Jaws (1975)

In Steven Spielberg's summer blockbuster - his second-directed feature film, a realistic science-fiction suspense/horror-disaster film that tapped into the most primal of human fears - with the ominous, driving, menacing John William's 'da-dum...da-dum' score (of cellos) that brought on shark attacks:

• the shocking opening scene in which carefree blonde Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) left a beach party to go skinny-dipping and was devoured by being jerked underwater - prefaced by the shark's-eye view of the legs of the nude swimmer

Opening Shark Attack on Chrissie

• the closeup of police chief Martin Brody's (Roy Scheider) face (a simultaneous dolly-in and zoom-out shot) as he watched warily on a crowded beach jammed with vacationers and witnessed the first shark attack
• shark-hating, salty and grizzled fisherman-hunter Quint's (Robert Shaw) way of catching a tumultuous room's attention - noisily screeching his fingernails against a blackboard
• marine biologist and shark expert Matt Hooper's (Richard Dreyfuss) examination of the remains of Chrissie and his angry pronouncement: "This was no boating accident!"
• Mrs. Kintner (Lee Fierro) dressed in funereal clothes and her silent, angry slap of Brody's face
• the scene at the Brody dinner table after the death of young Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) from a great white shark attack; Brody was detached and guilt-ridden; Brody's son Sean (Jay Mello) copied his father's worried gestures at the table and kissed his father at his request: (Brody: "Give us a kiss," Son: "Why?", Brody: "Because I need it")
• the shocking sight of the head of fisherman Ben Gardner (Craig Kingsbury) (missing one eye) suddenly appearing in a gaping hole in his sunken boat
• Hooper's single-handed crushing of his styrofoam cup after Quint crushed his beer can
• the jolting first full view of the shark one hour and twenty minutes into the film as Brody was throwing chum into the ocean ("Slow ahead! I can go slow ahead. Come on down and chum some of this s--t!") -- followed by Brody's dead-panned quip to Quint after jumping back, entering the cabin, and offering his assessment: "You're gonna need a bigger boat"
• the memorable drunken evening of story-swapping (about scars) on the boat when WWII veteran Quint descriptively recalled the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the subsequent shark attacks: ("Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like that you see in the calendar named 'The Battle of Waterloo.' And the idea was, the shark comes to the nearest man and he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin'. Sometimes the shark go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya, right into your eyes. Y'know, the thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes after ya, he doesn't seem to be livin' until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white, and then - aww, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin', the ocean turns red, and in spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and rip ya to pieces....So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb")
• the monumental battle with the shark from The Orca in the finale with Quint's memorable death scene as he slid into the mouth of the Giant Great White while being bitten in half and stabbing at its eyes

The Death of Quint in Shark's Jaws

• Brody's killing of the shark by firing at a compressed oxygen tank in its jaws ("Smile, ya son-of-a-bitch")

The Explosive End of the Great White Shark

• the last shot of Brody and Hooper hand-paddling back to shore and their last-lines quip: ("I used to hate the water," with the reply "I can't imagine why")