The Ultimate Ranking of Shark Movies and Their Outrageous Nonsense

With the summer blockbuster season kicking off, I thought it would be fun to pay tribute to the sub-genre that started the blockbuster season, Shark movies. Jaws was the original blockbuster and launched both the summer movie season and the shark movie subgenre. Over the past couple of weeks, I have watched many different shark movies and learned that there are a lot of bad shark movies. So for this post, instead of ranking them by their quality, as all of them except Jaws are bad, I am ranking them by their nonsense as that seems to be a staple of the shark movie genre. With all that said, here is my ranking of five more well-known shark movies based on their nonsense.

5. Sharknado

Sharknado is easily the most nonsensical shark movie out there to span a franchise of seven, yes seven, films. If the name isn't a clear indicator, the movie is about tornados flying around with sharks in them which is about as absurd as you can get. The Sharknado franchise manages to get even more absurd from there with the final Sharknado movie throwing time travel into the mix. Sharknado is the type of movie you watch because of how bad it is. From terrible acting to stupid characters to awful CGI, the movie has it all. This is the type of movie that is so terrible and has so much nonsense that it is funny. My mother-in-law seems to really like this movie for some reason but just sit there shaking my head and laughing at how terrible it is.

Score: 2/10 Grade: E

Nonsense Scale: Sharks flying around in a tornado and eating people

4. The Meg/The Meg 2

The Meg movies are probably the biggest production and spectacle out of all of the shark movies. The movies involve giant prehistoric sharks escaping from a trench at the bottom of the ocean and wreaking havoc on the surface and just for fun, the second movie throws in a giant squid and dinosaur lizard things with Jason Statham, a professional deep sea diver/environmental crime stopper/jet ski riding shark stabber, the only one that can stop them. The first movie's nonsense involves Jason Statham jumping into the water to fight a 200-foot shark and stabbing it with a poison dart stick as only he can. The second film goes even further and involves Jason Statham riding on a jet ski shooting sharks in the eye with harpoons. You can't go wrong with that.

Score: 5.5/10 Grade: C

Nonsense Scale: Jason Statham riding around on a jet ski and shooting giant sharks in the eye.

3. Deep Blue Sea

Deep Blue Sea is a big step up quality-wise from Sharknado but is still pretty bad. This movie's nonsense involves hyper-intelligent sharks swimming around a sinking research base and eating people. Somehow this movie managed to talk both Samuel L Jackson and Stellan Skarsgard to be in this movie. It also has LL Cool J randomly as the Chef called Preacher for some reason and out of all the people, he is one of the two that survives. I appreciate that this movie has the guts to kill off its two biggest stars, Samuel L Jackson and Stellan Skarsgard, in the first half of the movie. From there it just goes into full nonsense with Sharks jumping out of the water eating people, people electrocuting sharks, and sharks getting blown up. The movie is basically Jurassic Park but with sharks except all the characters are stupid.

Score: 5/10 Grade: C

Nonsense Scale: Hyper Intelligent Sharks jumping around and eating people.

2. 47 Meters Down

47 Meters Down is the least nonsensical of the bad shark movies. This movie involves two girls getting trapped at the bottom of the ocean in a shark cage after they decide to hitch a charter with random guys they met in Mexico, as we all often do. The nonsense here comes from the shoddy workmanship of the boat and the general incompetence of the boat crew. The reason the girls get stuck is because the hitch used to hook the cage breaks and then the backup rope they send down breaks. So must have built their boat from the barging bit at Walmart or something like that. The incompetence involves them sending supplies down nowhere close to where the cage is, forcing the girls to leave the cage to get the stuff. The whole reason they don't just swim up is kind of dumb. I would argue that they should take their chances with the shark, who just seems to be camping out around their cage and attacking them just because it is bored, and decompression sickness as opposed to slowly suffocating as they run out of air but that is just me.

Score: 6/10 Grade: C+

Nonsense Scale: Girls getting trapped at the bottom of the ocean with stupid reasons why they can't swim to the surface.

1. Jaws

Jaws is the one no-nonsense actually good shark movie. The movie shows just enough of the shark to make it seem scary as showing it too much would make the movie go from Jaws quality to Jaws 4 quality real quick. You can tell the shark is coming by hearing two notes and it is terrifying. The movie also has actual good characters which is what makes this movie shine. Hooper, Quint, and Brody are all great together as they each have different life views and experience levels on how to kill the shark. The nonsense here is pretty much nonexistent as the movie is more focused on telling a compelling and interesting story. As shown by the scores, Jaws is significantly better than any other shark movie and is the gold standard for not just shark movies but films in general.

Score: 9/10 Grade: A Nonsense Scale: None