best films: #82: JAWS (1975)

Previously ranked and blogged at #77
Whether admiring the that simple yet impossibly catchy score or reminiscing about the first time you saw that first famed skinny-dipping scene, Jaws is a movie that sticks with you and is impossible to recreate. Though many have tried to make equally terrifying shark movies, nothing quite clears the beaches like this 1975 original. The effects may have dated it in the past nearly 35 years since its release, the animatronic Bruce (which the shark in Finding Nemo is aptly named after) who was the star of this classic can still terrify the best of us when he leaps out of the water (and then there's that whole incident with the floating corpse). Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are wonderfully silly in their 1970s garb, and Steven Spielberg's first big break is one of the few exceptions to the Oscars' anti-blockbuster rule -- it managed a nomination for Best Picture and won three other technical categories.

Standout Performance: Without a doubt, Jaws himself is the true star of this summer hit. There's something to be said for Spielberg's direction, which at the time was somewhat green and youthful (not the Spielberg we've come to know in the 90s and 00s).