In 1975, Steven Spielberg unwittingly created the summer blockbuster that changed the movie business forever with his movie Jaws. A suspense-filled, seafaring thriller that brought artistic filmmaking techniques and careful character development to a high-concept Hollywood production, Jaws has been praised as one of the greatest films ever made.
From its everyman protagonist, Chief Martin Brody, to its Hitchcockian set pieces that limit the visibility of the shark, Jaws is filled with unforgettable moments. With masterful pacing and beautiful cinematography, some of the quieter moments are just as memorable as those where someone gets eaten. Here are Jaws’ 10 Most Iconic Moments, Ranked.
Hooper Finds Ben Gardner’s Corpse
When Hooper arrives in town, he goes out to sea with Brody in the middle of the night and finds Ben Gardner’s missing boat. Hooper dons some scuba equipment and goes down into the water to check it out. He finds a hole in the boat where the shark attacked it, and then Ben Gardner’s corpse — with an eye missing, for good measure — pops out of it.
It’s the first big jump scare in the movie. There aren’t a lot of them in Jaws, because it’s an overused technique. This is a prime example of a trope where less is more, and as a result, this scene never fails to get a huge reaction from audiences.
Brody’s Son Imitates Him
Most of the iconic scenes from Jaws involve the shark, but there are also a couple of quieter character pieces that are just as effective. There’s a touching moment of father-son bonding after dinner, as Brody’s son Sean joins him at the table and starts imitating his movements.
Brody’s been stressed out lately, as bureaucratic red tape has been preventing him from doing his job properly, and this moment with his son reminds him what’s really important in life, and motivates his heroism throughout the rest of the movie.
The Tiger Shark Autopsy
When a couple of Amity Island’s fishermen bring in a tiger shark, they believe they’ve caught the shark that’s been eating people. Hooper doesn’t believe that this could be the shark, and performs an autopsy to prove it.
He and Brody find all kinds of things in the shark’s digestive system — including a license plate with a James Bond Easter egg — but no human remains.
The Shark Pops Up While Brody’s Head Is Turned
In the classical sense, Jaws is a horror movie. But it’s not without moments of comedy. A great way to convey visual comedy is to have something unexpectedly pop into the frame. While Chief Brody is hurling bait into the water to attract the shark, he turns back to speak to the other guys.
While his head is turned, the shark breaches the surface of the water. Brody turns back to see a 25-foot great white with its mouth wide open and its many sharp teeth on display, and he’s unsurprisingly taken aback.
The Ferry Scene
On the surface (no pun intended), it would appear that the shark is the villain in Jaws, but the shark has no malicious intent; it’s just a force of nature. The real villain is Mayor Larry Vaughn. When Chief Brody identifies Chrissie’s remains on the beach and determines that she was killed by a shark, he wants to close the beach.
However, it’s the beginning of the summer season, and Vaughn doesn’t want Amity Island to lose any revenue from tourism. This is outlined in a very talky scene shot in one long take, and Steven Spielberg ingeniously chose to set it on a ferry, so that the background is constantly changing and the scene remains gripping.
“Smile, You Son Of A B****!”
There are a lot of scientific inaccuracies in this scene. For example, great white sharks don’t roar like lions. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a thrilling climax to the movie. Brody shoves a pressurized scuba tank into the shark’s mouth, then climbs up onto the mast as the Orca sinks and shoots the tank, blowing up the shark in a flurry of blood.
In the edited-for-TV version of this scene, Brody’s line is cut off before the word “b****,” but oddly enough, all of the gore is left intact and uncensored.
Mrs. Kintner Slaps Brody
This is Chief Brody’s wake-up call. After rolling over and letting his superiors endanger the people in his town, a young boy named Alex Kintner was ravaged by the shark. Alex’s mother, Mrs. Kintner, learns about Chrissie, the shark’s first victim, and finds out that Brody knew there was a killer shark in the water and didn’t close the beach.
Dressed in all black after attending her son’s funeral, Mrs. Kintner walks up to Brody and slaps him in the face. It’s a powerful moment, played superbly by Lee Fierro.
Chrissie Gets Eaten
In the opening scene of Jaws, partygoer Chrissie drunkenly decides to go skinny dipping in the ocean in the middle of the night. We don’t get to see the shark, but if anything, that makes it more intense.
Chrissie can’t see the shark when it attacks her — as she’s dragged around the surface of the water in the pitch-black of the night — so, effectively, not seeing the shark puts us in her shoes when she’s eaten alive, heightening the terror.
The Dolly Zoom
After Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, this is arguably the second-most memorable use of a dolly zoom in film history. The beach scene is one of Jaws’ tensest sequences, as both Brody and the audience are just waiting for a shark attack.
When the lengthy, suspense-filled sequence comes to a head, Brody sees Alex Kintner getting eaten in the distance. The dolly zoom perfectly encapsulates the shock and terror in Brody’s mind, and cinematographer Bill Butler pulled it off brilliantly.
Quint’s Indianapolis Speech
Robert Shaw’s drinking became a major problem on the set of Jaws. And when he first attempted to shoot the now-iconic Indianapolis speech, he got even drunker than usual, seeing it as an opportunity to do some method acting. His drunken takes were unusable, and Shaw felt bad, so he remained stone-cold sober when they reshot the scene and he nailed it in one take.
This monologue is placed in the calm-before-the-storm sequence, right before the trio’s final showdown with the shark, and it prepares us for the grim reality of a shark attack.