Only 3 Movies Are More Suspenseful Than 'Jaws'

There’s not much in Jaws that can be faulted, really, to the point where calling it a flat-out masterpiece isn't likely to raise too many eyebrows. Sure, not everyone is going to love it equally, because there’s always some level of subjectivity when talking about any movie’s quality (or lack thereof), but probably less of a variety of opinions when it comes to something like Jaws. It does everything right, starting with confidence and then building patiently – but never tediously – toward a more adventure-filled (yet still scary) final act. It’s about killing a shark that is responsible for killing quite a few people, basically. There’s a really efficient exploration of the people who live in the fictional town of Amity Island, so you're given a reason to care about the mission succeeding, once that mission has to be undertaken. It makes things more intense, in other words, and the sense of suspense is also heightened by the way Jaws builds gradually, revealing more of the shark as the desperation of the characters grows greater, making use of the idea that sometimes less is more (though, for what it’s worth, most of the special effects used to bring the shark to life later on hold up better than you might expect).