Seriously, is it even the 4th of July in America if you don’t watch Jaws? 

I love holiday specific movies, movies that I watch every year on or around the holiday without fail. Groundhog Day on, well, Groundhog Day. A Christmas Story on, you guessed it, Christmas. And without fail, every 4th of July, Jaws, the first and best summer blockbuster of all time. 

Having seen it at least a dozen times before, I really noticed how no scene is wasted in this film. Not one. Everything propels the scene to the next until it leads to one of the most tense endings to a film ever. This and Back to the Future are probably the only film’s (that I’ve seen) that have accomplished such a feat. 

John Williams’s score is about as perfect a film accompaniment as you’re likely to find. And you’ll be hard pressed to find a trio of actors better than Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfus, and and Robert Shaw. Quint’s monologue still gives me chills to this day. 

A perfect movie. I don’t know if another filmmaker has achieved as many flawless films as Spielberg, but the man, even from his first film, has been an all time great.