Jaws is the brilliant thriller that reinvented suspense

Rating: 10/10 (10 July 2011)

One of the best thrillers ever made and possibly Spielberg's best, Jaws enthralled audiences in 1975 and has aged well. Jaws is about a shark, a man eating shark, a very simple topic, but it is perfectly executed. The shark itself is not shown until the very end (Spielberg intelligently uses the Hitchcock suspense technique there) and John Williams' brilliant score delivers all the scares. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss all play men heading into the waters outside of New England to catch the beast. It ranks up there with suspense thrillers such as The Exorcist and Psycho, a truly great use of suspense through music.