My husband is a cinephile, or at least strongly trending in that direction. Last year he watched 205 movies. He doesn’t just watch them; he puts thought into the movies he spends his time with. He listens to accompanying podcasts and analyses, reads books about movie production, and does his research! This is a far cry from my media consumption habits, which trend toward all the true crime podcasts and yet another episode of Law & Order SVU. During the height of the pandemic, we found ourselves with a lot of free evenings, and this is when the movie viewing really kicked into high gear. He decided that we would have themed movie months, meaning that most of the movies we watched during a month would relate to one central theme. For example, in honor of February’s Black History Month, we focused on watching movies from Black directors and key films in the Black film canon. In March, we celebrated Women’s History Month by watching movies written or directed by women. April was all about musicals and in May we watched movies related to war (that, to me, was a slog). October was, of course, filled with all the Halloween movies, followed in November with Thanksgiving-themed movies (which we came to find are somewhat few and far between), and December was filled with all our favorite holiday movies (and yes, Die Hard is a holiday movie)!

My favorite themed month was July, the month that we dubbed “into the deep,” where we focused on movies featuring creatures from below. Soon we will head to Cape Cod for a week, and even though we no longer strictly subscribe to themed movie months, we’ll be revitalizing “into the deep” month for one week while adjacent to the sea! Here is the Kirkmans’ definitive list of essential “into the deep” movies for your viewing pleasure. The list includes critically acclaimed and campy movies, as well as those that clearly jumped the shark (see what I did there). Happy viewing!

The Kirkman’s Top “Into the Deep” Movies

  • Jaws
  • Tentacles
  • Piranha
  • Alligator
  • Great White
  • Sharknado
  • The Reef
  • Deep Blue Sea
  • 47 Meters Down
  • Open Water
  • The Shallows
  • USS Indianapolis
  • Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
  • Kon Tiki
  • Underwater
  • Leviathan
  • Below
  • Deep Star Six
  • The Rift
  • Crawl
  • Lake Placid