Jaws: The Exhibition Opens at Academy Museum This Fall

Half a century ago, the ocean transformed from a place of summer fun to a realm of unseen terror. Practically overnight, stepping into the water no longer felt safe. The culprit? Not an explosion in shark populations, but the sheer power of one film—Jaws. Steven Spielberg didn’t just make a movie; he unleashed a primal fear buried deep in our collective psyche, resurrecting an ancient dread of the unseen predator lurking beneath the waves.

With a few masterful frames, he turned the great white shark into a nightmare figure, an unstoppable force of nature waiting just below the surface. The result? Beaches emptied, the water took on an ominous, forbidden quality, and the mere suggestion of a fin slicing through the surf was enough to send shivers down the spine. The fear became so ingrained that, even now, decades later, news of a shark attack—no matter how rare—dominates headlines, reinforcing the terror Spielberg first cemented in our minds.

And it didn’t stop there. The summer blockbuster was born, a new era of cinematic spectacle that kept audiences on edge. And as if that weren’t enough, we were gifted Shark Week, an annual reminder that the monsters of the deep are still out there, waiting. Spielberg didn’t just make us afraid of sharks—he made sure we never forgot.

Jaws at the Academy Museum’s exclusive exhibition

For the 50th anniversary of the Steven Spielberg-directed classic, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, is presenting “Jaws:” The Exhibition, beginning on September 14, 2025, and running through July 26, 2026.

Experience Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) like never before. Jaws: The Exhibition is the first-ever exhibition of this scale at the Academy Museum, focused exclusively on a single film, and the largest mounted exhibition ever for Jaws, the Oscar-winning movie from Universal Pictures. It celebrates the film’s 50th anniversary and revisits Jaws scene by scene, through original objects, behind-the-scenes revelations, and interactive moments. Curated with direct access to the collections from Steven Spielberg and The Amblin Hearth Archive, NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, the exhibition dives deep into the film’s production history and explores its enduring impact.

Directed by Oscar-winner Steven Spielberg, Jaws became the first summer blockbuster that forever changed the movie industry. The suspenseful adventure film, adapted from the novel by Peter Benchley, is centered on three main characters—Brody, Hooper, and Quint—who hunt a great white shark menacing the seaside town of Amity Island. The monumental success of Jaws belies uncertain beginnings, where production challenges arising from an unprecedented mechanical shark spurred creative problem-solving. Over five decades later, it remains clear that the tenacity of its cast and crew led to the realization of this beloved classic, one of the most influential films in motion picture history.