'The Pitt' leads Emmy nominations with record-breaking 25 nods

Emmy nomination day sure wasn’t the pits for “The Pitt.” The hit HBO Max medical series —the incumbent Emmy drama winner — led all programs with a whopping 25 nominations, including outstanding drama and 13 acting nods (with star Noah Wyle up for lead actor). That was nearly double from last year’s 13 nominations for the show.

“The Pitt” was followed closely by another HBO Max smash, “Hacks,” which earned 24 nominations for its fifth season, the most ever for a comedy. (“Hacks” beat out the previous record holders, “The Bear” and “The Studio,” which both had 23.) Star Jean Smart is now in line to win her fifth Emmy for the show and her eighth overall, which would put her in a tie for the actress with the most Emmy acting wins in history.

Also coming in strong was freshman “Widow’s Bay,” the Apple TV horror comedy that saw a surge of interest toward the end of Emmy FYC season, and earned 19 nods. Also at Apple TV, twisty drama newcomer “Pluribus” earned a strong 18 nominations. The top limited/anthology series in nom tallies was Netflix’s second installment of “Beef,” which landed 16 nominations.

On the broadcast network side, the most noms went to NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” with 11 nominations.

Overall, thanks to the success of “The Pitt,” “Hacks” and “DTF St. Louis” (13 nominations), HBO Max far and away led the platform pack this year, with approximately 122 nominations (down from 142 last year, which had been a new record for the Warner Bros. Discovery outlet).

NBC and Peacock are broadcasting this year’s Emmys, set to air live from L.A. Live’s Peacock Theatre on Monday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. (NBC moves the Emmys to Monday when it airs the kudocast, due to Sunday Night Football.) As the network just announced, this year’s Emmys will be hosted by “Law & Order: SVU” executive producer/star Mariska Hargitay — repping the first time a woman has hosted the show in 15 years.

Among this year’s major rule changes, the TV Academy has merged talk and scripted variety back into one “outstanding variety series” field, but with a big change: the number of nominations coming from both fields will be tracked based on the number of submissions for each format.

And also, as part of the rule change, the Academy has also decreed that the outstanding variety series category will now be an “area” award. Nominees in “area” award categories aren’t competing against each other — they’re all independently trying to get at least 90% of Emmy voters to say “yes” when asked, “Does this nominee merit an Emmy?” Any nominated show will win an Emmy if 90% of voters agree. That means, potentially several winners could come out of this year’s nominee roster.

Among other Emmy rules changes the TV Academy announced in January are a new name for the TV movie category, which will now be known as “outstanding movie.” Also, the org revealed AI guidelines, made changes to the short form, sound mixing and music categories and also expanded eligibility in the casting, costume and lighting, camera & technical arts categories.

This year, 555 programs were submitted across the 14 program categories, down 7.5% from last year’s 600 entrants. That included 110 dramas, 71 comedies, 31 limited/anthology series, 34 movies, 18 variety series and 45 reality competition shows.

Jesse Collins, Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay of Jesse Collins Entertainment are executive producers of the Emmy primetime telecast. The two Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies, produced by Bob Bain Productions in association with the Television Academy, will take place Saturday, Sept. 5, and Sunday, Sept. 6.

Here are the nominees in major categories for the 78th Emmy Awards, which includes eligible shows that ran from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026.

-Variety