‘Jaws’ 50th anniversary: How to watch the movie that launched blockbusters

The summertime beaches of 1975 were empty, but the movie theaters were full thanks to Steven Spielberg’s thriller Jaws. Considered by film historians to be the first-ever summer blockbuster, Jaws put the young director on the map and was the highest-grossing movie of all time until Star Wars was released two years later.

June 20 marks the 50th anniversary of Jaws’s cinematic debut. To celebrate, NBC is airing the film, complete with an introduction by Spielberg. Before we get into specifics about how to tune in, let’s take a look at some fun facts about the flick, and what summer 2025 offers in the way of potential blockbusters.

It all started with a true story

The movie Jaws is based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Peter Benchley.

The reporter-turned-novelist was inspired by two powerful forces: his fond memories as a child fishing for sharks in Nantucket with his dad, and a newspaper article that told the real-life story of Frank Mundus, a Montauk, New York, fisherman who hooked a 2-ton-plus great white shark, as NBC notes. The childhood nostalgia and stranger-than-fiction story combined to make a bestseller.

Benchley cowrote the film’s screenplay with Carl Gottlieb. Each has a cameo in the film (Benchley as a reporter and Gottlieb as Meadows, the newspaper editor).

Spielberg was not the first director attached to the film

It’s hard to imagine today, but the name Spielberg wasn’t always synonymous with storytelling excellence—that reputation had to be earned.

Spielberg was just 27 when he devoured Benchley’s novel and decided he wanted to be a part of the film version. However, his résumé at the time included only the television movie Duel and the theatrically released The Sugarland Express.

Jaws producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown had already offered the project to another director, as Far Out magazine reports. When that individual kept calling the shark a whale in a production meeting, Benchley was not impressed, and Zanuck and Brown gave the job to Spielberg.

Filming was not smooth sailing

The set of Jaws saw problem after problem. The film’s budget was originally $4 million but grew to $9 million. Principal photography was scheduled for 55 days but ended up lasting 159.

“Being on Jaws became a living nightmare, and not because I didn’t know what I was doing or because I was struggling to find the movie in my head,” Spielberg recalled to Vanity Fair in 2023. “I knew the film I wanted to make. I just couldn’t get the movie I had in mind on film as quickly as I wanted.”

Much of this was due to Spielberg’s insistence on filming at sea off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard instead of in a studio tank. A mechanical shark, nicknamed “Bruce,” was notoriously breaking down. The script was constantly reworked, and actors didn’t always get along.

“Jaws was a fun movie to watch but not a fun movie to make,” Spielberg added in the Vanity Fair interview.

50 years later: Special Jaws screenings and streaming

To revisit this classic film—or perhaps to see it for the first time—tune in to NBC Friday, June 20, at 8 p.m. ET.

If that doesn’t work with your schedule, the film and its three sequels are available to stream on Peacock. It’s also heading back to select big screens across the U.S. beginning August 29, according to NBCUniversal.

2025 summer blockbuster offerings

Another roundabout way to honor the legacy of Jaws is simply by seeing any movie in a theater this summer.

The industry is still trying to find its footing after the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple Hollywood labor union strikes in 2023, and devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025. It could use the support. Plus, movie theaters have air-conditioning!

Domestic ticket sales were roughly $8.6 billion last year, compared to $11.3 billion in 2019.

While changing media consumption habits like streaming and endless smartphone scrolling have further challenged the notion of the summer blockbuster in recent years, 2025 still has many contenders that will vie for the crown—and there really is something for everyone.

This includes Jurassic World Rebirth , onwhich Spielberg serves as an executive producer, scheduled for release on July 2. Already on the big screen is Tom Cruise’s latest addition to the Mission: Impossible franchise, The Final Reckoning, complete with death-defying stunts.

Families can enjoy the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. Spielberg has his fingerprints on this one, too: While he was not directly involved with this iteration of the story, he cofounded DreamWorks, which led to the creation of DreamWorks Animation, the studio that produced the original films.