Article written by Michelle Contarino.
To celebrate the release of Adrift – a film starring Sam Claflin and Shailene Woodley as two lovers who must brave treacherous seas to survive – I have decided to do a list of ten films set near the water that have been released over the years.
10. Jaws (1975)
Jaws is an adventure/drama/thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg that made us re-think ever stepping foot into the ocean again. The film follows Martin Brody, a police chief on the hunt for a great white shark that is terrorising the beaches and spilling blood. When released, the film – produced on a $9 million budget – earned its production costs back in just two weeks, overtaking The Godfather (1972) as the highest-grossing film at the North American box office. The film currently has a rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, taking the top spot compared to its three sequels.
9. Piranha (1978)
Piranha is a comedy/horror/sci-fi film about genetically-altered piranha fish swarming a river and threatening the lives of people nearby in a summer resort. The film was released three years after Steven Spielberg's film Jaws (1975) and Spielberg himself called it "the best of the Jaws rip-offs". A 1982 sequel, 1995 re-make, 2010 re-make and 2012 sequel to the 2010 re-make have all followed its release.
8. Titanic (1997)
Titanic is a drama film – and a romance, if you like all that sad jazz – written by James Cameron, which is critically acclaimed as the world's second-highest-grossing film of all time. The film follows socialite Rose Dewitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and penniless artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) as the two young lovers race against the clock to save themselves in the wake of the sinking of the Titanic. The film has won eleven Oscar awards, grossed $2.187 billion in the box office and is best known for its feature soundtrack My Heart Will Go On, performed by Celine Dion.
7. Cast Away (2000)
Cast Away is an adventure/drama/romance film which stars Tom Hanks as a system engineer named Chuck Noland, telling the survival story of a man who becomes stranded on a deserted island after the plane he is on crashes into the Pacific Ocean during a heavy storm. The film was nominated for eight awards and won two, one of those awards going to Tom Hanks for Best Actor. The film has a rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, a review by Rick Rogers from The Film Yap describing the film as, "A darkly comic, occasionally punishing parable about what happens when humans lose sight of humanity in life's grand scheme".
6. Ghost Ship (2002)
Ghost Ship is a horror film about an abandoned passenger ship and the strange events that occur when a salvage crew board it to take it back to shore. Although the film has a low rating of 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, the website Bloody Disgusting has ranked its opening massacre scene as #13 on their "The top 13 Kills in Horror Movie History" list while another horror website, Coming Soon, referred to the scene as one of the greatest opening sequences in horror film history.
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl is an action/adventure/fantasy film starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, a wayward pirate who sails the seas with blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to rescue the man's lover Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) from enemy pirates, led by Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). The film is the first in the series, with four films following it and a sixth film set to be released. The film grossed $654.3 million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2003. It is currently #71 on the list of highest-grossing-films of all time.
4. Rogue (2007)
Rogue is an independent Australian action/adventure/horror film starring Michael Vartan, Radha Mitchell, Sam Worthington and Mia Wasikowska, and is about a tour group who face off against a saltwater crocodile while on a river cruise. The film is directed, written and produced by Greg McLean, the man who directed another famous Australian film, Wolf Creek (2005). Coincidentally, this film also stars Wolf Creek actor, John Jarratt. Rogue is rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and is said to be inspired by the true story of Sweetheart, a giant saltwater crocodile that attacked boats in the 1970's.
3. Shutter Island (2010)
Shutter Island is a mystery/horror film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley and Michelle Williams. The film is about a man who investigates a psychiatric facility on Shutter Island and uncovers dark secrets that may threaten his sanity. The film was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top 10 films of 2010 and grossed $294.8 million worldwide when it was released.
2. Life of Pi (2012)
Life of Pi is an adventure/drama/fantasy film based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martei. The film stars Suraj Sharma as a boy named Pi, who after being the only survivor of the sinking ship he and his family were on, travels the seas in a small raft with a Bengal tiger to make it back to civilisation safely. The film grossed $609 million in the box office and won four of eleven awards it was nominated for when it was released (the most out of any film in 2012).
1. The Shallows (2016)
The Shallows is a drama/horror/thriller film starring Blake Lively as a young medical student who becomes trapped in the sea with a great white shark out for her blood. The film grossed $119.1 million in the box office worldwide, becoming a box office success. A film critic from Rotten Tomatoes said: "Lean and solidly crafted, The Shallows transcends tired shark-attack tropes with nasty thrills and a powerful performance from Blake Lively".
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