Retro Review: 50 Years Later, Nothing About Jaws Feels Stale or Dated

Be a clever cinephile, if you want. Walk out of a screening of Jaws and say, “That’s the movie that ruined movies.” You’ll be right, if that’s important to you. On June 20, 1975, Jaws opened on 464 screens at once—a record at the time—breaking the tradition of a slow rollout built on strong word of mouth. It worked. Jaws was the No. 1 film in America for 14 weeks and became the first film ever to gross more than $100 million. Ever a copycat industry, Hollywood imitated the success of this strategy, launching a shift in emphasis from...