Back to selection
Considerations
Covering the annual film industry awards races, with sharp commentary on the pictures, the players, the money, and the spectacle. by Tyler Coates
The Emmys’ Locks, Hopefuls, and Snubs
The Testaments (2026–) This morning, Emmy winners Liza Colón-Zayas (The Bear) and Jeff Hiller (Somebody Somewhere, nominated again this year for his guest role in Pluribus) announced the nominees for the 78th Emmy Awards, which will be handed out across three ceremonies (one for primetime categories, two for creative arts) in September. And despite a packed TV season with too many contenders to count, the two series with the most nominations were sure things, both from HBO Max: The Pitt dominated the drama categories with 25 nods, and Hacks set a record for the most comedy noms in a single year with 24. Even the limited/anthology series category was led by a returning series in Netflix’s Beef, which garnered 16 nominations.
Naturally, the aforementioned shows also dominated the acting categories. The Pitt’s Noah Wyle, who won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama last year, was recognized again in that category (and as a producer and director). The show’s ensemble cast landed half of the nominations in the supporting actor and actress categories—with nods for Patrick Ball, Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif, Shawn Hatosy, Gerran Howell, Katherine LaNasa, and Sepideh Moafi—and an additional five for guest performers.
Hacks’ Jean Smart is likely to collect her fifth consecutive Emmy for the comedy series, and Hannah Einbinder is nominated again for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, the category she won last year. The series’s cocreator and co-showrunner, Paul W. Downs, is nominated for writing, producing, and his supporting role. For her part as his character’s assistant, Megan Stalter picked up her first nomination. Hacks also earned five of the seven noms for guest actress in a comedy for Leslie Bibb, Cherry Jones, Laurie Metcalf, Kaitlin Olson, and Lauren Weedman.
It was a solid year for two debut series on Apple TV, as well, with Pluribus—a breakout hit for the streamer last fall—collecting 18 noms across the drama categories. Widow’s Bay became the biggest show of the summer on the strength of word-of-mouth buzz, and has now earned 19 comedy noms. Rhea Seahorn and Matthew Rhys received nods for their leading roles in their respective series (Rhys picked up another nomination for his role in the limited series The Beast in Me, and is also nominated as a producer on Widow’s Bay). More exciting are the lesser-known supporting players from each show who were recognized: Pluribus’s Carlos-Manuel Vesga and Karolina Wydra, and Widow’s Bay’s Kate O’Flynn. (The latter joins veteran character actors Dale Dickey and Stephen Root, also nominated for the horror comedy.)
Elsewhere, two young stars are vying for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama: The Testaments’ Chase Infiniti and Euphoria’s Zendaya (the latter is the youngest winner in the category, having collected the prize for the HBO series’s first season when she was 26); both managed to earn nominations despite their respective shows not making it into the top series category. The same is true of The Comeback’s Lisa Kudrow, Rooster’s Steve Carell, and Task’s Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey—all big stars fronting HBO series that failed to land series noms. But HBO’s limited series DTF St. Louis fared well with 13 nominations, including supporting nods for Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini, David Harbour, Richard Jenkins, and Joy Sunday.
With such a crowded field of contenders, it’s hard to describe the absence of certain nominees as “snubs”—and yet, there are some surprising omissions this season. While The Bear did earn a nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, only three performers from the show were recognized in the acting categories: previous Emmy winners Ayo Edebiri and Jamie Lee Curtis, plus a posthumous nomination for Rob Reiner (the latter two for their guest roles); that Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach have each already won two Emmys for the show and were left off this year’s list suggests that the FX comedy’s reign has come to an end. (The fifth and final season, which dropped on Hulu in June, will be eligible for next year’s Emmys.)
While the majority of Beef’s all-star cast earned acting nominations—Oscar Isaac, Charles Melton, Carey Mulligan, and Youn Yuh-jung—Cailee Spaeny and Song Kang-ho were the Netflix anthology series’s two notable snubs. Abbott Elementary’s Sheryl Lee Ralph was also passed over, though her costars Quinta Brunson, Janelle James, and Tyler James Williams did break in. HBO’s buzzy Industry was empty-handed this morning, once again proving it’s not a hit with Emmy voters, while new comedies like HBO’s I Love LA, FX’s The Lowdown, and NBC’s The Fall and Rise of Reggie Jenkins were also overlooked. And despite being behind some of TV’s most-watched drama series, Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan has still yet to receive an Emmy nom even as he added more projects (including Dutton Ranch, Landman, The Madison, Mayor of Kingstown, and Tulsa King) to his slate.
There’s an easy explanation for the lack of Emmy attention for one massive hit: The gay romance Heated Rivalry is technically a Canadian production, and thus not eligible for submission. But its breakout star Connor Storrie did land a Guest Actor in a Comedy nom for hosting Saturday Night Live—the sole acting nomination for the sketch series—in a category where it typically earns attention for its A-list hosts.
Now we enter Phase Two of the Emmy season, with final voting opening in less than six weeks, on August 17. Some of these races will be easier to call than others—all of those nominations for Hacks and The Pitt almost guarantee their wins in the top series categories, while the limited/anthology race is a competitive one between Beef, DTF St. Louis, and Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. And while folks like Jean Smart, Matthew Rhys, Rhea Seehorn, and Noah Wyle seem like shoo-ins, there’s still formidable competition in each of their categories. With such a massive voting body and a lot of television to watch, the strategists behind this season’s campaigns still have a lot of work ahead of them—and unlike the Oscars, there are more opportunities for upsets and surprises in the lead-up to the September 14 primetime ceremony.
