HBO Max had the bragging rights on Wednesday, as its series The Pitt and Hacks dominated their respective races. The Noah Wyle-led hospital drama topped all series with 25 nominations, while the swan-song season of Jean Smart’s comedy series scored a record 24 nods.
The proliferation of nominations traditionally indicates support across the Television Academy’s various branches. But how often do the shows with the most nominations actually go wire-to-wire and convert that momentum into the Best Series prize?
Twenty-four hours after the nominations were unveiled, both The Pitt and Hacks are leading the early Gold Derby predictions, which is a good indication of their strength. But there’s also some historical data in their favor.
An analysis of the past decade’s worth of Emmy ceremonies reveals that the drama with the most nominations has won Best Drama Series eight of 10 years, while the leading comedy has a slightly iffier path, only claiming Best Comedy Series 50% of the time.
Here’s a deep dive into the numbers.
BEST DRAMA SERIES
The Pitt’s 25 nods were a dozen more than Season 1 in 2025, when the show finished well behind Severance (27 nominations) in the overall tally, but still wound up winning Best Drama Series. That was the first instance since Westworld in 2017 that the most-nominated drama failed to claim the series race.
Aside from The Pitt, here are the other shows that made the cut this year: Pluribus (18 nominations); A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (nine), Slow Horses (nine), The Gilded Age (eight), The Diplomat (seven), Paradise (seven), and Your Friends & Neighbors (one).
In the past 10 years, here are the eight eventual Best Drama Series victors that went into their ceremonies with the most drama nominations:
Shōgun (25 noms) in 2024
Succession (27 noms) in 2023
Succession (25 noms) in 2022
The Crown (24 noms) in 2021 — tied with The Mandalorian
Succession (18 noms) in 2020 — tied with Ozark
Game of Thrones (32 noms) in 2019
Game of Thrones (22 noms) in 2018
Game of Thrones (23 noms) in 2016
Drama Series
1.
2.
3.
4.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
5.
6.
7.
8.
Your Friends and Neighbors
BEST COMEDY SERIES
Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder in the finale of ‘Hacks’HBO Max
For comedies, Hacks racked up two dozen total nominations, an all-time record for a comedy and one more than The Studio collected last year on its way to Best Comedy Series.
Here’s how the other Best Comedy Series contenders netted out: Widow’s Bay (18 nominations), Shrinking (10), The Bear (eight), Margo’s Got Money Troubles (eight), Abbott Elementary (seven), Only Murders in the Building (five), and Nobody Wants This (two).
Comedy Series
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Only Murders in the Building
6.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
7.
8.
But unlike Drama Series, nomination haul isn’t as reliable an indicator for Comedy Series. In fact, Hacks’ previous win for Best Comedy Series came in 2024, when it finished behind The Bear in total nods.
Here are the five examples in the past 10 years where the comedy with the most nominations ended up winning Best Comedy Series:
The Studio (23 nominations) in 2025
Ted Lasso (20 noms) in 2022
Ted Lasso (20 noms) in 2021
Veep (17 noms) in 2017
Veep (16 noms) in 2016
Ted Lasso lost to The Bear in 2023; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel lost to Schitt’s Creek in 2020; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel lost to Fleabag in 2019; and Atlanta lost to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2018.