For some, there’s simply nothing better than a “When Animals Attack” movie. There’s comfort in a formula, and even when this subgenre breaks away from its attack-scenes-to-hunting-trip framework, it still scratches that particular itch. We all have at least one real world animal out there that frightens us. From spiders, snakes, alligators, crocodiles, and sharks to, well, opossums. And, while we’ve (somehow) yet to get an opossum-focused horror-adventure film, we do have plenty of great, or at least very entertaining, movies featuring those other critters. So, in honor of the newest additions to the genre, Anaconda and Primate, let’s go through the best of the best (real world) creature features.
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A few missed the cut, and for various reasons. The Grey, The Edge, and The Revenant technically do have animal antagonists, but they’re also so much more than that. The real villains of those movies are the combination of nature in general and humanity’s darker side. They’re survival films that just so happen to have an animal in the narrative. Then there are the ones that are fun, but didn’t quite qualify for our top 15. Specifically, The Meg and the goofy Sssssss. As for the final segment of Creepshow, which is a nightmare for those afraid of cockroaches, it didn’t apply because it was just a chunk of a larger movie.
15) Lake Placid
Like another late ’90s entry we’ll get to in a while, the beast of Lake Placid looks great when it’s a practical effects creation and poor when it’s CGI. But the beast isn’t the best part of this movie.
The reason Lake Placid was included was because of the absurdity of Betty White’s game performance. The shot of her feeding a cow to the crocodile is pretty iconic in its own right. Unfortunately, moments like that are few and far between. Where there is some creature feature action the movie breezes by, but there’s just too little of it, with the movie instead focusing on the uninteresting (and often annoying) characters played by Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, and Oliver Platt.
14) Frogs
The ’70s was the decade for, shall we say, “When Nature Strikes Back” movies. And, of those movies, Frogs was the best.
The key to its appeal is that it focuses on a hoity-toity family that couldn’t care less what they do to the environment, especially when it comes to the patriarch. We see their private island get overrun by everything from snakes and arachnids to an ornery alligator. And, one by one, the family members are devoured or stung. But it’s not just the jerks we focus on, as we also get a young Sam Elliott as a kindhearted wildlife photographer just trying to talk some sense into them. Good, cheesy stuff. The best part? In spite of what the poster and title imply, frogs are basically the one animal that doesn’t ever pose much of a threat.
13) Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane was notoriously the victim of its own hype. And, granted, it’s not as absurd as it should have been. In fact, when it’s trying to be a police procedural it just comes across as a Miami Vice episode a few decades too late.
But there are flashes of what audiences were hoping for here and there. A snake leaps out of a toilet and bites a man’s genitals, Samuel L. Jackson gets to scream out one of the best lines in cinema history, and the best snake punch scene since the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Hard Target.
12) Cocaine Bear
No one was expecting Elizabeth Banks to helm a loose adaptation of a real-life story about a deceased drug smuggler who got an American black bear blitzed, but here we are. She knocked it out of the park.
In real life, Andrew C. Thornton II did die in a parachuting accident (which the film shows in the most hilarious way possible in its opening minutes) and a bear did gain access to his bag full of cocaine. However, the bear died, which is much sadder than a bear going on a bloody quest for more nose candy. Banks’ direction is tight, the tone is the perfect match of comedy and carnage, and the cast is all fully game.
Stream Cocaine Bear on Peacock.
11) Rogue
Rogue is like Hatchet in that it is greatly benefitted by a dark, slimy swamp atmosphere. And, like Razorback (which almost made the cut for this list), it’s a sign that Australian cinema was always pretty reliable for a big snarling animal movie.
For a modestly budgeted movie, the CGI croc looks pretty good, but it’s like Jaws in that it’s scarier when we don’t see it. As for the humans, Radha Mitchell makes for a great lead while it’s also interesting to see Sam Worthington in an early role, two years before the release of Avatar and Terminator Salvation.
Stream Rogue on Starz.
10) Crawl
There’s rumor that Alexandre Aja is going to make a sequel to his alligator chiller Crawl, and that would be great, but it also works perfectly fine as a one-off. That’s because it’s just as focused on crafting realistic human protagonists as it is making its alligator antagonists feel like genuine threats.
Kaya Scodelario is magnificent in the lead role of Haley Keller, a University of Florida swimmer who goes to check on her father only to find him bleeding out. But just as strong an asset was having the entire narrative become possible via a ferocious Category 5 hurricane. The characters never feel safe, and the flooding makes humans’ house feels as though they’re owned by the gators now. Consider this spot tied with The Shallows, because they’re similarly intense creature features with a foot firmly grounded in reality, tone-wise.
Stream Crawl on Paramount+.
9) Cujo
Cujo is more of a middling Stephen King movie than a great one, but as far as killer dog stories go, it’s the gold standard. That said, you can skip through most of the first two acts.
But when it gets to that third act, when Dee Wallace’s Donna is trapped in their Ford Pinto Runawbout, the movie is a tour de force (due in great part to Wallace’s performance). We feel every ounce of their terror and every bit of the danger posed by the snarling, drooling St. Bernard.
Stream Cujo on Paramount+.
8) Piranha & Piranha 3D
There were quite a few movies that came out after Jaws captured the world’s attention and, while none of them came close to capturing the power of Steven Spielberg’s classic, Joe Dante’s Piranha is a ton of fun in its own right. It was an early indicator of the Gremlins director’s ability to seamlessly merge a monster movie aesthetic with some sly, winking humor.
