The biggest night in television is nearly here. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards will take place Monday night, and the competition this year is fierce.
HBO’s medical drama “The Pitt” leads the pack with a whopping 25 nominations, followed closely by fellow HBO hit comedy “Hacks,” which earned 24 nominations. Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay” also racked up an impressive 19 nods across the comedy categories for its first season. In the limited series group of categories, “Pluribus” scored 18, “Beef” landed 16 and “DTF St. Louis” rounded out the top contenders with 13.
Here’s everything you need to know before the 2026 Emmys.
Where and when are the 2026 Emmys?
The 78th Emmy Awards will take place on Monday, Sept. 14, at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The show will air live on NBC starting at 8 p.m. ET and it will be available to stream on Peacock.
The red carpet pre-show coverage, led by CNN and Variety, will begin at 5 p.m.
Who’s hosting the 2026 Emmys?
“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay is hosting this year’s Emmy Awards.
The 62-year-old primetime star has portrayed Olivia Benson on “Law & Order: SVU” since its debut in 1999. It has aired 594 original episodes across 27 seasons in the decades since. Hargitay earned an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for the role in 2006.
She will be the first woman in 15 years to host the Emmy Awards alone. Before her, Jane Lynch flew solo back in 2011.
Drama frontrunners
“The Pitt” is expected to be a standout at the awards show this year, though it is facing some stiff competition from Apple TV’s rookie series, “Pluribus” as well as from the Sterling K. Brown-led “Paradise” and Netflix’s “The Diplomat.”
Other nominees this year in the drama category include “The Gilded Age,” “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” “Slow Horses” and “Your Friends & Neighbors.”
Last year, “The Pitt’s” first season cleaned up at the Emmys: it won Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. and Outstanding Casting. And it doesn’t appear the show’s momentum has stalled in its second season. It already nabbed an award for Ernest Harden Jr., who took home the guest actor trophy during the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month.
Comedy frontrunners
This year’s comedy race is a fierce showdown between “Hacks,” which wrapped its five-season run in May, and Apple TV’s breakout horror-comedy hit “Widow’s Bay.”
While “Hacks” has been nominated each year for the top comedy prize, it has only won once, for its third season, during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards, defeating heavy competitors like “The Bear” and “Abbott Elementary.”
“Widow’s Bay,” meanwhile, heads into the night with some serious wind in its sails, having completely dominated the Creative Arts Emmy Awards with a massive eight wins—including a Best Guest Actress trophy for Betty Gilpin.
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy
Despite facing off against some real Hollywood heavyweights, Matthew Rhys is the clear comedy frontrunner this year for his star turn as Mayor Tom Loftis in the first season of “Widow’s Bay.” Other nominees include Yahya Abdul-Mateen II for “Wonder Man,” Steve Carell, for “Rooster,” Jason Segel, for “Shrinking” and Martin Short in “Only Murders in the Building.”
Rhys is also separately nominated this year for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for “The Beast in Me.” Should he take home both awards on Monday, it will round out his Emmy lead trifecta. He previously won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama series for “The Americans” in 2018.
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama
Noah Wyle already has one Emmy for his role as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch on “The Pitt,” and it appears he is poised to win another — but he’ll have to beat the likes of Sterling K. Brown for “Paradise,” Gary Oldman for “Slow Horses,” Mark Ruffalo for “Task” and Rufus Sewell for “The Diplomat” to take home the trophy.
Many of Wyle’s “Pitt” co-stars earned nods this year, including Shawn Hatosy, Gerran Howell, and Patrick Ball for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. The Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series category is similarly crowded with “Pitt” stars, among them Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif, Katherine LaNasa and Sepideh Moafi.
Wyle also picked up nominations for directing and producing the hit HBO series.
Outstanding Lead Actress in Comedy Series
Jean Smart has gone four for four with her star-turn as unapologetic comedy diva Deborah Vance on HBO’s “Hacks.” A victory this year, for Hack’s fifth and final season, would mark a perfect sweep for 74-year-old Smart, who would also make Emmys history with a win on Monday. It would make her the first woman in television history to win an acting Emmy for every single eligible season of a series.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus previously came close with “Veep,” but her streak was ultimately broken in the final season by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who won for her starring role on “Fleabag.”
Other nominees include Quinta Brunson for “Abbott Elementary” Ayo Edebiri for “The Bear,” Elle Fanning in “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” and Lisa Kudrow in “The Comeback,” which also aired its final season this year.
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
This category is likely to go one of two ways. The first is that Rhea Seehorn will win the award for her work in the first season of “Pluribus.” The second is that Zendaya will win for her starring turn as Rue Bennett in the final season of “Euphoria.” While its third season was widely panned and failed to nab any other nominations this year, Zendaya’s performance was critically celebrated, and she has already taken home the Outstanding Actress award for both the first and second seasons.
Zendaya previously made history by becoming the youngest Lead Actress in a Drama Series winner in 2020 at age 24, and the youngest two-time winner in 2022 at age 26 for her role as Rue Bennett. If she wins on Monday, she will become the youngest performer (male or female) to win three lead drama Emmys.
Other nominees this year include Carrie Coon in “The Gilded Age,” Chase Infiniti for “The Testaments” and Keri Russell for “The Diplomat.”
The power couple
While Russell may be an underdog this year, if she and Rhys both take home acting Emmys, they’ll join a small club of couples who have both won acting trophies at the same ceremony.
Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt became the first married couple to win acting Emmys on the same night back in 1965. They both earned Outstanding Individual Achievements in Entertainment (Actors and Performers) for their roles in the NBC anthology presentation of “The Magnificent Yankee.” Then, in 1986, real-life couple William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett won Emmys on the same night for playing husband and wife — Dr. Mark and Ellen Craig — on the medical drama “St. Elsewhere.”
Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks also earned an acting trophy each during the 1999 Emmys. Bancroft won Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for “Deep in My Heart,” while Brooks won Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for “Mad About You.”
Both Russell and Rhys have previously both been nominated in the same year multiple times, most notably for their work together on “The Americans,” but Russell has not yet gone home a winner.
The Creative Arts Emmys
Some stars already earned their Emmys during the two-night Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Sept. 5 and 6. Most notable was the late Rob Reiner, who won Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Albert on “The Bear.”
Both Sabrina Carpenter and Bad Bunny also became first time Emmy-winners this year. The “Man Child” songstress won as an executive producer and performer on “The Muppet Show,” which won Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded). Bad Bunny meanwhile won for his Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, which took home seven awards, including Outstanding Variety Special (Live).
Other winners included Alan Cumming, who won Outstanding Host for a Reality Competition Program for “The Traitors,” and Jimmy Kimmel, who won Outstanding Host for a Game Show for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”