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\n Keeping pace with Hollywood\u2019s awards horserace. Sign up for the newsletter here<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n And eight more fascinating findings unearthed from the hundreds of 2026 Emmy nominations. (From left: Tim Robinson in The Chair Company, Colman Domingo in The Four Seasons, Carey Mulligan in Beef.) Every year, the Emmy nominations<\/a> land with a thud<\/a>: dozens of categories, hundreds of nominees, far too many narratives to cover at once<\/a>. But now that the dust has settled, the Widow\u2019s Bay<\/a> bomb has dropped, The Pitt<\/a>\u2019s acting nominees have been accounted for, and the Hacks<\/a> farewell tour is officially booked, it\u2019s time for the real fun to begin, Let\u2019s dig through the mountain of TV Academy PDFs to find the low-simmering story lines, unusual superlatives, and odd record breakers that make following such an ungainly awards apparatus so much fun.<\/p>\n Once all the Emmy nominations were tallied last week, the HBO\u2013HBO Max combo came out on top with 122, followed by Netflix with 111 and Apple TV with 87. But if you zero in on the major categories (the ones presented on the main Emmys telecast), Apple jumps to second place, outpacing Netflix 29 to 26. And of those 26 major Netflix nominations, 19 are concentrated in the Limited\/Anthology Series categories, where Beef, The Beast in Me, Black Rabbit, Death by Lightning, and Monster: The Ed Gein Story all scored multiple nods. For the second straight year, Netflix\u2019s only series nominations in Comedy and Drama were Nobody Wants This and The Diplomat, respectively, with Nobody Wants This pulling in only two nominations (for Music Supervision, too).<\/p>\n You can look at this two ways: First, Netflix is a powerhouse when it comes to limited series. Since getting its first Outstanding Limited Series nomination for Godless in 2018, Netflix has been nominated 15 times in that category, well ahead of the totals for HBO (nine), FX (seven), and Hulu (four) in that same time period. Netflix is the only platform to have had at least one Limited Series nominee every year since 2018, it\u2019s had multiple nominees in five of those nine years, and it\u2019s won four times in the last five years.<\/p>\n The second way to look at it is that Netflix is increasingly only an Emmy player in the Limited Series categories. Of those 26 major-category nominations, 18 came from its limited series: Beef, The Beast in Me, Black Rabbit, Death by Lightning, and Monster: The Ed Gein Story. (The 19th was for Sally Field in Remarkably Bright Creatures, a TV movie.) In the Creative Arts categories, Netflix\u2019s limited series picked up another 26 nominations, meaning 44 of Netflix\u2019s 111 total nominations \u2014 about 40 percent \u2014 come from limited series. Compare that to the 34 nominations (31 percent) in comedy and drama series combined. Of those series, only The Diplomat (six nominations) and Nobody Wants This (two nominations) were recognized in major categories. The bulk of Netflix\u2019s comedy and drama nominations come from strong craft-category tallies of Stranger Things (seven), Wednesday (six), and Bridgerton (four). Stranger Things has ended. Nobody Wants This is trending downward. Continuing shows like The Night Agent, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Witcher, A Man on the Inside, Running Point, and Big Mistakes have never been Emmy players in the first place and were shut out again this year.<\/p>\n Now, look at the limited series Netflix has lined up for next Emmy year: the highly anticipated East of Eden adaptation starring Florence Pugh; the Sam Bankman-Fried crypto-scam series The Altruists; the Pride and Prejudice adaptation starring Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden, and Olivia Colman; a new season of Monster about the Lizzy Borden killings starring Rebecca Hall and Vicky Krieps; the JonBenet Ramsey limited series starring Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen; the teen psychodrama The Body from Under the Bridge producer Quinn Shephard<\/a>; adaptations of the novels My Brilliant Career and Unaccustomed Earth. There\u2019s every reason to believe Netflix will again be a force to reckon with in next year\u2019s Limited Series categories. Yes, it looks like Apple has usurped Netflix\u2019s place at the center of the TV Zeitgeist, but if Netflix chooses to lean in to what\u2019s been working for it, it\u2019s Emmy fortunes should stay afloat.<\/p>\n For only the third time in the last ten years, seven of this year\u2019s acting nominees in the lead, supporting, and guest designations are their show\u2019s single Emmy nominee:<\/p>\n \u2022 Wonder Man\u2019s Yahya Abdul-Mateen Five of these seven shows are new, with Bait and Half Man as limited series not set to return. Whether the nominations for Abdul-Mateen, Carell, and Infiniti will serve as a beachhead for further Emmy success for Wonder Man, Rooster, and The Testaments in the years ahead is an open question. That kind of thing has happened before, most recently when Keri Russell was The Diplomat\u2019s lone nomination for its first season in 2023. Two years later, it\u2019s a seven-time nominee with back-to-back placements in Outstanding Drama.