Steven Spielberg not only managed to single-handedly invent the summer blockbuster with Jaws, he also put more people off swimming in the open waters of the sea than any real-life shark attack could ever hope to. While there might be a case to be made against Jaws for the unnecessary of great white shark killings since its release, Spielberg is hardly to blame for the overreaction of the public (although it's certainly a testament to the effectiveness of his low budget monster movie). In the decades since it was released in 1975 few blockbusters have been released which can match it for sheer economy and precision of pacing and tension. This attention to tension over spectacle was something of a happy accident - Spielberg originally wanted to show much more of the shark, but countless problems with the models and animatronix forced him to rethink his strategy. The result is a far more immersive Hitchcockian experience, and all the better for it.
