Parents' Guide to

Jaws

Movie PG 1975 125 minutes
Jaws Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

By Scott G. Mignola , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 12+

1970s shark horror tale still has scare factor.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 12+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 11+

Based on 106 parent reviews

age 12+

Terrorized my 6 year old

I feel like a terrible mom. I let my 6 year old watch this and he has seen Jurassic Park and other adult movies so I thought this would be ok. I had forgotten how gory it was. The scene where they went scuba diving and saw the dead guy absolutely terrorized my son, I’ve never seen him scared like that EVER and he cried after that scene. I felt so bad and mad at myself. My husband and I took turns with him because he couldn’t sleep that night. Anyways not okay for small kids :(
age 13+

This movie doesn’t have that much violence but it’s still intense there is moderate language but it isn’t to much for young teens this is how I rank blood some blood fair amount of blood lots of blood tons of blood plenty of blood and then stuff like very bloody extremely bloody violence 6%10 early in the movie someone is eaten there’s lots of blood little boy is eaten some blood a dead body emerges from a sunken ship and i think you might see his eye plucked out some one is eaten blood coming out of his mouth shark shot huge explosion and blood spatters I now there’s moderate language but I don’t remember the words this is how I rank language some language moderate language frequent language lots of language tons of language constant language and this movie also has some sex sex 3%10 a girl gos swimming naked but I don’t remember seeing anything bad and there’s also some kissing thanks for reading my review my next review will be for jaws 2

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (106 ):
Kids say (467 ):

This film remains a horror classic that effectively transcends the genre and the time in which it was released. Though Jaws is one of Steven Spielberg's early films, his adept building up of the tension -- heightened by the now almost universally known two-note "shark attack" music provided by John Williams -- shines in both the shark attack scenes and in the spaces in which the story and the characters have room to develop. Even with a shark that doesn't look terribly realistic by today's standards, the film still delivers suspense and terror and is a textbook study on how to escalate tension for maximum payoff.

In terms of the acting, the chemistry between Scheider, Dreyfuss, and Shaw is still a delight to take in. But the movie does feel dated due to its entirely White cast and cliched female characters. Nevertheless, at the time of its release, it was the highest-grossing box office movie of all time and it continues to remain a pop culture staple.

Movie Details

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