Throughout 2025, the film industry has celebrated the 50th anniversary of one of the most impactful movies ever put to the big screen. Jaws didn’t just make a huge splash at the box office, but its incredible story, direction, and the practical effects all combined to swing public opinions of the ocean and sharks themselves.

Ever since, people have become more and more fascinated with these denizens of the deep, and despite the efforts of more pro-shark works, the depiction popularised by Jaws is what ultimately prevails. Even so, the original summer blockbuster’s influence can still be felt across entertainment even in 2025.

Changing Perceptions Worldwide

For most of the history of humanity, sharks have been seen as mostly harmless creatures seen out at sea by sailors. As we began to encroach on their environment and as technology evolved to delve into the oceans and film, the perception of sharks as dangerous increased.

In the early 20th Century, swimming in the ocean became recreational and acceptable, and few cared about the presence of sharks. Science could barely touch them, either, with living sharks being beyond the threshold in the depths. In the 1960s, particularly in the US, a few flash-in-the-pan headlines hit concerning shark attacks.

However, these were often forgotten and rightly seen as rare rather than a sign of a human-hunting threat being around. In 1975, Jaws landed to hypercharge the perception of sharks being human hunters, prevalent, and extremely dangerous, leading to shark attack stories being big news wherever they happened.

This cycle propelled the fear factor of sharks. In 1988, the Discovery Channel embarked on changing opinions, correcting misconceptions, and promoting conservation efforts with Shark Week. Now, it’s the longest-running cable TV programming event in US history and reaches over 70 countries each year.

It’s a huge TV event, with people fascinated by these deep-sea killers. Yet, it always takes an educational and entertaining tone. Its popularity has even spread beyond TV and into the world of online gaming with its own slingo bingo title.

A hit alongside the likes of China Shores Slingo, Slingo Deadliest Catch, and Slingo Stampede, Slingo Shark Week is the official slingo bingo game of the annual TV event. It goes big on showing the most famed sharks in all their glory, even linking them to the biggest wins in the game. It’s all about making a positive connection to sharks.

Still Circling Cinemas

It’s not uncommon for the annual film slate to feature some kind of shark movie – especially as you look further down the production budget rankings. A whole B-movie industry thrives on bizarre shark attack situations, all thanks to the popularity and inherently appealing concept of Jaws from 50 years ago.

This year, we saw four new shark movies knife into our waters. Easily the headline act was Dangerous Animals. Starring the absurdly charismatic Jai Courtney as a weirdly likeable shutterbug serial killer, Tucker carries the movie even to the point of it being enjoyable when the writers ditch sense and reason towards the end.

Somehow, we also got two lower-profile shark movies centred on a narcotics drop gone wrong. Into the Deep and the more CGI-heavy Great White Waters are very similar in premise but rather different in execution. Finally, and perhaps most intriguingly, is the October limited release Beast of War, which draws from the sinking of the HMAS Armidale off of East Timor during WWII.

The impact of Jaws half-a-century ago and today cannot be understated, creating a whole sub-genre of entertainment and spin-off efforts to right the ship to help redeem the perception of sharks. As such, few movies can claim to be as influential as Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece.