Jaws turns 50 with a special airing on TV tonight, June 20

Happy 50th anniversary to Jaws, the classic Steven Spielberg movie that helped usher in the blockbuster era and made plenty of people cautious about going into the water. Today, June 20, is the exact day Jaws was released in movie theaters, and to celebrate, you can watch it on TV tonight.

Specifically, NBC is going to have a three-hour broadcast of Jaws starting at 8 pm ET/PT, allowing anyone with a traditional pay-TV subscription, TV antenna or live TV streaming service (i.e., Fubo, Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV or YouTube TV) to tune in and watch Jaws. Not only that, but to commemorate the anniversary, NBC’s broadcast is also going to feature a special introduction from Spielberg.

Jaws, for anyone that needs a refresher, takes place in a small beachside town that becomes terrorized by a great white shark. It falls on the local sheriff, a marine biologist and an old seafarer to hunt the killer shark. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw star.

Jaws was a massive success upon its release. It became the first movie to gross more than $100 million at the box office and held the title of highest-grossing movie of all time for a couple of years (until Star Wars came along). It also had award success, with the movie earning four Oscar nominations and three wins, only missing out on Best Picture. The movie’s critical reception heralds it as an all-time great — earning spots on the American Film Institute’s 100 greatest American movies of all time list, Sight & Sound’s greatest movies of all time list and WTW’s own best movies of all time rankings.

While it is the movie that is credited as Spielberg’s breakout, it was not actually Spielberg’s first big-screen movie. That was The Sugarland Express, which came out a year prior. But Jaws took the young director (he was 29 at the time of the release) to a whole new level.

There are plenty of iconic moments from the movie that make Jaws such a great watch: the opening shark attack, the classic John Williams’ score and the iconic (yet often misquoted) line “you’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

If you’re excited to watch Jaws for its 50th anniversary but aren’t able to tune in to NBC’s broadcast of the movie on June 20, it is currently streaming on Peacock, along with all four movies from the franchise and Spielberg’s special introduction.

This is not the only special programming centered around Jaws’ 50th anniversary. National Geographic is going to air the behind-the-scenes documentary Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story on Friday, July 11, at 8 pm ET/PT; it will also stream on Disney Plus the same day.

Again, Jaws airs on NBC at 8 pm ET/PT on Friday, June 20.