Jaws

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Jaws is a 1975 film which tells the story of a resort town's sheriff who tries to protect beachgoers from the predations of a great white shark, only to be opposed by the businessmen of the town. It stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Lorraine Gary.

The screenplay was adapted by Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb, John Milius (uncredited), Howard Sackler (uncredited) and Robert Shaw (uncredited) from the novel by Benchley. It was directed by Steven Spielberg.

It won Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Music, Original Score (John Williams) and Best Sound. It was also nominated for Best Picture. The film is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films and was #48 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies and #2 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills. In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

It was filmed at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. In a bit of serendipity, the mechanical shark didn't work most of the time so Spielberg was forced to shoot many of the scenes with the shark only hinted at. This is widely thought to have increased the suspense of many scenes. The mechanical shark was nicknamed "Bruce" by the production team, a piece of trivia that has been cited in a number of shark-related stories (such as the appearance of the shark in 2003's Finding Nemo.) Another key factor to the film's success was John Williams' acclaimed film score, especially the main theme that became a classic piece of suspense music, synoynmous with approaching danger whenever the shark went for the kill.

Upon its release, the film was the first to reach more than $100 million in box-office receipts, a feat not matched until Star Wars, two years later in 1977.

Jaws was followed by three sequels: Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3 (1983) and (1987).