Open Water
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: August 6, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Without doubt one of the scariest, creepiest, gut-churningly unsettling pictures to come along in ages. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Worth a dozen "Blair Witch Projects," with much more harrowing psychology and pithy dialogue. It's a bone-chilling plunge into no-holds-barred storytelling. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
The nagging desire to help these people underscores the involvement of the audience in this superbly told story. You can almost taste the saltwater, and the fear. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
In spirit, Open Water reduces us to children peering through our fingers, waiting for the horrid deliverance we're not quite sure we want to see. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The ending -- a more devastating surprise than "The Village" could manage -- caps eighty sweat-job minutes of imaginative, jolting suspense. Read full review
88
PremiereAaron Hillis
Open Water may not be a pristine or complex suspense thriller, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anything else as terrifyingly potent in such a tiny package. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Rarely, but sometimes, a movie can have an actual physical effect on you. It gets under your defenses and sidesteps the "it's only a movie" reflex and creates a visceral feeling that might as well be real. Open Water had that effect on me. Read full review
80
VarietyRonnie Scheib
A tour-de-force thriller that deftly transforms its low-budget limitations into spectacular assets. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Superlative chiller. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Rarely have the dangers of drifting apart been given such a visceral and genuinely upsetting emotional wallop. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Terrifying precisely because it doesn't go in for cheesy shock tactics and special effects. (Those sharks are REAL.) Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It offers genuine scares and chills without the self-aware, packaged feel of many horror/thriller films. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneSid Smith
A slow drip, but one all the more intense for its Gothic minimalism and its underlying parable of naturalistic determinism: It's no fun to fool with Mother Nature. Read full review
75
New York PostMegan Lehmann
While immersed in the horror of their plight, you might forget to breathe. Read full review
75
USA TodayMike Clark
There's more terror than entertainment here, though. I've seen a lot of movies in my life I couldn't wait to see end; this may be the first good one. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
The year's most unsettling movie experience - and in this case, that's a very good thing. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
A fascinating experiment in both filmmaking technology and narrative style, but one that can be counted a success only in limited ways. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Could develop a cult following. But it is hard to envision repeat viewings or any great number of people willing, even vicariously, to undergo the couple's ordeal. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
An expertly made suspense thriller based on an actual incident, but on a visceral level it's about as much fun as watching someone pull the wings off a butterfly. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
Open Water, which was made for $130,000 -- and seemingly without special-effects assistance -- proves you don't have to have a big budget to have an audience on the edge of its seat.
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Kentis and Lau succeed in doing what all filmmakers worth their salt strive to do: They make us care about their characters. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Unlike "Jaws," Open Water isn't much for traditional popcorn-movie scares. Instead, the movie is more interested in depicting the gradual deterioration of its protagonists' sanity, and how that affects their relationship. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The actors are unknowns, but Ryan does a lot with her little downturned mouth. There are as many shades of anxiety as there are shades of blue in the sea, and Ryan manages to find them all. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Open Water is a stunt, one you either buy into or not. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The movie is also banal in ways that are irritating and second-rate. Read full review
60
Film ThreatDon R. Lewis
Every hour that ticks by your stomach drops a little more as the outlook becomes more bleak. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
It's moderately compelling drama, but also fairly static stuff, image-wise. Read full review
60
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The sharks are scary, and the ocean is vast and indifferent, but the most effective parts of Open Water, which is ultimately too modest to be very memorable, evoke a deeper terror, one that can chill even those viewers who would never dream of putting on a wet suit and jumping off a boat. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The film's dispassionate examination of the shifts in Susan and Daniel's relationship as they drift from irritation to barely suppressed panic is at least as nerve wracking. Read full review
60
EmpireDan Jolin
This isn’t your average against-the-odds survival story. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Writer-director Chris Kentis has dreamed up an ingenious premise, but he botches its execution. Every once in a while, the film stumbles upon a twist that ratchets up the tension, but then haphazardly discards it. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerBill White
By no means a good movie. Although based on a true story, the mathematical error that led to Daniel and Susan's predicament is handled with such dramatic slovenliness that the viewer is apt to be confused as to what actually happened. Read full review
50
SlateDavid Edelstein
This is not to say that it is bad writing, shooting, or acting: It would need to be more ambitious to be bad. It is simply the most mundane sort of behavior presented in the most mundane sort of way. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
I longed for something - anything - unexpected to occur. What I wouldn't have given for Wilson, the "Cast Away" volleyball, to float past with his bloody "face" print grinning at the pair! Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Open Water is just one tedious scene stretched out to feature length. It's terrifying all right, but only for what it says about the extents to which a couple of hungry actors and a bullish director will go to turn themselves into overnight celebrities. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Ultimately, it's 79 minutes of footage of a pair of petty, pretty people freaking out over having to go to the bathroom in their wetsuits, and in the end you find yourself rooting for the sharks. Read full review
30
Village VoiceDennis Lim
Open Water is simply a stunt--hopelessly literal-minded and cheap in every sense. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
These dramatic shortfalls make us merely worried that two human beings are in danger, but not two compelling souls. There's your missing ingredient, the human X-factor. Read full review
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