The good thing about making a modern reimagining of a movie that’s good, not great, is that it’s not sacred ground to walk. You remake Jaws and you’re facing an uphill battle that will break your knees. You remake Piranha and, with some wit, you get the blood-soaked cheese fest that is Piranha 3D. Seriously, if there’s a movie fill with as much aquatic carnage as this one, we’d struggle to name it.
Stream Piranha on Prime Video and Piranha 3D on Hulu.
7) Deep Blue Sea
Renny Harlin was always good for a high-octane actioner, and that’s very much what Deep Blue Sea is, just as much as it’s a “When Animals Attack” movie. And, to that latter categorization, it’s actually a nice throwback to the ’50s monster movies where an average everyday Earthbound critter is exposed to something that makes it massive. It’s just, here, the animals being tampered with are sharks, and its their brains that grow, not their whole bodies.
A few things really work in Deep Blue Sea‘s favor. For one, the isolated research station location is perfectly claustrophobic when the antagonists are smart toothed fish. Two, the cast seems fully aware of what type of movie they’re in and act accordingly. And, most importantly, it’s hard to imagine a more jarring (and, yes, hilarious) scene than Samuel L. Jackson’s unexpectedly early departure.
6) Alligator
The best of the post-Jaws creature features, Alligator comes equipped with a script far better than was it expected of B-level monster movies. It makes sense that the script is so character-focused, considering it was penned by John Sayles, who went on to write top-tier monster movies like The Howling but mostly made his bones writing and directing serious dramas like Matewan and Lone Star.
Then again, while Robert Forster and Robin Riker are both wonderful, the sewer alligator is the star of the show here. And whether it’s the practical effects version or the framing of the shots that make a regular gator look massive, it’s an intimidating creature. It’s hard to say this thing doesn’t short the audience on monster movie action, either, considering the alligator absolutely rampages its way through a wedding (which just so happens to be for the daughter of the film’s environment-destroying human antagonist).
Stream Alligator on Prime Video.
5) Jaws 2
People tend to talk about the Jaws franchise like it’s the definitive example of, well, a franchise that shouldn’t have been a franchise. But that’s not really the case. As rancid as Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge are, Jaws 2 is genuinely the best a sequel to Spielberg’s masterpiece could be. Even its detractors had to admit that, as far as poster taglines go, Jaws 2‘s “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…” was nigh on unbeatable.
Roy Scheider may not have wanted to make the sequel, but due credit to him for not phoning in his performance. Jaws 2 works because reuniting with Chief Brody works. In fact, his arc is arguably a little more interesting this time. The scene with him recognizing developing photos as showing the eye of the shark is amazing, the subsequent scene with him getting fired hurts, and we believe fully his reluctance in taking on the shark one more time. But he has to, because now his kids’ lives are on the line. With fantastic pacing and the nice touch of having half the shark’s face burnt, Jaws 2 works like a charm.
4) Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia has its fans, but it’s still one of the 1990s underappreciated classics. It doesn’t get quite enough credit for how well it constructs a small-town vibe, and doesn’t even take long to do so.
Jeff Daniels does well in his everyman dad lead role, but the true stars of the movie really are the supporting cast. We fall in love with the residents of this small California coastal town, and we’re devastated when they die horribly painful deaths at the fangs of an accidentally delivered (and quickly procreating) Amazonian spider.
3) Anaconda
The 2025 meta reboot/remake has its moments, but the first Anaconda is still very much the best Anaconda. Movies that play like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None are a dime a dozen, but there are a few things that need to be done right for them to be truly memorable.
For one, if it’s a monster movie, the monster needs to look good. And while you’ll never believe the snake in Anaconda is a real snake, you’ll admire its practical effects-generated glory (and thankfully its practical effects more often than it’s CGI). Two, you need to have the kills spaced out in increase in intensity, and that’s two more check marks in this case. But just as fun to watch as the snake action is Jon Voight, who seemed to know he was in an old-timey adventure movie you don’t have to take seriously and delivered a performance that was both captivating and utterly strange.
Stream Anaconda on Netflix.
2) The Birds
Like the vast majority of Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography, we fall in love with the characters of The Birds. In fact, even though the avians own the title, this is really the story of a woman trying to find love only to run up against an over-protective mother.
The techniques used to convincingly bring the bird attacks to life still hold up 60 years later, Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, and, especially, Suzanne Pleshette’s performances are all outstanding, and the choice of filming location (the real-life Bodega Bay) couldn’t have been any better. But perhaps the best part of The Birds is the lack of resolution. We never get any sense as to why every bird from every genus has gone all bloodthirsty, and we don’t need to know.
1) Jaws
General audiences and critics agreed at the time that Jaws was essentially a perfect film. At the very least it was the definitive thriller. And, to this day, it’s influenced any number of artists. In fact, while there were “When Animals Attack” movies before this, like the aforementioned The Birds, there’s a strong argument to be made that Jaws solidified it as a subgenre that could be taken seriously and be a major moneymaker at the same time.
The funny thing is that Jaws wouldn’t be as phenomenal as it is had things gone to plan. As is well known, we were supposed to see more of the shark. But, while it would have been jarring to see the shark leap up from the water and drag Alex Kintner down in the first act, it’s far more horrifying to just imagine where the toothed monster is. Perfectly paced and sublimely directed by Spielberg, there’s a very strong argument to be made Jaws is the best movie ever made.
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