Anniversary
JAWS At 50 And The Academy Museum To Open JAWS: The Exhibition on September 14
“JAWS: See It Before You Go Swimming.” 50 years ago this weekend, movie goers at their local cinemas were introduced to Bruce, the great white shark and the movie spectacle would never be the same.
The trailer’s ominous narration said, “There is a creature alive today who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without passion and without logic. It lives to kill – a mindless eating machine. It will attack and devour anything. It is as if God created the Devil and gave him Jaws.”
June 20, 1975 and the Summer Blockbuster was born. Opening night and I was a 9-year-old kid sitting in the theater on the Berlin Turnpike in Newington, CT and brutally scared by what would later become my FAVORITE FILM OF ALL TIME. (Hey, that’s how we rolled in my house). After that evening, I became very wary of going down to the shore. 50 years later my love affair with the film is still passionate, even borderline obsessive.
Winner of 3 Oscars including Best Score, Editing and Best Sound and nominated for Best Picture (classy AMPAS!), today fans celebrate the 50th anniversary of JAWS. It was the summer movie, and rated PG, that put Spielberg officially on the map and scared many, including this Connecticut native, from going swimming in 1975. While being one of the most quoted movies ever, including the memorable, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” and filled with unforgettable scenes, without a doubt Quint’s soliloquy is one of the finest in film history.
Director Steven Soderbergh on this scene: “As is well-documented, it went through many, many iterations. But the audacity of stopping the movie — for nine minutes — to have that scene! It starts out as a very funny scene and then morphs into something much darker. It is just still amazing to contemplate today. Can you imagine, in the middle of a Star Wars movie, a nine-minute dialogue scene? It’s unthinkable. And so, again, the fact that Spielberg understood this. He’s like, “We’ve got to do it, and this is the time to do it. The night of day one when you need a breather — we’re going to give you that breather, but then we’re going to slip this other thing in there too, something that’s going to make Quint an unforgettable character, through a story that is also unforgettable and true.”
In his review Roger Ebert wrote: “Jaws” is a great adventure movie of the kind we don’t get very often any more. It’s clean-cut adventure, without the gratuitous violence of so many action pictures. It has the necessary amount of blood and guts to work — but none extra. And it’s one hell of a good story, brilliantly told.”
Watch the original review from Siskel and Ebert – it only plays out of the right speaker/earbud, headphone.
JAWS sits at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
NBC is all set to ring in the 50th anniversary of Jaws with a 3-hour telecast of the original summer blockbuster scheduled for this Friday, June 20 at 8:00 p.m. ET. The feature presentation will be preceded by a special introduction from director Steven Spielberg.
https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/jaws-50th-anniversary-airing-on-nbc-with-intro-from-steven-spielberg
The film is streaming on Peacock as well as its three follow-up movies.
https://www.peacocktv.com/watch/movies/movies-jaws-collection
Below are some of highlights celebrating the film’s half century mark:
Funko pop figures
https://funko.com/pop-super-great-white-shark/83973.html
Cinemark Popcorn
Lorraine Gary was present for the screening for “Jaws” during the 2025 TCM Classic Film Festival at The Egyptian Theatre on April 26, 2025 in Hollywood, California.
Watch the interview with author Peter Benchley and actor Roy Scheider right before the movie’s release.
At the Hollywood Bowl.
See our story from 2018 and check it out this July 5.
https://www.hollywoodbowl.com/events/performances/3586/2025-07-05/jaws-in-concert-with-the-la-phil
Rare photos from 1974:
Watch on Netflix the VOIR series – “Summer of the Shark” by Sasha Stone (https://www.awardsdaily.com/2021/12/08/voir-interview-with-sasha-stone/)
https://www.netflix.com/title/80990130
Buy it on 4K: https://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/2025/04/jaws-50th-anniversary-edition-coming-to-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-digital-on-june-17/
https://www.uphe.com/new-offers/jaws-50th-anniversary
Celebrating the 50th anniversary year of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will present Jaws: The Exhibition, the museum’s first large-scale exhibition dedicated to a single film, and the largest exhibition ever mounted showcasing Universal Pictures’ landmark summer blockbuster, which earned three Academy Awards® and was nominated for Best Picture.
On view from September 14, 2025, through July 26, 2026, in the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, Jaws: The Exhibition will translate the movie into a multi-gallery experience for audiences of all ages. It features scene breakdowns, interactive experiences, behind-the-scenes stories, and some 200 original objects, many never before put on public display, including from the personal collections of Steven Spielberg and the Amblin Hearth Archive, the NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, and the vast Academy Collection.
The Academy Museum will celebrate the exhibition opening with a screening of Jaws on September 14. At the same time, the Academy Museum Store will launch an exclusive line of Jaws merchandise, including a commemorative 50th anniversary vinyl pressing of John Williams’s Oscar®-winning film score in collaboration with Mondo, apparel, accessories, posters, and more.
“The Academy Museum celebrates film history and with this exhibition we can bring never-before-seen movie experiences to a public audience,” said Academy Museum Director and President Amy Homma. “This exhibition will create a space where the worldwide community of Jaws fans can gather and relive the movie while giving new audiences the joy of discovery.”
Senior Exhibitions Curator Jenny He, who has curated the exhibition with Assistant Curator Emily Rauber Rodriguez and Curatorial Assistant Alexandra James Salichs, said, “It has been absolutely rewarding to engage with so many outstanding collaborators to tell the story of Jaws through an exhibition, which is as thoughtful and revelatory as it is immersive and thrilling. All of us at the Academy Museum are deeply grateful for the invaluable support and insight we have received, working with Steven Spielberg’s personal archive at Amblin, the collection at Universal Pictures, numerous private collectors, and many of the Jaws filmmakers.”
