Given all of the financial and critical success of Jaws, when awards season rolled around, Spielberg was so convinced he was going to be nominated for an Oscar that he hired a camera crew to actually film him watching the nominations on television. "My name is Steve Spielberg and I just directed a movie called Jaws," he said on camera. "And Jaws is about to be nominated in 11 categories. You're about to see a sweep of the nominations. We're very confident in this very moment. So, if you all have a seat, we'll get on with it."
That, of course, never happened. The film wound up receiving only four nominations: for Best Picture and the three categories in which it eventually won, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, respectively. Naturally, Spielberg was upset by the outcome, expressing shock that the Academy voted for Italian director Frederico Fellini for Amarcord over his work on Jaws. "For my record, I am outraged that I wasn't nominated for Best Director for Jaws," he said. "This is called 'commercial backlash.' I don't know if anybody knows the word 'commercial backlash,' but when a film makes a lot of money, people resent it. Everybody loves a winner, but nobody loves a WINNER."
Crazy enough, even though he went on to film classics like E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Color Purple after Jaws, Spielberg did not win his first Oscar for Best Director until 1994. Granted, it was for the incredible Schindler's List, but yeah, the wait was insane.
