It starts with opening shots of the ocean’s depths. Then, cut quickly to teens surrounding a campfire, drinking beers, passing smokes, and romping on the beach. We follow a pretty girl down to the shoreline with a boy trailing behind her, clumsily pulling his shirt off to follow her in for a pre-dawn swim. They laugh, clearly inebriated, and the girl calls out to him from the ocean. She looks at the sunrise and yells for him to come in the water. And then, something happens.
We see the girl from below, backlit as she floats above on the ocean's surface. The music swells, simple and haunting. We are jerked under once, then again, helpless but to watch the desperation of the teenage girl in her final moments of peril. She cries out in horror but the boy is asleep on the shoreline, and after what feels like a long few moments, the girl is finally pulled under. Then silence, stillness. So begins one of the most iconic films of all time, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws.
The Perfect American Thriller: Why Jaws Holds Up 50 Years Later
There’s so much that can be said about a film like Jaws. Today it is the stuff of Hollywood legend. It’s mythic, larger than life, a movie that has transcended the screen to become a piece of pop culture, a shark-shaped slice of Americana.
The nightmare production has become its own bit of film folklore—everything went over budget and over schedule, and second-time director Steven Spielberg was forced to adapt on the fly to keep the project going. Jaws was the first major motion picture to ever be shot on the open ocean, and creating what plays as an effortless shark tale was anything but.
Somehow Spielberg made it work. He pulled everything together into a great film. The shots are beautiful, the performances are amazing, and that unforgettable John Williams score—it all comes together to create the ultimate summer thriller. The film was an overnight phenomenon, an immediate hit with audiences and critics. It had such an impact that the phrase "summer blockbuster" was born.
At 50, the film has the same power and resonance it had upon release. It’s still played on cable reruns all summer every summer, it still screens in theaters annually, and still helps define American summer in the movies. It’s the ultimate American thriller, featuring the 4th of July, corrupt government hubris, and a police chief who saves the day by shooting the shark and causing it to explode. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s exciting: a twentieth century retelling of great literature like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Moby Dick. It resonates because it's authentic, and we as the viewers are right there on the Orca with Chief Brody, Captain Quint, and Matt Hooper.
My First Viewing: A Summer Vacation Love Story
The first time I saw Jaws all the way through, I had just turned 13. My family took an annual beach trip to the south Jersey shore each summer and I was a lifelong member of my neighborhood swim team. I loved the beach and the ocean, and our seasonal week in Cape May was always the highlight of my adolescent summer. Every year, the local tourism organization sponsored “Movies on the Beach,” where they project a movie out on the sand and locals and vacationers could bring their beach chairs and watch for free after dark.
That week they were showing Jaws, so I first experienced the film with my feet digging nervously in the sand and the roar of the waves breaking off to my left. I have seen the movie dozens of times since, including in the movie theater for several anniversary screenings and at home on the couch miles away from the ocean. Nothing has ever compared to that first time.
It didn't matter that it was 2006 and the movie had already been out for over 30 years. It was powerful and real, and I felt altered by the time the credits rolled. To experience Jaws for the first time is to experience movie magic. It was only midway through our beach week, but I did not get back in the water that summer.
A Cultural Legacy
50 years on, it's impossible to fully know the cultural impact Jaws has had, but its evident in pop culture today. Jaws is everywhere. It's often referenced in other media, from commercials and TV shows to influencing the work of contemporary directors who site the film as an influence and inspiration.
Making the film was a huge gamble that paid off for Spielberg, and without the success of it we might not have had Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Jurassic Park, or any of the other incredible films he directed. It is a rare thing for an audience to connect so deeply with a film that it becomes a part of them, and after 50 years, Jaws remains an indelible part of American summer.
It might've scared us out of the water, but ultimately the film teaches us to stand up for what is right, to tell the truth, and to fight back, and those are the lessons we take with us from it. Thank you, Steven Spielberg, for the gift of Jaws.
Watch the Jaws 50 special airing tonight 6/20 at 8 on NBC, featuring a new anniversary introduction from Steven Spielberg.