JAWS DIRECTOR STEVEN SPIELBERG TO MAKE OSCAR HISTORY?

Could Steven Spielberg be about to make Oscar history?

West Side Story has just danced onto cinema screens and the film and its director, Steven Spielberg, is getting rave reviews from film goers and critics alike.

Come Oscar night, if that translates to nominations for Spielberg, that would mean he will be the first director in history to be nominated for six Academy Awards in six separate decades.

That's not a bad record for this vicinity, not that Oscar and Steven Spielberg got off to the greatest of starts.

As the nominations for the 1976 Academy Awards were being announced, a confident Spielberg welcomed in a live TV crew to capture his reaction at being nominated for Jaws, let's just say it didn't quite go to plan...there was no Best Director nomination for Jaws. Cue Spielberg uttering those now famous lines: "I got beaten out by Fellini."

You can see the full moment unfold here:

Jaws did however go onto win three of the four Oscars it was nominated for.

The nominations did start coming for Spielberg, although he didn't get to take home an Oscar for one of his films until the 1994 Academy Awards when Schindler's List won both Best Picture and Best Director. He'd also win Best Director for Saving Private Ryan (1998).

Here's how all of Steven Spielberg's Oscar nomatiions play out over the last decades.

1970s

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Best Director - Oscar nominee 1978

1980s

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Best Director - Oscar nominee 1982

E.T. - the extra-terrestrial (1982)

Best Director - Oscar nominee 1983

Best Picture - Oscar nominee 1983

The Color Purple (1985)

Best Picture - Oscar nominee 1986

Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award

Winner - 1987

1990s

Schindler's List (1993)

Best Director - Oscar winner 1994

Best Picture - Oscar winner 1994

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Best Director - Oscar winner 1999

Best Picture - Oscar nominee 1999

2000s

Munich (2005)

Best Achievement in Directing - Oscar nominee 2006

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar nominee 2006

Letters From Iwo Jima (2096)

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar nominee 2007

2010s

War Horse (2011)

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar nominee 2012

Lincoln (2012)

Best Achievement in Directing - Oscar nominee 2013

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar nominee 2013

Bridge of Spies (2015)

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar nominee 2016

The Post (2017)

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Oscar nominee 2018

2020s

West Side Story's nominations are yet to be confirmed, but one thing is for sure, if it does get nominated then this won't be the last Oscar entry for Steven Spielberg.