<\/p>\n Domingo\u2019s nomination for The Four Seasons marks the second year in a row that he\u2019s that show\u2019s single nomination. Don Cheadle was the last actor to pull that off when he was Black Monday\u2019s only nominee in both 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n Finally, Billy Crudup\u2019s fourth nomination in four tries for The Morning Show (he won in 2020 and 2024) is the only nomination for the show\u2019s fourth season. That\u2019s down from 16 nominations for season three. The Emmys haven\u2019t seen a season-to-season drop like that since 2023, when it happened to three shows: The Mandalorian (down from 24 nominations in 2021 to nine in 2023), The Crown (down from 24 nominations in 2021 to six in 2023), and The Handmaid\u2019s Tale (down from 21 nominations in 2021 to only one in 2023).<\/p>\n More than anything, these lone nominations show how much star power matters when it comes to Emmy voting. Chase Infiniti\u2019s heat coming off One Battle After Another was enough to power her campaign more strongly than her show\u2019s. Abdul-Mateen, Carell, Crudup, and Domingo are past Emmy winners. Richard Gadd\u2019s sweep for Baby Reindeer retained some goodwill even if the voters were less enamored of Half Man. Riz Ahmed is an Oscar nominee and Emmy winner (for The Night Of; he was also nominated for Girls). If the quickest path to getting an Emmy nomination is to be on a show voters love, the second-quickest path is to be someone they already love.<\/p>\n Reminder: The nominations for the Series categories are voted on by the entire academy; the other categories are voted on by the individual branches. This makes for some fascinating choices in the writing and directing categories; amid the expected double nods for Series nominees The Pitt, Pluribus, Abbott Elementary, and Hacks were a few outliers.<\/p>\n In the Comedy category, HBO\u2019s The Chair Company pulled in a writing nomination for series creators Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin, while Andrew DeYoung scored a Best Director nomination. The series, which follows a minor workplace embarrassment that leads Robinson\u2019s character to investigate a wide-ranging conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, was critically embraced when it premiered in the fall. Given Robinson and Kanin\u2019s penchant for pressing on the discomfort and desperation of their characters, it was never going to be a show with broad appeal, but the writers and directors, sickos<\/a> that they are, were clearly impressed by the show\u2019s unhinged, paranoid charms and responded with their votes.<\/p>\n In the Drama categories, Brad Ingelsby\u2019s feel-bad crime drama Task was predicted by many to be an Outstanding Drama Series nominee, but it narrowly missed in favor of fellow first-year HBO show A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and surprise nominee Your Friends and Neighbors. But the writers and directors showed themselves to be big fans of Task\u2019s moral compromises and bleak outlook on desperate communities. Ingelsby was nominated for writing the season finale, while Salli Richardson-Whitfield picked up her second of two nominations in the directing category, having also been nominated for The Gilded Age\u2019s ball-centric finale<\/a>. Directors are only able to submit one episode for Emmy consideration per show, so it\u2019s incredibly rare to see a double nomination; Richardson-Whitfield\u2019s double nominations were the first in the Drama directing category since 1967, when Paul Bogart was nominated for directing the Hal Holbrook one-man show Mark Twain Tonight! and CBS Playhouse\u2019s \u201cThe Final War of Olly Winter.\u201d<\/p>\n While stray writing and directing nominations \u2014 that is, nominations for shows that didn\u2019t get Drama Series or Comedy Series nominations \u2014 are decently common, it\u2019s rare that a show will get nominated by both the writers and directors and still get shut out from the top categories. Since the Drama Series and Comedy Series categories first expanded beyond five nominees in 2009, it\u2019s happened four times in Comedy and three times in Drama. Louis C.K.\u2019s Louie did it in 2012, before returning as a Comedy Series nominee in 2013, 2014, and 2015; Showtime\u2019s Episodes got the double in 2014; Hulu\u2019s historical comedy The Great got writing and directing nods in 2020; and just last year, the second season of Nathan Fielder\u2019s The Rehearsal pulled it off. In Drama, it happened for AMC\u2019s buzzy first season of The Killing in 2011, Apple TV\u2019s Bad Sisters in 2023, and in a case that amounts to a technicality, The Handmaid\u2019s Tale in 2019, a year when five of the show\u2019s second-season episodes aired after the previous year\u2019s eligibility cut-off, so those episodes were eligible for episode-specific awards (writing, directing, guest-acting, and craft awards) but not for Drama Series.<\/p>\n Even though it\u2019s a bummer for these shows to not get placement in the Emmys\u2019 top categories, there\u2019s a badge-of-honor element to these nominations\u00a0\u2014 writers tend to know good writing, and directors tend to know good directing.