The exhibition will follow the structure of the film, taking visitors from the opening credits to the film’s gripping conclusion. Expanding on the three-act structure of the film, the story is told in six sections: “The Unseen Danger,” “Amity Island Welcomes You,” “Sunday at the Beach,” “The Shark’s Rampage,” “Adventure Ahead,” and “Into the Deep.” The final gallery of Jaws: The Exhibition explores the enduring impact of the film.
The Unseen Danger
The first gallery transports audiences into the film’s iconic opening scene and immediately foregrounds the indelible score by John Williams. Visitors experience the shark’s first attack through production objects, set photography, and an interactive recreation of the sand dune where the movie’s first victim, Chrissie Watkins, is discovered. This section also introduces the exhibition’s behind-the-scenes stories with a display of how Steven Spielberg brought Jaws to life.
Amity Island Welcomes You
In “Amity Island Welcomes You,” visitors learn about the team behind the film, including producers Oscar-winner Richard Zanuck and Oscar nominee David Brown, Oscar-nominated production designer Joe Alves, and co-screenwriters Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, who developed the screenplay based on Benchley’s best-selling 1974 novel. A section about location scouting reveals the place behind the movie’s imaginary Amity Island. Among the objects featured in this gallery is the original Zanuck/Brown Productions sign that hung outside the Jaws production office on Martha’s Vineyard.
Sunday at the Beach
This gallery explores how the film’s director of photography, Oscar nominee Bill Butler, and his cinematography team heightened tension and conveyed anxiety on screen as the shark threat in the story became more apparent. A recreation of the film’s beach cabanas serves as the backdrop for an interactive opportunity to experience the movie’s famous dolly zoom effect, heightening the emotion of the moment when Police Chief Martin Brody realizes the shark has just attacked. Original objects on view include the zoom lens used to film the famous shot.
The Shark’s Rampage
Original set decoration materials and props fill this gallery, which dives into the sequences of the film when the shark claims more victims, including fisherman Ben Gardner, whose prop head will be on display. Visitors also learn about two of Steven Spielberg’s key collaborators—film editor Verna Fields and composer John Williams—who won Academy Awards for their work on Jaws . This section additionally showcases the work of casting director Shari Rhodes, whose choice of supporting actors from Martha’s Vineyard and the Boston area led to such memorable performances as Lee Fierro’s portrayal of Mrs. Kintner. Notable objects in this section include a chalkboard drawing by production designer Joe Alves recreated especially for this exhibition to bring to life Quint’s introduction in Jaws; a Moviola used by Verna Fields; an interactive display in which visitors can play the pulse-quickening alternation of the musical notes E and F that signals the shark’s approach, part of John Williams’s main title theme; and remastered Super 8 home movie footage taken by Steven Spielberg during the production of Jaws.
Adventure Ahead
In “Adventure Ahead,” visitors prepare to enter Act III of the story with Brody, Quint, and Hooper, as portrayed by Oscar nominees Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw, and Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss. Photos and schematics show the design and construction of Quint’s shack, the launching point for the three men aboard the Orca in pursuit of the shark. Objects on view include the original shark weathervane from Quint’s shack on loan from production designer Joe Alves. Another highlight is the mandible of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) borrowed by Alves in 1973 from the California Academy of Sciences for research during pre-production.
Into the Deep
This immersive gallery brings visitors into the open ocean, culminating in the film’s climax. A recreation of the Orca showcases original set decoration and props, including Quint’s “fighting chair.” Re-recording sound mixer Robert L. Hoyt’s Academy Award for Jaws will be on view in this gallery, representing the monumental achievement of the sound team in working at sea. A full-scale diagram showing the magnitude of the 25-foot shark is accompanied by original concept illustrations, original mechanical schematics, and rarely seen photographs outlining the making of the shark (nicknamed Bruce by Steven Spielberg, after his lawyer Bruce Ramer). The sole surviving full-scale model of Bruce is the largest object in the Academy Museum’s collection and currently hangs outside the 4th-floor exhibition space, where it will remain on view during the exhibition. Highlights of the objects in “Into the Deep” include never-before-displayed photographs taken during production by boom operator Frank Meadows, donated to the Academy Collection on the occasion of this exhibition and an interactive model produced by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger of KNB EFX Group that gives visitors a chance to operate Bruce for themselves.
The Enduring Impact of Jaws
The exhibition concludes with a look at the film’s monumental impact on the film industry, popular culture, and society at large. Elements of the gallery discuss how Jaws upended the industry’s distribution models and revolutionized film marketing. Original theatrical release posters, art prints, and vintage and contemporary merchandise on view showcase the film’s global reach and continued influence.
Among the many other rare objects on view in Jaws: The Exhibition are concept illustrations by production designer Joe Alves, a costume worn by Roy Scheider as Brody, original shark design schematics by design engineer Frank Wurmser, and a screen-used prop dorsal fin.
Jaws: The Exhibition will be the museum’s fifth large-scale exhibition in its Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, following Hayao Miyazaki (2021–22), Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971 (2022–23), John Waters: Pope of Trash (2023–24), and Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema (which closes July 13, 2025). The exhibition’s advisory group comprises of ocean conservationist and marine policy advocate Wendy Benchley; Associate Professor in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies at USC J.D. Connor; sound mixer Peter J Devlin; and editor Terilyn A. Shropshire.
Exhibition Credit: Jaws: The Exhibition is supported by Howard and Mirjam Berger, the Givenchy Family, Emma Koss, The Yeardley Smith Foundation, and Richard Talley.
Image Credits:
(L-R) Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC; Courtesy of Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC.
Video Credit: ©Academy Museum Foundation
0 comments