What makes JAWS a classic

When JAWS came out in June of 1975, it is said even the 27 year old director, Steven Spielberg, would have no idea how far reaching the phenomenon he created would go. Reaching every corner of the universe and still a beloved film to this day, JAWS was based on Peter Benchley’s best selling novel of the same name. It is a movie that has become timeless even amid the leaps and hurdles in the fields of movie magic, CGI and now in 2026, AI. However people still can’t turn away or change the channel, myself included, whenever it shows up on the TV guide, even among plenty of movies to watch that have unprecedented special effects. One reason for this is that the secret is in the original sauce. JAWS was the original blockbuster that started it all. While there is no doubt the oversized mechanical shark in the movie that can swallow anything and pierce someone’s soul with it’s dark protruding eyes is definitely something people can definitely call “fake” compared to today’s movie beasts, it still brings a chill with the surprises that happen in the story and the genius trick Spielberg uses to minimize visuals of the creature too much.

It would have been easy to overshow the shark in many points of the film but since Spielberg doesn’t, there is a whole new layer of creepiness throughout. One can only look to the infamous scene where two fisherman come into contact with something in the water that seems to have grabbed hold of the dock and starts to drag it away in front of there eyes. But in that scene the shark is never shown, thanks to a mechanical failure in the real life filming of the movie. Having been corroded and rusted by all the salt water, the model shark failed, rendering it unworkable, thus Spielberg used his ingenuity and employed stealthy POVs to work the scene out. The results were an all the more eerier scene that was ever originally intended. It is also about the original idea of suspense. Until JAWS, there was no singular movie where the storytelling and suspense could cause such genuine excitement and fright before. You’re on the beach where we all go in the summer. It’s you, a crowded beach and something patrolling the waters. That’s it. We can’t see what’s under the water and we feel the genuine fright on the three men’s faces that are hunting the shark along with people screaming. It is a movie that my mother thankfully wouldn’t let me watch until I was a teen, and one that still has me looking over my shoulder each year when I go to Block Island. It is a rational fear melded with the blockbuster of a lifetime. Yes movies today will continue to impress with magical movie CGI and AI, but the original will always pull you in. That movie that came out in 1975.