Jaws

1975

Steven Spielberg's second feature invented the summer blockbuster and made a generation wary of open water. Roy Scheider plays Martin Brody, a police chief on a resort island whose warnings about a great white are overruled by a town council that needs the beaches open for the holiday. Richard Dreyfuss is the young marine biologist and Robert Shaw the weathered hunter who join him on a boat that keeps looking smaller. The mechanical shark broke constantly, forcing Spielberg to hide it, which is exactly why the film works.