Jaws (1975)
★★★★ — Jaws (1975)
Two notes. That's all it takes. Two notes, and fifty years later, nobody gets into the water without hearing them in their head. If that's not the mark of something genuinely special, I don't know what is.
Jaws is, on paper, completely ridiculous. A big shark turns up near a small beach town and eats a few people. Three blokes get on a boat to kill it. That's your film. You could pitch it in ten seconds. And yet, somehow, it's one of the greatest films ever made. That's not hype, that's not nostalgia talking. It's just the truth. Spielberg took the simplest possible premise and wrung every last drop of tension, character and dread out of it, and the result is close to perfect.
What gets me every time is how quickly I care. The three men at the centre of this are so immediately, effortlessly distinct that you feel like you know them within minutes. There's no laborious setup, no lengthy backstory. You just... get them. And once you're attached to them, the film has you completely. Every creak of the boat, every ripple in the water, every moment of quiet before something terrible happens, it all works because you're genuinely invested in the people on screen.
Then there's the shark itself. The mechanical version famously refused to cooperate during filming, breaking down constantly and causing chaos on set. Most directors would've been sunk by that. Spielberg turned it into an advantage. By keeping the creature hidden for so long, by letting your imagination do the work, he makes Jaws far scarier than any amount of screen time for the monster could've managed. What you don't see is always worse than what you do. It's a lesson some horror films still haven't learned.
It's worth saying that this isn't Spielberg's first time building unbearable tension around a predator and a protagonist who's very much out of their depth. I've reviewed Duel (1971), his made-for-TV thriller about a man being hunted by a lorry on an open road, and you can see the same instincts at work there. The threat is simple. The stakes are personal. The suspense is relentless. Jaws is that same DNA on a much bigger scale, and with a bigger budget, and with John Williams.
God, the score. I've already mentioned those two notes, and I'll mention them again because they deserve it. Williams wrote one of the most economical, devastating pieces of film music ever composed. It doesn't need to be complicated. It just needs to make your stomach drop, and it does, every single time. You hear it and your whole body tenses up before anything has even happened on screen. That's extraordinary.
If I'm being honest about where the four stars rather than five comes from, it's that the film isn't flawless. There are moments in the first half that drag slightly, and a few scenes that have dated in ways that are hard to ignore. But these are minor grumbles about a film that's doing so many things right that it barely matters. The back half of the film, once the three of them are out on that boat, is as gripping a stretch of cinema as you'll find anywhere.
Four stars, and I'd argue that's slightly stingy. Jaws is the kind of film that reminds you why you fell in love with going to the pictures in the first place. It's frightening, it's funny, it's moving, and it made an entire generation afraid of the sea. Not bad for a story about a big fish.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 1975 | Watched: 2009-07-03
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · YouTube TV · Netflix Standard with Ads
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
Related on Movies With Macca
More from Steven Spielberg: Duel (1971) · Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) · E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) · The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
More with Roy Scheider: The French Connection (1971)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)
