How Jaws Changed The World

Shark Week • Season 25 • Episode 5

About this episode

There are very few movies we can honestly say truly changed the world — but Jaws is one of them. Audiences stood in lines that wrapped entire city blocks to watch the world’s first summer blockbuster. Careers were made, fortunes created, and ways of directing and scoring movies and shooting special effects were all changed forever when it was released. But the impact the film had on the oceans and their inhabitants was as big as the audience it found — and just as surprising. In the aftermath of the film's release, great white sharks were vilified and killed, leading to their near-disappearance from the eastern seaboard. At the same time, public fascination with sharks led to a golden age of shark science that completely changed our view of the ocean and how it works. And as the science began showing us how real sharks behave, it spurred a worldwide conservation effort whose earliest champion was Jaws author Peter Benchley.