--- description: Find out why "The Shallows" is on TIME's list of the 50 most underappreciated movies of the 21st Century. title: 'The Shallows' Is on The 50 Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1f1dd39cc1ab3d23/6998cd40f1b08207146f20be/Underappreciated-Movies-the-shallows.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Feb 04, 2026 # _The Shallows_ Jaume Collet-Serra by [Stephanie Zacharek](/author/stephanie-zacharek/) ## Stephanie Zacharek Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Film Critic  Blake Lively in "The Shallows", 2016. Blake Lively in "The Shallows", 2016.Vince Valitutti—Columbia Pictures With apologies to Jean-Luc Godard, all you really need for a movie is a girl and a shark. In Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2016 [_The Shallows_](https://time.com/4605639/the-shallows-blake-lively/ "undefined"), [Blake Lively](https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273807/blake-lively/ "undefined") plays Nancy, a surfer who has trekked to a remote dream beach in Mexico to ride the waves. (The film was actually shot on the stunningly verdant coast of Queensland, Australia.) The secret beach was her late mother’s favorite place; a friend who was supposed to accompany her has dropped out. No worries: Nancy is experienced enough to surf alone, as she assures the taxi driver who has ferried her there. What she’s not expecting to encounter is a bloodthirsty prehistoric beastie who, rather than avoiding humans, actively speeds after them with the intention of chomping on their limbs. _The Shallows_ is a clever, visually gorgeous cat-and-mouse—or girl-and-shark—game in which the heroine, naturally, prevails, though the ordeal she goes through will still horrify and captivate you. (When I saw the movie in theaters, it made me yell at the screen.) It seems no one really knows how to make elegant horror movies anymore. But Collet-Serra pulled it off with _The Shallows_, a gleaming shark’s tooth jewel of a film, sharp and funny and deliriously effective. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353573/the-shallows/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353573/the-shallows/"},"headline":"The Shallows","datePublished":"2026-02-04T12:52:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:05:04.058Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353573/the-shallows/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1f1dd39cc1ab3d23/6998cd40f1b08207146f20be/Underappreciated-Movies-the-shallows.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"creator":"Stephanie Zacharek","articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1f1dd39cc1ab3d23/6998cd40f1b08207146f20be/Underappreciated-Movies-the-shallows.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353573/the-shallows/","name":"The Shallows"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Most Underappreciated Movies of the 21st Century","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/2Xfr54wO/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2026-02-04T12:20:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/2Xfr54wO.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353573/the-shallows/","duration":"PT1M22S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/50-most-underappreciated-movies/7353573/the-shallows/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```