A reminder that, once upon a time, Spielberg used to make films for adults rather than infants and critical regressives.
Jaws (1975)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:36
Fresh:36
Rotten:0
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: Jaws remains tense by not showing audiences the shark for the majority of the film, so that when it does, viewers jump out of their seats.
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: From the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, Steven Spielberg directed this thrill ride of terror. During the height of beach season, the Massachusetts resort town of Amity Island is terrorized... From the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, Steven Spielberg directed this thrill ride of terror. During the height of beach season, the Massachusetts resort town of Amity Island is terrorized one summer by surprise attacks from a great white shark. Three unlikely partners team up to hunt down the rogue and destroy it: the new chief of police from New York (Roy Scheider), a young university-educated oceanographer (Richard Dreyfuss), and a crusty old-time fisherman (Robert Shaw). The film shoot was notoriously difficult for the young Spielberg, who had directed only one feature film before JAWS. The mechanical shark seldom operated correctly, and Spielberg was frequently forced to create the idea of terror without actually showing the shark. However, after the film premiered it went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time--surpassing THE GODFATHER and becoming the first film to gross more than a hundred million dollars. Composer John Williams created the score to JAWS, which has since become a well-known theme of impending doom. Ron and Valerie Taylor were responsible for filming live sharks in Australia; their sequences were later mixed with footage of the mechanical shark. [More]
Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary
Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jay Mello, Lee Fierro, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Jonathan Filley
Director: Steven Spielberg
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriter: Carl Gottlieb, Peter Benchley, Howard Sackler
Producer: Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown
Composer: John Williams
Studio: Universal Pictures
Reviews for Jaws
A classic. Tense, engrossing, scary and, subsequently, endlessly influential.
A film that sealed Steven Spielberg's talent as a master entertainer.
An astonishingly effective thriller built on a very primal level: fear.
Achieves a number of cheap thrills at the expense of the mechanical shark.
Nowadays, it doesn't really scare me anymore, but I love watching it for the way it moves.
Simply put, Jaws turned the tide of American cinema: irrevocably, and not for the better.
Spielberg works self-effacingly, with subtly correct camera placement and meticulous editing. He twists our guts with false alarms, giving us the real thing with heart-stopping suddenness.
The fast-moving 124-minute film engenders enormous suspense as the shark attacks a succession of people.
Director Steven Spielberg has constructed a chillingly frightening film.
In the end, the shark is a MacGuffin necessary for the men to bond and test themselves against what they fear most--their own mortality.
Steven Spielberg's mechanical thriller is guaranteed to make you scream on schedule.
One of those rare films that really deserved its commercial success and its place among the best films of all times.
Along with being a terrific character-driven (not plot) thriller, Jaws should be viewed against the broader context of 1975 as part of a cycle of paranoia films, reflecting the Vietnam War, Watergate scandal, anti-authoritarianism, and political apathy
One of the greatest horror films made. The opening sequence is not only a classic, it's still frightening nearly three decades after it was made.
When it comes to this kind of thriller, no movie has been able to top Jaws, although many have tried. And, as the years go by, it seems increasingly unlikely that anything will come close.
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