Jaws represented a huge leap forward in Steven Spielberg’s career, but the director was disappointed at the time that he didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for his work. Jaws remains one of Spielberg’s best movies, even though he was just 27 years old at the time. It also made history at the Oscars, becoming one of just a handful of horror movies which have been nominated for Best Picture. The genre has historically been overlooked by the Academy, but the quality of Jaws was hard to ignore. However, the Academy’s admiration for Jaws didn’t extend to a Best Director nod for Steven Spielberg.

In the National Geographic special Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Story, Spielberg revealed his true feelings when he learned that the Academy had pᴀssed him over for a Best Director nomination.

“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.”

Clearly, Spielberg had allowed himself to believe the industry buzz in the build-up to the Oscars, which made his disappointment even more palpable. He seems to be referring to the fact that Oscar nominations can grant a director access to new opportunities and a higher level of prestige in Hollywood. Spielberg may have missed out on a nomination for Jaws, but it’s fair to say his career rebounded.

What This Means For Steven Spielberg’s Career

The Academy’s Snub Was Only A Minor Setback

Although Spielberg may have been disappointed at the time, he found his Oscars success before too long. He received his first nomination two years later for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which proved to be just the first of nine total nominations so far. This puts Spielberg third in the list of directors with the most nominations, behind only Martin Scorsese on 10 and William Wyler on 12. Spielberg has also won the award twice so far, for 1993’s Schindler’s List and 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. He has received nominations in six different decades.

Our Take On Spielberg’s Oscars Snub

Jaws Is Great, But 1975 Was A Compeтιтive Year

Jaws has gone down as one of the best movies ever made, and it did get a Best Picture nomination to recognize its quality. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the Academy was wrong to snub Spielberg at the time. It’s worth remembering that 1975 produced plenty of classic movies, with several A-list directors operating at the top of their game. The Best Director nominees that year included Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Federico Fellini and Miloš Forman, who took home the prize for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It would be hard to displace any of these directors from the list of nominees.

Ultimately, Spielberg’s disappointment in 1976 would have mattered a lot more if the director had failed to bounce back. The glittering success of his career ever since has shown that it wasn’t such a terrible blow. It’s worth highlighting when Spielberg says “you have to not believe that stuff“. This suggests that he learned from his experience and adjusted his mindset moving forward. Not many directors find success in their 20s like Spielberg did, so he had to be mature beyond his years to deal with the movie industry and continue producing memorable films after Jaws.