adapted from a beach read and built around a finicky mechanical shark, is a male-bonding character study, an indictment of American capitalism, and a thrill machine with unforgettable music. It reinvented the shark movie and summer blockbusters. While slashers have multiple classics to emulate, shark movies have Jaws and then everything else.
This Year's Offerings
Of the two Shark Week releases, The Devil's Mouth follows the path of The Shallows, focusing on friends vacationing in Thailand who embark on a swimming tour of an off-ocean cave system. Stars Kathryn Newton and Lana Condor play besties with dead parents and a semi-toxic dynamic that the movie never fully defines. Despite location shooting and sparing use of shark effects, it feels like a watchable Shallows knockoff, with B-minus-movie energy and watchable leads, especially scream queen Newton. Above & Below takes a more Sharknado-style approach, borrowing from 47 Meters Down. It follows five young people on a shark-observing cage dive whose boat is affiliated with criminals. Much of the film involves conserving oxygen while trapped underwater, with added criminal bickering and shootouts above sea level. Antonio Banderas is entertaining as the courteous but merciless head criminal, but the fusion of literal and metaphorical sharks feels rote—two chintzy DTV movies in one.
The Limits of the Genre
Shark movies face inherent challenges: the creatures themselves are inflexible, and effects—whether CG, real footage, or mechanical models—often fail to convince. Even big-budget attempts like Jason Statham's Meg movies look crummy. Harlin's Deep Water combines a plane-crash survival narrative with sharks, but the sharks feel like afterthoughts. Some of the best recent shark-style movies don't feature sharks at all. 2019's Crawl follows The Shallows template with a young woman rescuing her father during a hurricane, but alligators are the threat. Netflix's Thrash essentially rips it off, substituting sharks for gators. The surprise hit Fall features two women stranded at great height without creatures. These examples show how little sharks often bring to survival scenarios, especially when effects are subpar. Spielberg's Jaws used elusiveness to define both creature and human motivations, giving them space. Most contemporary shark pictures simply look for other movies to chew on.
