When Jaws hit the beaches – that is, theaters – in the summer of 1975, director Steven Spielberg was marked as Hollywood’s next hot wunderkind. After becoming the highest-grossing movie ever at the time, it was on its way to the Academy Awards. But it didn’t exactly pan out the way Spielberg expected, as he missed out on a coveted Best Director nomination. Fifty years on, he remembers the exact moment he felt he was snubbed.
In the upcoming National Geographic special Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story, Spielberg – who was 28 when Jaws was released – said that he believed so much of the hype that it was a shocking moment when he failed to land a Best Director nod. “When a film is on the cusp of being considered for awards, it’s not so much what you want for yourself — it’s what everyone else says is going to happen for you. So I just understood, ‘I guess I’m getting nominated.’ So when I wasn’t, I was surprised. And I was disappointed. Because I was believing the noise, and you have to not believe that stuff.” Instead, Spielberg would have to wait two more years for Close Encounters of the Third Kind to get him his first Best Director nomination. From there, he would earn a total of nine nominations in the category, trailing behind only Martin Scorsese (10) and William Wyler (12).
Especially 50 years later, we all know that Steven Spielberg absolutely deserved a Best Director nomination for Jaws. But given that that year ended up having one of the most stacked set of nominees ever in Federico Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman, and Miloš Forman, we can see why he didn’t make the cut.
For those who really want to feel bad for Spielberg, there’s a pretty famous video out there of him watching the 1976 Academy Award nominations come in live, playfully predicting Jaws to land 11. The video shows his real-time shock at missing Best Director, with him exclaiming, “I didn’t get it! I didn’t get it! I wasn’t nominated – I got beaten out by Fellini!” He then waits for the Best Picture nominations, where the shark did surface. Joe Spinell – the late star of Maniac (who has a small role in Jaws) is in the video too, exclaiming, “who do you think directed it – the shark?”
Putting yourself in 1976, do you think Steven Spielberg should have been nominated for Best Director for Jaws? Why didn’t he make the list of nominees?
