In the early hours of February 17, 1976, Steven Spielberg was ready to receive the first best director nod of his young career for Jaws. The nominees for the 48th Academy Awards were about to be announced; a documentary crew was on hand to film the 29-year-old boy wonder’s reaction. With the camera tight on his expectant face, the last name was read…but it wasn’t his. “Oh, I didn’t get it, I didn’t get it,” Spielberg said, unsuccessfully struggling to hide his anguish.
Jaws would, however, be nominated for best picture. It was joined by what is arguably the greatest group of best picture nominees of the past 50 years: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Milos Forman’s gut-wrenching drama starring Jack Nicholson as a shit-stirring inmate at a mental institution; Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, a sumptuous costume romance set in 18th-century England; Sidney Lumet’s heist-gone-wrong Molotov cocktail Dog Day Afternoon, starring Al Pacino; and Robert Altman’s kaleidoscopic ensemble piece Nashville.
Then 31, Michael Douglas was still a few years away from becoming a movie star. But he’d launched his producing career on Cuckoo’s Nest after his father, Kirk, gave up on turning the Ken Kesey novel into a film. (Kirk had starred in the Broadway version in 1963 and owned the rights.) Douglas saw the property as his chance to take his seat at the Hollywood table. “I didn’t think we had a shot to win against those other films,” Douglas says, 45 years later.
All five were strong contenders, though each had obstacles to overcome. Kubrick had been nominated as director three times before and was due for a win, but many found his films too cold and clinical. Altman had an irresistible underdog story with Nashville (Pauline Kael rescued the film from being dumped by its studio with her rave in The New Yorker), but he’d always had trouble playing nice with Oscar voters. Cuckoo’s Nest had been turned down by every major studio at one point or another due to its downbeat subject matter. Dog Day Afternoon was a hit with critics, but some moviegoers at the time were put off by its third-rail gay subplot. (Lumet recalled one audience member loudly calling Pacino a “fag” at a screening he attended.)
And then there was Jaws, the film Douglas assumed would win—though Spielberg wasn’t so sure. “There was a Jaws backlash,” the director would later say. “The same people who had raved about it began to doubt its artistic value as soon as it began to bring in so much money.”
Weeks later, Douglas sat behind Nicholson at the ceremony. He recalls his pal swiveling his neck after Cuckoo’s Nest lost its first four categories, saying, “Mikey D, I told ya!” But the tide soon turned. Cuckoo’s Nest would end up sweeping the top five categories on Oscar night—adapted screenplay, actress, actor, director, and picture. The after-parties, Douglas says, were an intoxicated blur. “You know how they say not to drink at your own wedding? Well, we didn’t take that advice. But I will say this: I think the Academy made the right choice.”
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