Richard Dreyfuss in the context of "American Graffiti"

Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley, it stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw), hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a New England summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the town's mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.

Shot mostly on location at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts from May to October 1974, Jaws was the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean and consequently had a troubled production, going over budget and schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks often malfunctioned, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the shark's presence, employing an ominous and minimalist theme created by composer John Williams to indicate its impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures released the film to over 450 screens, an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture at the time, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 American science fiction drama film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. The film depicts the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue-collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO), and Jillian Guiler, a single mother whose three-year-old son Barry is abducted during the same UFO manifestation.

Close Encounters was a long-cherished project for Spielberg. In late 1973, he developed a deal with Columbia Pictures for a science-fiction film. Though Spielberg received sole credit for the script, he was assisted by Paul Schrader, John Hill, David Giler, Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Jerry Belson, all of whom contributed to the screenplay in varying degrees. The title is derived from Ufologist J. Allen Hynek's classification of close encounters with extraterrestrials, in which the third kind denotes human observations of extraterrestrials or "animate beings". Douglas Trumbull served as the visual effects supervisor, while Carlo Rambaldi designed the aliens.

Poseidon is a 2006 American action disaster film directed and co-produced by Wolfgang Petersen. It is the third film adaptation of Paul Gallico's 1969 novel The Poseidon Adventure, and a loose remake of the 1972 film. It stars Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, and Richard Dreyfuss, with Emmy Rossum, Jacinda Barrett, Mike Vogel, Mía Maestro, Jimmy Bennett, and Andre Braugher in supporting roles.

It was produced by Virtual Studios and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It had a simultaneous release in IMAX format. It was released on May 12, 2006, and it was criticized for its lackluster script but was praised for its visuals and was nominated at the 79th Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects. It grossed $181.7 million worldwide on a budget of $160 million; however, after the costs of promotion and distribution, Warner Bros. lost $70–80 million on the film, making it a box-office bomb as a result.

The Lightkeepers is a 2009 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Daniel Adams, and stars Richard Dreyfuss, Blythe Danner, Bruce Dern, Mamie Gummer, Tom Wisdom and Julie Harris in her final film role. Zana Messia wrote the film's theme song.

In a two-week period beginning on Christmas 2009, the film earned $32,307 on a single screen.

The 68th Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1995 in the United States and took place on March 25, 1996, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by David Salzman and Quincy Jones and directed by Jeff Margolis. Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the second time, having previously presided over the 66th ceremony in 1994. Three weeks earlier, in a ceremony held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on March 2, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Richard Dreyfuss.

Braveheart won five awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included Apollo 13, Pocahontas, Restoration, and The Usual Suspects with two awards and Anne Frank Remembered, Antonia's Line, Babe, A Close Shave, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Lieberman in Love, Mighty Aphrodite, One Survivor Remembers, Il Postino: The Postman, and Sense and Sensibility with one. The telecast garnered almost 45 million viewers in the United States.