“You’re gonna need a bigger boat” was made famous by the 1975 movie Jaws. Roy Scheider says the line as police chief Martin Brody after seeing the enormous great white shark threatening the crew’s small vessel.
The film follows Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper, and shark hunter Quint as they pursue the shark terrorizing Amity Island. Brody’s understated reaction became one of cinema’s most recognizable moments because it turns the film’s danger into a simple, unforgettable observation.
The line is often misquoted as “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” but the commonly quoted version is “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” It is also frequently described as an ad-lib by Scheider, although accounts of the screenplay and production history vary on exactly how much of the wording was improvised.
Jaws was directed by Steven Spielberg and adapted from Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel. The American Film Institute ranked the quote 35th on its list of the greatest American movie quotations, cementing its place in film history.