Experience JAWS: The Exhibition At The Academy Museum This Month
Inside the multiple galleries with over 200 original items and interactive elements.
We popped into the Academy Museum for an early press preview of their new installation, Jaws: The Exhibition, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, and will remain on view through July 26, 2026. The exhibit is the museum’s first large-scale exhibition for a single movie. And large-scale it is. Visitors will find over 200 objects within the galleries, many never before publicly displayed, including materials from the personal collections of Steven Spielberg and the Amblin Hearth Archive, the NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, and the vast Academy Collection.
Visitors will find screen-used props, behind the scenes photos and paraphernalia, and even interactive elements. Museum goers will have the opportunity to put their acting skills to the test when they take a seat in a beach chair to recreate Chief Brody’s iconic dolly zoom shot.
The Academy Museum has also announced that in 2028, it will honor the legacy of Steven Spielberg and mount the first-ever retrospective exhibition dedicated to Spielberg’s era-defining career, providing visitors with insight into his creative process and bringing them closer than ever to his filmography.
Jaws: The Exhibition unfolds in a way intended to expand on the three-act structure of the film, the story is told in six sections: “The Unseen Danger,” “Amity Island Welcomes You,” “Sunday at the Beach,” “The Shark’s Rampage,” “Adventure Ahead,” and “Into the Deep.” A seventh, concluding gallery explores the enduring impact of the film.
Along the way, visitors will also “meet” the people behind the scenes through props and artifacts, as well as museum placards that tell the stories behind the scenes.
Additional interactive elements include the chance to play John Williams’ now infamous two-note Jaws theme, and a chance to control Bruce the shark thanks to a scale replica.
The preview was opened up by the Hollywood Scoring Orchestra playing Williams’ legendary score, and the morning’s orchestra actually included two musicians who played on the original film score recording.
