1975 (Steven Spielberg) 14A, 129 min
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider

The first summer blockbuster had a rudimentary plot (girl meets shark, shark eats girl, boy chases shark) but dazzling direction from the 29-year-old Steven Spielberg On only his second movie, he ignored the troublesome mechanical shark built for the production and instead dug into his movie-geek knowledge and found the solution by asking – what would Hitchcock do? Mashing together techniques from Vertigo to The Birds, he suggested the terror and let the audience's imagination do the rest. He also had some impressive tools to play with: John Williams' propulsive score, Bill Butler's sparkly sun-in-your-eyes cinematography, and a trio of classic performances: Roy Scheider's transplanted NY street cop referees Richard Dreyfuss' fidgety, nerdy marine biologist and Robert Shaw's watchful shark hunter, as nasty as the giant fish he's hired to kill. Admit it, you're already humming the theme music, aren't you?