While Steven Spielberg’s Jaws made normal people fear the ocean, it made a 12-year-old boy fall in love with filmmaking. Fast forward a few decades, and that boy is now an Oscar-winning director, Steven Soderbergh, who still can’t get over how jaw-droppingly brilliant Jaws was.
So, while speaking with Deadline, Steven Soderbergh said something bold. He claimed that no one but Steven Spielberg could have made Jaws. But here’s the plot twist—despite Jaws being a cinematic masterpiece and a highly influential work of art, Spielberg got snubbed at the 1976 Oscars.
Steven Soderbergh’s high praise for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws
When most of us watched Jaws, we screamed, and maybe even swore off the beach for life. But for a 12-year-old Steven Soderbergh, it was the moment he realized what he wanted to do for the rest of his life—make movies. The experience was so intense for him that he called it “the moviest movie” he had ever seen.
Speaking with Deadline, Steven Soderbergh noted that Jaws wasn’t just great—it was one of a kind. According to him, even when compared to other classics from that year like Barry Lyndon and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws stood in a league of its own. Why? Because no one else but Spielberg had the guts or skills to actually pull it off.
Overwhelmed, on a lot of levels. It was probably the moviest movie I’d ever seen at that point, this incredibly combustible combination of super-high concept and bravura filmmaking.
He then geeked out about the filmmaking itself—because let’s be honest, Jaws wasn’t just about a scary shark. It was about how that scary shark was made. Soderbergh admired the bold choices, the camera work, and most importantly, the pure chaos of filming in the middle of the ocean with a giant mechanical shark that barely worked.
Let’s say you look at the five movies nominated for [the Oscar] Best Picture that year… I would argue, though, that of the other four films that aren’t Jaws, there are other filmmakers that could have made versions of those movies… But there was no other director on the planet who could have survived and made Jaws.
It was just a totally unique property and a totally unique talent blowing up, and that’s why I think it still resonates, and it just keeps getting better because it’s all in camera… There’s no C.G. They were out there in the middle of a f*cking ocean. There’s a reason people don’t do that.
Steven Soderbergh was especially impressed that Jaws was made with zero CGI. Everything was done “in-camera,” meaning it was all real, physical, and gritty. “There’s no shortcut to that,” he said. “That shark was just a pneumatic mechanical device, in the actual ocean.” So while many modern directors rely on green screens and fancy computers, Spielberg went full old-school—and that’s what made it unforgettable.
Steven Spielberg was snubbed by the Oscars for Jaws
Turns out, Steven Soderbergh was somewhat right about the brilliance of Jaws. After all, the movie became a box office smash and scared the life out of an entire generation, way before Final Destination hit the theatres. But sadly, when it came to Oscar voters, they weren’t impressed enough to give Steven Spielberg a Best Director nod.
On the morning of February 17, 1976, Steven Spielberg was so confident that Jaws would sweep the Academy Award nominations, he invited a documentary crew to film his reaction. He expected Jaws to be “nominated in 11 categories”. But as he watched names like Stanley Kubrick and Federico Fellini pop up in the Best Director category, Spielberg’s face fell.
He slumped into his office chair, fists on his cheeks, in pure disbelief. “I didn’t get it!” he moaned, probably louder than the shark’s famous roar. Spielberg’s friends looked just as confused, probably wondering if the Academy had made some mistake. Now here’s the twist: Jaws still scored a Best Picture nomination, but Spielberg didn’t get any personal recognition.
Oh, I didn’t get it! I didn’t get it! I got beaten out by Fellini… It’s a dark day in Hollywood. Cancel my day! Cancel my week! I’m going to Palm Springs! This is called commercial backlash. … Everybody loves a winner, but nobody loves a winner.
In fact, Jaws was the only Best Picture nominee that year without a nominated director. Sadly, the film lost that award as well, winning only 3 Oscars for Original Score, Film Editing, and Sound Mixing. Meanwhile, Steven Spielberg tried everything, from joking about his Oscar snub to trying and make sense of it all.
But deep down, you could tell the snub hurt. However, history had the final laugh—because decades later, Jaws is considered one of the greatest films of all time.
Jaws is currently streaming in the US on Peacock and Starz.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
