The Last Breath [2024]

August 5, 2026

What’s the last good shark movie you’ve seen? Is it The Meg or its mildly disappointing sequel? How come this intriguing subgenre always gets some pretty shitty releases? We could talk a lot about this subject but we better leave that for another time. I’m here to tell you that The Last Breath is actually a pretty solid new shark movie worth watching. We get at least one new movie featuring these prehistoric predators per month. However, almost all of them are commercial cash-grabs that will more annoy than entertain you. You can usually spot these from a mile away just by the vibes they’re putting out.

The reason I decided to give this one a chance was Julian Sands. The Last Breath is sadly Julian’s last movie as he passed away last year while trekking in the mountains. At least my homeboy died while doing what he loved. Aesthetically striking Gothic and, my personal favorite, endlessly entertaining Warlock are the two of his movies I strongly recommend you check out. With that out of the way, let’s see what we have here. And what we have here is a pretty standard-issue tale of a group of reckless young people who are about to be eaten by sharks. One by one, of course. While exploring a sunken ship, they’ll notice that there’s someone else exploring the wreck with them.

Someone who doesn’t need to get to the surface before the oxygen in their tank runs out. The action starts in the second half of the movie, so you’ll have to wait a bit for the sharks to appear. While the surface-level production values were just acceptable, underwater photography in The Last Breath was stellar. It feels like it belongs in a much bigger movie. Moreover, we find ourselves in a relatively authentic shipwreck that could’ve looked a bit shabbier but I’m not an expert. What I do know is that our characters will have to navigate through tight corridors and hide behind rusty doors to escape the hungry menace.

This gave the movie a claustrophobic vibe, reminiscent of Alien and other similar movies. I should also mention 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, a shark movie featuring reckless young people navigating an ancient sunken city. It’s pretty decent. Moving on, when they first entered the wreck of USS Charlotte, I thought to myself nope. I am not fucking getting into that thing, sharks or no sharks. Speaking of them, they look pretty decent here. I mean, they’re still CGI sharks but at least they blend in well with the surroundings. The cast was good with Kim Spearman taking the spotlight with her committed performance.

The Last Breath is a shark movie that strives to keep things as real as they can be in an indie B movie. This means that while characters will still make some stupid decisions, we won’t have to watch completely absurd situations. Just as a reminder, the last shark movie we talked about on Subversive Rabbit was Under Paris. It features a story where sharks swim up the river Seine all the way to Paris and start eating people there. Although I have to admit that that was an intentionally over-the-top plot. The director of The Last Breath is Joachim Hedén, the guy behind another solid underwater movie Breaking Surface.

He seems to have found his niche. And one more thing, well, actually two things but let’s do this properly. You should not confuse this shark movie, The Last Breath 2024, with the documentary Last Breath, released in 2019. Next year, we’ll get a regular movie featuring the same title and the same plot as the harrowing documentary. It tells the story of diver Chris Lemons who had his umbilical cable severed and, well, I better stop myself here. I don’t want to spoil anything for ya. Finally, if you’re looking for similar movies, do check out our selection of Shark Movies.