Where Was ‘Jaws’ Filmed?

The Big Picture

• Jaws
  was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, a picturesque island in Massachusetts, giving it the ideal setting of safety and beauty.
• Many iconic scenes, such as the beach attack and downtown Amity Island, were filmed in real locations that still exist today.
• Some water scenes were filmed in the Atlantic Ocean, while others were filmed in southern Australia, and a terrifying scene was shot in a swimming pool in California.

Steven Spielberg changed cinema forever with Jaws in 1975, a movie that started our love affair with the summer blockbuster. From its characters, the slow burn story, the shark that barely worked, and especially John Williams‘ thrilling score, everything about Jaws hits. What sometimes gets overlooked, due to all of those iconic factors, is the film’s actual setting. The fictional setting of Amity Island, located in New England and created by Peter Benchley in his novel of the same name, is where the action takes place. It, too, works on so many levels, as it would be a boring film if the entire thing took place on the open water.

Instead, we get to meet the town and its residents. Most importantly, it’s where we first get to know one of our heroes. Amtiy’s new police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is new to town. Everything there is foreign to him, just as it is for us. Most interesting is the fact that Brody, a man on an island, who in time will have to face a killer great white shark, is afraid of water. Since Amity is a fictional location, what were the real spots used to give us one of the biggest and best films ever made?

‘Jaws’ Used Many Real-Life Locations

Jaws was not filmed on a big Hollywood set. No, Amity Island might not be a real place, but the place that represents it most certainly is. Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts is the locale used for Amity. It’s a perfect location. Martha’s Vineyard is an island too, and with its picturesque setting of sunny beaches, and a developed location with a wide array of beautiful buildings and busy city streets, it was the ideal epitome of safety. Nothing surely could go wrong in a place that looked like this. That’s true, as long as you stay out of the water.

Jaws opens with that iconic scene of the beach attack at night, where poor young Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) leaves the party on the beach she’s at and decides to go skinny-dipping. It’s the last decision she’ll ever make, as minutes later she is killed by a great white. The crew could have filmed this scene anywhere, but they stuck to their Martha’s Vineyard setting. It’s actually two locations that this scene takes place in. The beach scenes were filmed at Edgartown South Beach. The attack scenes, where Chrissie meets her demise, were filmed at Cow Beach.

Then there’s the town of Amity Island itself. The downtown, with its ultra white buildings, cute little shops, and thriving streets which look like a painting come to life, is the real downtown of Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. The hardware store, the local newspaper, the realtor’s office, and the town hall are real locations that still stand to this day. The hardware store is now a restaurant. Another part of Amity is Amity Harbor, where Brody meets Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) for the first time, is the actual Edgartown Harbor. The police station seen in the film is not a real police station. It was created for production, but its location is inside of a home also in Edgartown. The Brody homestead was a real home as well. It still stands to this day in Vineyard Haven, but after undergoing massive renovations in 2002, it no longer resembles the home from the film.

‘Jaws’ Most Memorable Moments Were Filmed on Martha’s Vineyard

One of Jaws’ more pivotal scenes involves Chief Brody with Amity Island’s mayor, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), on a ferry. Brody pleads for the mayor to shut down the beaches, but the mayor insists that everything is safe. That ferry wasn’t created for plot purposes. It’s a real ferry in Martha’s Vineyard that still runs to this day, going from Edgartown to Chappaquiddick.

Perhaps Jaws’ most frightening scene is when a small boy named Alex Kinter is killed by the shark. It’s heartbreaking to see his mother’s reaction to him being missing. It also gives us that iconic zoom-in shot on Brody’s shocked face. The scene served to show us that anyone could die, even a kid. If you were in the water, you weren’t safe, no matter who you are. The beach where the horror occurs is Joseph Sylvia Beach in Oaks Bluff.

Jaws’ most fascinating character is that of the eccentric Quint (Robert Shaw), a troubled fisherman who thinks he can catch the killer great white shark. Alas, the shack he has his shop set in is a Hollywood creation. It did exist on Martha’s Vineyard, but it was built only for the film, then torn down. The surrounding area, however, is very much a real thing and still exists. The small buildings in the area are located in Menemsha Village, Massachusetts.

Which ‘Jaws’ Scenes Were Filmed in the Atlantic Ocean?

Finally, there are those water scenes. One, where it feels safe because it’s so close to land, is the lagoon scene where the shark comes in under the bridge and topples over one boat, killing the man inside, and comes close to catching several kids in another boat, including Brody’s young son, Michael. That bridge, called the American Legion Memorial Bridge, still exists almost fifty years later. The lagoon, located between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, is called Sengekontacket Pond.

While the first half of Jaws sets up our characters and Amity Island, much of the last half of the movie takes place in the Atlantic Ocean on board Quint’s small ship, The Orca. These ocean scenes were filmed in an area between Oaks Bluff and East Chop. Two ocean scenes, however, were not filmed in Martha’s Vineyard. One involves the scene involving Hooper being attacked by the shark while he’s in a cage under The Orca. That shark was very much real and not a mechanical creation. Those moments were filmed with professional divers in southern Australia in Spencer Gulf and Dangerous Reef.

Steven Spielberg Filmed a Terrifying ‘Jaws’ Scene in a Swimming Pool

Another horrific scene from the movie didn’t take place on the open ocean in Massachusetts or Australia or anywhere. Rather, it was filmed in a swimming pool. Once principal filming was done, Spielberg thought something was missing. His film needed one more big moment, a scare that would shake audiences to their core. If Jaws was a horror film, it needed to be just a bit more horrifying. Enter the scene where Hooper goes underwater to explore the sunken fisherman’s boat. He jumps, and we do too, when a decapitated head pops out of a hole in the boat. This scene was done in Encino, California, in the backyard swimming pool of the movie’s film editor, Verna Fields. To make the clear pool water look more like foggy ocean water, Spielberg simply had a gallon of milk poured in.

In the modern era, so many of our big summer blockbusters are filmed on sets and green screens. In 1975, with Jaws, the shark may have been fake, but almost everything else, from the town and the townsfolk that populate it, to the ocean waters, are as real as it forgets. Five decades later, that commitment to realism makes Amity Island one of film’s most memorable settings.

Jaws is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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