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve talked<\/a> a lot<\/a> about the power bloc in the Comedy categories, where Hacks, Abbott Elementary, Only Murders in the Building, and The Bear have been posting up since 2021. Over the past four years, these four shows have accounted for 77 of the total 181 major nominations in Comedy. Though The Bear saw its nomination total slip again, all four of these shows remained Outstanding Comedy Series nominees. Having premiered in the same season, Abbott Elementary and Only Murders in the Building both qualified for a rare distinction this year \u2014 or they will if neither of them wins Comedy Series, which neither are expected to do. They\u2019re only the third and fourth shows ever to be nominated for Comedy Series five straight times without winning. The only previous shows to pull this off were Silicon Valley from 2014 to 2018 (losing three times to Veep, bookended by losses to Modern Family and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and The Larry Sanders Show, which went six years in a row during the heyday of Seinfeld and Frasier from 1993 to 1998.<\/p>\n Sure, there\u2019s something of a Glenn Close quality to being nominated so many times without winning. But TV is a medium marked by staying power, so to stay at the top for so long, year after year, is a feat, one that even all-time greats like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls, and Family Ties couldn\u2019t pull off.<\/p>\n Saturday Night Live performances \u2014 both regular cast members and guests \u2014 used to be the domain of the now-defunct Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program category. Chevy Chase won there, as did Gilda Radner and Dana Carvey. Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Tine Fey were among the nominees over the years. After the category was discontinued in 2009, the SNL performers were made eligible in the general Comedy categories with hosts and walk-on performers eligible in Guest Actor\/Actress.<\/p>\n That year, Justin Timberlake and Tina Fey won the Guest Actor and Guest Actress in a Comedy awards for their SNL appearances, and from there the floodgates opened. In the 18 years since they were made eligible, SNL guest performers have earned 58 nominations and 14 wins. Justin Timberlake has two Emmys for hosting SNL. So do Jimmy Fallon and Dave Chappelle. Three of Louis C.K.\u2019s 39 (!) career Emmy nominations have come from hosting SNL. It\u2019s less depressing on the women\u2019s side of things, which has mostly been the domain of Tina Fey and the stars of Bridesmaids. You can\u2019t complain about Maya Rudolph getting seven nominations and two wins over the years. Between 2016 and 2021 (so the entirety of Trump 1.0), SNL guest hosts were nominated 31 times (averaging almost exactly five noms per year) and won eight trophies.<\/p>\n But for the moment, the era of SNL owning the guest categories appears to be over. Last year was the first since 2009 where SNL was shut out of the guest-acting nominations. Last year, The Studio barged in and gobbled up six nominations; this year, Hacks did the same. But it\u2019s not like strong competition had ever been a problem for SNL guests before. When The Bear racked up five guest nominations in 2024, its peak Emmy year, SNL still managed nominations for Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, and Ryan Gosling.<\/p>\n This also marked only the second year since 2009 that no Saturday Night Live regulars were nominated in the Supporting Actor or Supporting Actress categories, despite significant buzz (and campaigning) for Ashley Padilla<\/a> and Marcelo Hernandez. The show\u2019s only performance nominee this year ended up being Connor Storrie<\/a>, a nomination that can easily be chalked up to his notoriety for Heated Rivalry and to make up for Heated Rivalry being ineligible overall.<\/p>\n It\u2019s tough to argue that SNL didn\u2019t have strong contenders with good Emmy narratives. Former cast members Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler were on the nomination ballot, as were previous nominee Ryan Gosling (for hosting in 2024) and previous winner Melissa McCarthy (for hosting in 2017). Colman Domingo got nominated in two other performance categories this year, and Bad Bunny\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show pulled in nine total nominations \u2014 clearly voters were into both. But for whatever reason, SNL didn\u2019t inspire the urge to vote that Hacks or Shrinking or Widow\u2019s Bay did.<\/p>\n It\u2019d be foolish to ring any kind of death knell for Saturday Night Live at the Emmys. Its nomination history has always ebbed and flowed. But it used to seem like Emmy voters scanned the guest-acting ballot for SNL guest hosts and voted for three to five of their favorite ones, and for the time being, that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n Saying \u201crough year for the Kennedys\u201d feels simultaneously like an overstatement (considering the actually rough years the Kennedys have experienced throughout the last century) and an understatement (Jack Schlossberg ate it hard in his Democratic congressional primary; RFK Jr.\u2019s quest to kill Americans with preventable disease continues apace). But it was hard not to notice that Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette\u2019s underperformance in the Emmy nominations was mostly a case of snubs for the cast members who played Kennedys.