2026 Emmys nominations: The Bear, The Lowdown and Industry among surprises and snubs

Justice for Ethan Hawke should be the war cry of all today. It’s the most egregious of all the Emmys nominations snubs.

Wenlei Ma

The Nightly

5 Min Read

1 hour ago

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54 mins ago

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Widow's Bay is at the top of Apple’s tally. Credit: Supplied./TheWest

It’s Emmys nominations day which means it’s also the day of the annual ritual known as the snubs and surprises tally.

Any awards voting body will throw up some raised eyebrows, happy woos and a few angry face emojis. They’re never going to tally up completely with what you expect.

What was not surprising was The Pitt and Hacks led the way with the most nominations for a drama and comedy series, respectively, with the Noah Wyle-starring medical show picking up 25 nominations while the Jean Hacks comedy racked up 24.

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But they have some stiff competition in their categories from insurgent newcomers – Pluribus (18 nominations) in drama and Widow’s Bay (19 nominations) in comedy.

DTF St. Louis and Beef look to be the ones to beat in the limited series race with its 13 and 16 nominations respectively.

The ceremony will be broadcast on Monday, September 14 with Mariska Hargitay slated to be host.

Here are the key snubs and surprises from this year’s crop of the Emmys nominations.

SNUB: The Bear chokes on its own dish

Jeremy Allen White wasn’t even nominated. Credit: Disney/FX

The Bear was such a dominant force in its first and second seasons but has definitely lost favour with Emmy voters.

Maybe it’s to do with the years-long accusations of category fraud, competing in the comedy stakes for a series that isn’t ha-ha funny, or it’s just that a lot of people found it floundered in the third and fourth outings.

Because of the eligibility window (June 2025 to May 2026), these nominations are actually for its fourth season, and not the just released fifth and final chapter, which will compete at next year’s ceremony.

It still managed eight nominations this year, but that’s well down on previous years when it broke records with tallies in the 20s, and most of its main cast, including previous winners Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Liza Colon-Zayas, were blanked.

In the major categories, it nabbed recognition for Ayo Edebiri in lead actress in a comedy, comedy series, directing and a couple of guest acting nods, one for Jamie Lee Curtis and another for the late Rob Reiner.

SURPRISE: Apple TV scores with Widow’s, Pluribus and Margo

For a streamer that has a relatively small output compared to its rivals, Apple TV has increasingly become one to watch at the Emmys.

It is now the third most nominated streamer/network with 89 nods, behind HBO’s 122 and Netflix’s 111. But when you consider that Apple submitted 31 shows compared to HBO’s 86 and Netflix’s 125, that’s a much better conversion rate.

Top of Apple’s tally is Widow’s Bay, the horror-comedy breakout hit which scored a series nom, as well as ones for writing and directing. Its stars Matthew Rhys, Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Dale Dickey were also nominated, as were guest actors Betty Gilpin and Hamish Linklater.

Pluribus, Vince Gilligan’s off-beat dystopian drama, got 18 nominations in its first year including a much-deserved nod for Rhea Seehorn, who previously worked with Gilligan on Better Call Saul. She’s so good in this role as Carol, one of the dozen people left on Earth whose consciousness wasn’t absorbed into a hive mind.

Then Margo’s Got Money Troubles landed eight nominations including for actors Elle Fanning, Nick Offerman and Michelle Pfeiffer.

SNUB: Not getting down with The Lowdown

Emmy voters, what the hell? Did you all not watch The Lowdown, Sterlin Harjo’s excellent and strange neo-western with a superb five-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke?

That surely has to be the only reason because anyone who saw The Lowdown would’ve recognised it and Hawke’s performance as a scraggly and anarchic “citizen journalist” trying to unearth corruption in Tulsa, preferably without getting smashed in the face. He fails on that second count.

Harjo’s previous show, Reservation Dogs, didn’t get any Emmys love until the final season so maybe in two or three years’ time, The Lowdown will get its due.

The thing that really bites is that there was definitely room in both the comedy series and lead actor comedy categories where it should’ve shown up.

Excuse me, but that second season of Nobody Wants This was terrible and shouldn’t be anywhere that shortlist, and as much as we all love Martin Short and Only Murders in the Building, he could’ve made way for Hawke.

SURPRISE(ISH): A limited field for Limited Series

Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette was underwhelming. Credit: FX

For a good decade, the limited series category was where some of the most exciting TV series lived. We’re talking about the likes of Chernobyl, The Mare of Easttown, Watchmen and the first season of Big Little Lies (definitely not the second).

But if you look at the field this year, it’s pretty underwhelming – All Her Fault, The Beast in Me, Beef season two, DTF St. Louis and Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette.

Not one of these shows is particularly exciting, groundbreaking or surprising.

The second season of Beef doesn’t have the electricity of its predecessor, The Beast in Me was well-performed but largely forgettable, and Love Story was actually a bad soap opera with good fashion, albeit Sarah Pidgeon’s performance managed to rise above it.

All Her Fault had good performances – Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning are both nominated and that’s totally fine – but the show was overwrought, ludicrously plotted and derivative in a genre that needs to be retired.

DTF St. Louis is the one series that was doing something different, but even then, in two years’ time, are we still going to be talking about it like we do about Baby Reindeer?

SURPRISE NOT SURPRISED: Taylor Sheridan is still persona non grata

Michelle Pfeiffer in The Madison. Credit: Paramount

Taylor Sheridan might be the most prolific writer and producer on TV, and popular with audiences but the Emmys still don’t want a bar of him or his work.

Again, is it that the voters aren’t watching his shows? That may have been the case when the conversation around Yellowstone inaccurately flagged it as a Republican version of Succession.

But even if cowboys posturing for power aren’t your thing, it’s still semi-surprising that voters couldn’t find space for Michelle Pfeiffer for The Madison. That drama is about grief and Pfeiffer is well loved – she did nab another nomination though, but for Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

One Sheridan show, Tulsa King, scored a single nomination, for the below-the-line category of stunts. In fact, it was the only nomination the entire Paramount+ streaming platform got at all.

SNUB: Industry not industrious enough, apparently

Ken Leung and Myha'la in Industry season four. Credit: HBO

Despite all the love for other HBO shows, Industry still hasn’t been invited to the party.

The arch drama set among the financial set in the UK is widely beloved by critics and vocal online fans, but the Emmys continue to overlook it.

The recent fourth season has been a tad divisive – many love the heightened drama while some thought it jumped the shark – but the one thing that is undeniable is that this series has some banger performances.

So, where’s the love for Marisa Abela, Myha’la and, especially, Ken Leung? Leung had an incredible character arc this season that was ecstasy and agony to watch. The character has also exited the series, so that was his last shot. Justice for Ken Leung.