There’s something uniquely unsettling about the idea of a predator that once ruled the oceans still lurking somewhere beyond our reach.
The Meg movies take that fear and give it the full blockbuster treatment, pairing prehistoric sharks with deep-sea mysteries, giant set pieces, and just enough human drama to keep the chaos moving.
The franchise currently has only two films, making it easy to watch The Meg movies in order. Here’s what you’re getting into.
The Meg Movies in Order
There are only two films, but they don’t quite scratch the same itch. The Meg is the cleaner monster-movie setup, while Meg 2 basically decides that if you’re going to make a movie about a 75-foot shark, you might as well stop pretending you have to behave.
1. The Meg (2018)
Watch it on Amazon Prime Video
| Release Year | Runtime | Director | IMDb Rating |
| 2018 | 1h 53m | Jon Turteltaub | 5.7/10 |
The Meg spends a good chunk of its runtime making you wait for the shark, which turns out to be a smart move. The opening deep-sea rescue gives Jason Statham’s Jonas Taylor a proper reason to be terrified of what is down there before the movie finally shows you the thing responsible.
The real selling point, though, is the latter-half beach sequence. Watching a Megalodon move through a packed resort is exactly the kind of ridiculous escalation a movie like this should be aiming for. It’s not Jaws, and it isn’t trying to be. It’s a $150-million monster movie about the biggest shark imaginable, and once it embraces that, The Meg becomes a pretty easy watch.
2. Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
Watch it on Amazon Prime Video
| Release Year | Runtime | Director | IMDb Rating |
| 2023 | 1h 56m | Ben Wheatley | 5.0/10 |
The sequel no longer has to introduce the Meg. So it gets to spend that time on the stuff people were probably hoping for in the first place.
Jonas is back at the Mariana Trench, and this time the expedition discovers that the Meg isn’t the only prehistoric nightmare that has survived down there. There are multiple Megalodons, enormous creatures crawling around the seafloor, and a human villain who makes the sensible decision to exploit all of it for profit.
The Meg movies aren’t going to reinvent the creature-feature, and honestly, their appeal is to take one of the most intimidating predators ever to exist, make it absurdly large, and see how much trouble it can cause. The first movie gets more mileage out of that premise because the Meg still feels like an event.
By the second, you’ve already seen one, so the answer is naturally to add more creatures, bigger locations, and considerably more chaos. That makes the two films an easy pairing.
Watch The Meg for the novelty of seeing a Megalodon brought to life, and watch Meg 2 when you want the franchise to stop holding back. Either way, it’s hard to look at the ocean quite the same way afterward.
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