SHARK BAIT

Spielberg Reflects on Shock Over Oscar’s Snub for Hit Movie

The director recounts his surprise to the makers of a documentary about the blockbuster.

When Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, he was just 26 years old. The infamously chaotic filming process almost led him to lose his job. Little did Spielberg know the movie would become one of the most influential Hollywood blockbusters of all time (and, as Spielberg would come to regret, a contributor to a greater fear of sharks in the public imagination). When the movie was released, it became the highest-grossing film of its time. The buzz about the movie was so immense that the young Spielberg found himself disappointed when it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and its director, Miloš Forman, who won the prestigious Best Picture and Best Director Oscars at the 1976 Academy Awards. Spielberg hadn’t even been nominated for the director category. “I was surprised. And I was disappointed,” he reflects in National Geographic’s soon-to-be-released documentary Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story. (However, the director admits that he would also have chosen Forman’s movie for Best Picture.) Still, Jaws won three other Academy Awards that season. Spielberg, now 78, has since become a household name for his later films, including Schindler’s List, for which he was awarded both of the highly coveted Academy Awards, and Saving Private Ryan, for which he won another Best Director Oscar.