Nature documentaries have their own special place in the world of non-fiction movies. The environment is currently one of humanity's shared global concerns, from the bigger picture about our shared habitat right down to even the smallest individual species.
Sharks, in particular, hold human beings in a special kind of terrified fascination. One of the few animals that humans still fear, the shark is also one of the oldest and most mysterious creatures on planet Earth. With another Shark Week coming up, here are some of the best documentaries featuring one of Mother Nature's most interesting and intimidating apex predators, the mighty shark.
6 Shark Girl (2014)
A person who grows up around a certain kind of animal won't feel the same fear or misunderstanding as someone who hasn't ever seen one. That's the story of Madison Stewart, who spent her life swimming with sharks by the Great Barrier Reef, and she wants to change the world's mind about them.
It might sound familiar, but Stewart has a unique challenge on her hands. These aren't the massive whale sharks of the Galapagos Islands or the elegant tiger sharks of the Bahamas. These are the Great White sharks of coastal Australia, a name that evokes visceral and often irrational fear in the hearts of every human. This documentary is about Madison, her camera, and her quest to save the sharks.
5 Of Shark And Man
How does a person working in a dull, dead-end job in England end up in the middle of a shark dive in Fiji? That's the subject of this documentary, and it's an interesting story of how one life can change as well as a thrilling tale of sharks and the people who love them. The movie culminates in a massive shark dive that included more than 60 bull sharks, the biggest type of their species.
David Diley was working at a dead-end industrial job when he decided to move to Fiji, and the movie fills in the blanks about how that happened while telling the viewer about one of the most successful oceanic wildlife preserves in the world, Shark Reef in Fiji. What makes this location so interesting, so mysterious, and so inspirational is that this reef was all but dead and fished out a generation ago. When the sharks returned, so did life on the reef, and how this regeneration happened has yet to be determined.
4 Shark Nation (2013)
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This title isn't just an expression. Welcome to the Bahamas, the only nation in the world that has laws on the books against hunting sharks. Not only that, but the government cracked down on the insidious practice of trading in shark fins, which includes laws against international scouts evaluating the local shark population for international markets. That makes this region one of the best places to study and observe the animals in their undisturbed natural habitat, for professionals as well as tourists.
A short documentary of 44 minutes, this is a special episode of a regular television series called The Blue Realm that specializes in a variety of oceanic life.
3 This Is Your Ocean: Sharks (2012)
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"The sharks aren't eating us, we're eating them," says Guy Harvey, one of three artists that worked on this project that includes conservation and education in addition to also taking some great pictures. Other contributors include Wyland, an artist and conservationist, and Jim Abernathy, a renowned shark enthusiast and a pioneer in underwater photography.
The most important character in this movie, however, is Emma. Emma is a tiger shark, no less than 14 feet long, that befriends our heroes and guides them on their journey. Part of the drama is what could happen to her in a world with no laws to protect her, which is exactly where we are.
2 Sharkwater (2006)
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Written and directed by Rob Stewart, whose filmography also includes The Fight For Bala and Revolution, this movie was made in an era before the years of Shark Week, during a time when sharks didn't get a lot of sympathies. Sharkwater is of the earliest modern documentaries to focus solely on sharks, in particular the effects of pollution and overfishing on the species.
The narrative includes general information about the species, like any conventional documentary, but takes an unapologetic tone about taking sides. Most of the information in the movie is intended to debunk and dispel the negative views and often totally untrue stereotypes about sharks, thanks to movies like Jaws and other sensationalist media that made them into monstrous, mindless killers.
1 Galapagos: Realm Of Giant Sharks (2015)
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Galapagos: Realm Of Giant Sharks isn't only a stunning nature documentary. It's a record of the study that the scientists undertake throughout the movie-making as much as it is about the animals themselves.
To study the migration patterns of these majestic whale sharks, divers had to attach tracking devices to the massive creatures. Even though whale sharks are peaceful and have no taste for or hostility towards humans, their large size, coupled with the strong ocean currents that are part of their migration pattern, made this endeavor a dangerous and difficult one worthy of any action movie.