Movie · 2024 · Action, Horror · 1h 42m · R · French
Curator score: 0.5/10 (250.1K ratings)
Overview
In order to save Paris from an international bloodbath, a grieving scientist is forced to face her tragic past when a giant shark appears in the Seine.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.5/10
IMDb: 5.2/10
Letterboxd: 2.14/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 64%
Metacritic: 57
TMDB: 5.9/10
Director
Xavier Gens
Production
Let Me Be
Cast
Bérénice Bejo, Nassim Lyes, Léa Léviant, Sandra Parfait, Aksel Üstün, Aurélia Petit, Marvin Dubart, Daouda Keita, Ibrahima Ba, Anne Marivin, Stéphane Jacquot, Jean-Marc Bellu, Nagisa Morimoto, Yannick Choirat, Iñaki Lartigue, Victor Pontecorvo, Thomas Espinera, Anaïs Parello, Iván González, Patrick Ligardes
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A knowingly absurd shark-in-Paris disaster movie with enough momentum, gore, and citywide spectacle to work as a late-night watch, even if the plotting is clumsy and the satire is uneven. It’s best approached as a pulpy creature feature with environmental anxieties and a few genuinely fun set pieces rather than a polished thriller.
Best for
shark-movie fans
viewers who enjoy campy disaster cinema
people in the mood for a fast, silly creature feature
audiences who like eco-horror subtext
fans of high-concept B-movie premises
Skip if
you want tight suspense and airtight logic
you dislike cheesy CGI creatures
you prefer serious horror over pulpy spectacle
you are looking for nuanced political satire
you need consistently strong character writing
Overview
Under Paris takes a ridiculous premise and commits to it with enough seriousness to make the absurdity land. The result is a creature feature that is often more entertaining in concept than in execution, but its murky river setting, city-scale panic, and occasional splashes of gore give it a scrappy, watchable energy.
Worth noting
The film’s environmental angle is its most interesting layer, even if the script sometimes treats activism and bureaucracy as blunt instruments rather than lived-in ideas. That tension between earnest warning and pulpy mayhem is what gives the movie its odd charm: it’s trying to be a disaster thriller, a shark attack movie, and a climate parable at once.
Bottom line
When it works, it works because the movie understands the basic appeal of a shark film: escalating danger, public denial, and a few big payoff scenes. When it doesn’t, the pacing drags and the logic frays. Still, for viewers who can enjoy a glossy, slightly deranged B-movie with mainstream polish, it’s an easy curiosity to sample.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Matthew Kelly (1★) · 3765 likes
At no point does anyone say "Shark-re Bleu!"
One star.
kdasari07 (3★) · 2904 likes
Damn the shark actually wins
Joe A (2★) · 2654 likes
Well the ending was fun? Like I have to give the movie credit, not sure a movie has ended like that ever before.
Kylo (3★) · 2329 likes
You can never count on the Mayor to make the right decision when there’s an event on in town.