Jaws (1975) Review: The Terror of What You Can't See

Is Jaws worth watching?

Yes. Jaws is one of the great American thrillers, and half a century on it remains a model of how to build fear from suggestion, character and rhythm rather than effects. Steven Spielberg turned a pulpy premise into a film that is terrifying, funny and humane, and the three-man voyage at its centre is as good as ensemble filmmaking gets. The only real reservation is that the mechanical shark, in its fuller appearances, shows its age next to the brilliance of everything around it.

What is Jaws about?

A great white shark begins attacking swimmers off Amity Island, a New England beach town that depends on its summer tourists. The new police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), a New Yorker who is uneasy around water, wants to close the beaches; the town’s mayor and business owners want to keep them open for the holiday season. When the attacks continue, Brody joins forces with a young oceanographer, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and a grizzled shark hunter named Quint (Robert Shaw) to hunt the animal on open water.

Jaws is directed by Spielberg from Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel. It is an American production in English and runs 124 minutes.

Spielberg makes absence the monster

The film’s genius, famously born partly of necessity, is how little it shows. For much of the running time the shark is a point of view, a fin, a set of yellow barrels dragging across the surface or simply a change in the music. Spielberg films the water from just above the surface, so the audience sees what swimmers see and nothing more, and lets imagination do the rest. The opening sequence remains one of the most frightening in popular cinema precisely because so little is on screen.

John Williams’s score is the other half of that effect. Its two-note motif has become shorthand for approaching danger, but in context it is subtler than its reputation suggests, swelling into buoyant sea-shanty adventure once the hunt begins. The editing is just as sharp: the beach sequences build dread through crowded frames and innocent distractions, making the viewer scan the water along with Brody.

Three men in a boat

Where many thrillers treat their characters as bait, Jaws cares about its people. Scheider makes Brody an ordinary, decent man out of his depth in every sense, and his home life, with Lorraine Gary as his wife, gives the film a warm domestic grounding. Dreyfuss plays Hooper as a wisecracking, well-off expert who is thrilled by the shark as much as frightened of it.

Then there is Shaw. His Quint is gruff, theatrical and haunted, and the tension among the three men once they are out at sea, part rivalry, part grudging respect, gives the second half its texture. A long night-time monologue from Shaw has become one of the most admired scenes in American film, a quiet moment that is somehow more chilling than any attack.

The town scenes work nearly as well. Murray Hamilton’s mayor, desperate to keep the beaches open, turns the first half into a sharp small-town satire about money and denial that has aged remarkably well.

Where the seams show

The film has only minor flaws. The shark itself, when fully visible, can look rubbery to modern eyes, and a couple of its biggest appearances rely on the audience’s goodwill. Some secondary characters, including Brody’s family, fade once the story moves to sea. These are small blemishes on a film whose craft otherwise holds up almost entirely.

Who should watch Jaws?

It suits nearly everyone old enough for real frights: thriller fans, adventure lovers and anyone interested in how the modern blockbuster was born. At 124 minutes it never drags. The attacks are bloody and can be genuinely upsetting, so it is better for teenagers and adults than young children, and it may make a beach holiday harder to enjoy.

If it hooks you, stay with Spielberg:

• Raiders of the Lost Ark, his next great adventure, which applies the same sense of rhythm to pulp thrills.
• War of the Worlds, a later Spielberg film about ordinary people facing an overwhelming, often unseen threat.

More suspense of this kind is gathered in our thriller section.

The verdict

Jaws is still the gold standard for the popcorn thriller: frightening, funny, beautifully acted and cut with extraordinary precision. The occasional stiffness of its mechanical star is the only thing that dates it, and it barely matters against Spielberg’s control of suspense and the unforgettable trio at its heart.

Rating: 4.5/5