Jaws (film) Jaws (film) Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name. In it, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional New England summer resort town, prompting police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw). Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script
Jaws (franchise) for his work on the first film. The shark theme is used in all three sequels, a continuity that Williams compares to "the great tradition" for repeating musical themes in Hollywood serials such as Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. Alan Parker composed and conducted the score for "Jaws 3-D", while the final film was scored by Michael Small. The latter was particularly praised for his work, which many critics considered superior to the film. "Jaws" was the first film to use "wide release" as a distribution pattern. As such, it is an important film in the history of film