<\/p>\n Paul Anthony Kelly\u2019s not exactly exalted performance as JFK Jr. missing out on a nomination wasn\u2019t too terribly shocking (nor was it unjust), but pretty much every Emmy pundit was expecting nominations for Grace Gummer as a bereft Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. As much as some people found Naomi Watts\u2019s melodramatics as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to be over the top, it seemed like the kind of over the top that would work on awards voters. I even thought Jessica Harper\u2019s primly domineering Ethel Kennedy might warrant a nomination. Not so! Instead, Sarah Pidgeon\u2019s locked-in nomination for playing Carolyn was joined by Constance Zimmer\u2019s more controlled and affecting turn as the practical and ultimately devastated mother of the Bessette women.<\/p>\n Tempting as it is to attribute this to the voters en masse lifting up their \u201cBESSETTES FOREVER, KENNEDYS NEVER\u201d placards, it was more likely a case of the voters being less enthused with the show overall. Alessandro Nivola\u2019s widely predicted nomination for playing Calvin Klein never materialized, after all.<\/p>\n If you watched the televised nomination announcement last week, you wouldn\u2019t have heard a peep about the MGM+\u2013Prime Video series Spider-Noir. You might be surprised, then, to learn the series \u2014 a live-action superhero tale loosely spun off from the animated Spider-Verse movies where Nicolas Cage voiced the character \u2014 picked up 11 nominations. That\u2019s a better Emmys performance than Shrinking, Slow Horses, The Bear, The Beast in Me, Margo\u2019s Got Money Troubles, and RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race. It\u2019s obviously the best Emmy performance by an MGM+ series ever and ranks with the best Emmy hauls for a Prime Video show alongside The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the first season of Fallout.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an Emmy achievement accomplished entirely outside the realm of the major categories. All 11 nominations are Creative Arts categories: cinematography, production design, makeup, editing, music. If you take away guest-acting nominations and focus purely on technical and craft achievements, no other show on TV outperformed Spider-Noir with only Hacks equaling its 11 nominations.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the kind of nomination portfolio that you see much more often at the Oscars, where movies like The Dark Knight or The Matrix pick up gobs of nominations in tech categories without the benefit of Best Picture placement. Spider-Noir, if you go by the artisans who vote in their respective Emmy branches, is the technical and craft achievement of the year.<\/p>\n A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was a pleasant surprise for many as an Outstanding Drama Series nominee. Not only did it suggest that half-hour (or close to it, anyway) shows could contend in the Drama category, but it also proved that the Academy\u2019s taste for the tales of Westeros has not been lost. This would be very good news for the folks at House of the Dragon, whose currently airing third season found the Game of Thrones sweet spot of scattering a bunch of interesting characters across the map and letting them maneuver their way around the show\u2019s dynastic concerns.<\/p>\n House of the Dragon got an Outstanding Drama Series nomination in 2023, though only eight total nominations that year. Last year, that tally dropped to six total nominations, none in the major categories. But it turns out the fire that Emmy voters used to have for George R.R. Martin\u2019s fantasy universe hasn\u2019t been extinguished after all. Sustaining the buzz of a well-performing third HoTD season all the way to next July\u2019s nominations won\u2019t be easy for HBO, but I\u2019d say its chances look better than they did a week and a half ago.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my favorite Emmy stat that I\u2019ve come across in quite a while: The Outstanding Directing nominees in Comedy, Drama, and Limited\/Anthology each feature the wordiest episode title in the history of that category.<\/p>\n In Comedy, Andrew DeYoung is nominated for directing The Chair Company\u2019s premiere episode, titled \u201cLife Goes by Too F**King Fast, It Really Does.\u201d At nine words, it ties the previously sole record holder, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, which in 1991 was nominated for series finale \u201cHere\u2019s a Little Touch of Harry in the Night.\u201d<\/p>\n In Drama, Salli Richardson-Whitfield\u2019s nomination for Task is for the episode \u201cOut Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing, There Is a River.\u201d At 11 words, it outpaces the previous record holder, Sirens, the early-\u201990s Canadian American cop drama that in 1993 was nominated for an episode called \u201cWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Love.\u201d<\/p>\n In Limited\/Anthology, Jake Schreier is nominated for directing the Beef episode \u201cIt Will Stay This Way and You Will Obey.\u201d That nine-word title bests the two previous record holders: Ryan Murphy\u2019s 2017 nomination for directing the \u201cAnd the Winner Is\u2026 (The Oscars of 1963)\u201d episode of Feud: Bette and Joan, and Nicole Kassell\u2019s 2020 nomination for the Watchmen episode (and Oklahoma!-quoting) \u201cIt\u2019s Summer and We\u2019re Running Out of Ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: HBO, Netflix\n <\/p>\n
\u2022 Bait\u2019s Riz Ahmed
\u2022 Rooster\u2019s Steve Carell
\u2022 The Morning Show\u2019s Billy Crudup
\u2022 The Four Seasons\u2019s Colman Domingo
\u2022 Half Man\u2019s Richard Gadd
\u2022 The Testaments\u2019s Chase Infiniti<\/p>\n