The biggest stars at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival hoped to bring light to tumultuous times at the seventh annual TIFF Tribute Awards on Saturday night. Nearly every honoree mentioned the state of the world during their acceptance speeches, while also emphasizing that in times of strife, art is more necessary than ever.
“Even though we don’t really want to talk about it at this celebration of our industry, it is important to acknowledge the pain the world is feeling,” said Idris Elba while accepting the Impact Media Award. The star of Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming film AHouse of Dynamite was being honored for cofounding the Elba Hope Foundation, which focuses on advancing equity through youth advocacy.
“I’m taking this award for us to remind ourselves to make an impact—make an impact on our world by feeling something, no matter where you stand on whatever conflict is going on in the world, feel something,” he added. “Our children, our children’s children, they need to know that we felt something.”
The fundraising gala, in partnership with Rolex, is held annually during the first weekend of the festival at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. This year’s crop of nominees included Rental Family’s director Hikari, filmmaker Jafar Panahi, actor Lee Byung Hun, filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, artist Kazu Hiro, and Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara. The festival, which is celebrating its 50th year, always gives a special spotlight to Canadian talent like O’Hara and the honorary chair, who this year, is Brendan Fraser.Frankenstein director Guillermo del Toro received a standing ovation when he accepted the Director Award, in part because he has made many of his movies in Toronto—including Oscar-winning The Shape of Water.
Dwayne Johnson attended the awards in support of honoree Kazu Hiro (right), who helped in transform for Benny Safdie’s film The Smashing Machine.
Lady Gaga has conquered Wednesday, and now she’s coming for the holiest day of the week. Tonight, Gaga will make this year’s MTV VMAs her temple of Mayhem. She returns to pull double duty as the most nominated artist this year in 12 categories — sharing four of those noms with Bruno Mars for “Die With a Smile” — and as one of the evening’s performers. No word yet if fake blood or raw meat will be her plus-one, but considering that Mars is also sharing nominations with Rosé, they’ll have room. Gaga won the first Moon Person televised on the night, Artist of the Year. And yet the voters said Tate McRae had the song of the summer. Interesting!
Hosted by LL Cool J, this evening’s awards show will hold a lot of firsts: Rosé was the first Korean artist nominated for Video of the Year, Mariah Carey is getting her first VMAs with the Video Vanguard Award, and it’ll be the first time the show will air live on CBS. Below, the 2025 MTV VMA winners, updated live once the show starts at 8 p.m.
Artist of the Year Bad Bunny Beyoncé Kendrick Lamar Lady Gaga Morgan Wallen Taylor Swift The Weeknd
Song of the Year Alex Warren – “Ordinary” Billie Eilish – “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” Doechii – “Anxiety” Ed Sheeran – “Sapphire” Gracie Abrams – “I Love You, I’m Sorry” Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – “Die With a Smile” Lorde – “What Was That” ROSÉ & Bruno Mars – “APT.” Tate McRae – “Sports Car” The Weeknd, Playboi Carti – “Timeless”
Best New Artist Alex Warren Ella Langley Gigi Perez Lola Young sombr The Marías
Best Pop Artist Ariana Grande Charli xcx Justin Bieber Lorde Miley Cyrus Sabrina Carpenter Tate McRae
MTV Push Performance of the Year, presented by Bacardí Rum Shaboozey – “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” Ayra Starr – “Last Heartbreak Song” Mark Ambor – “Belong Together” Lay Bankz – “Graveyard” Dasha – “Bye Bye Bye” KATSEYE – “Touch” Jordan Adetunji – “KEHLANI” Leon Thomas – “YES IT IS” Livingston – “Shadow” Damiano David – “Next Summer” Gigi Perez – “Sailor Song” ROLE MODEL – “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out”
Best Collaboration, presented by Under Armour Bailey Zimmerman with Luke Combs – “Backup Plan (Stagecoach Official Music Video)” Kendrick Lamar & SZA – “luther” Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – “Die With a Smile” Post Malone ft. Blake Shelton – “Pour Me a Drink” ROSÉ & Bruno Mars – “APT.” Selena Gomez, benny blanco – “Sunset Blvd”
Best Pop Alex Warren – “Ordinary” Ariana Grande – “brighter days ahead” Ed Sheeran – “Sapphire” Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – “Die With a Smile” ROSÉ & Bruno Mars – “APT.” Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”
Best Hip-Hop Doechii – “Anxiety” Drake – “NOKIA” Eminem ft. Jelly Roll – “Somebody Save Me” GloRilla ft. Sexyy Red – “WHATCHU KNO ABOUT ME” Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us” LL COOL J ft. Eminem – “Murdergram Deux” Travis Scott – “4X4”
Best R&B Chris Brown – “Residuals” Leon Thomas & Freddie Gibbs – “MUTT (REMIX)” Mariah Carey – “Type Dangerous” PARTYNEXTDOOR – “N o C h i l l” Summer Walker – “Heart of a Woman” SZA – “Drive” The Weeknd, Playboi Carti – “Timeless”
Best Alternative Gigi Perez – “Sailor Song” Imagine Dragons – “Wake Up” Lola Young – “Messy” mgk & Jelly Roll – “Lonely Road” sombr – “back to friends” The Marías – “Back to Me”
Best Rock Coldplay – “All My Love” Evanescence – “Afterlife (From the Netflix Series Devil May Cry)” Green Day – “One Eyed Bastard” Lenny Kravitz – “Honey” Linkin Park – “The Emptiness Machine” Twenty One Pilots – “The Contract”
Best Latin Bad Bunny – “Baile Inolvidable” J Balvin – “Rio” Karol G – “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” Peso Pluma – “La Patrulla” Rauw Alejandro & Romeo Santos – “Khé?” Shakira – “Soltera“
Best K-pop Aespa – “Whiplash” Jennie – “Like Jennie ” Jimin – “Who” Jisoo – “Earthquake” Lisa ft. Doja Cat & Raye – “Born Again” Stray Kids – “Chk Chk Boom” Rosé – “Toxic Till the End”
Best Afrobeats Asake & Travis Scott – “Active” Burna Boy ft. Travis Scott – “TaTaTa” Moliy, Silent Addy, Skillibeng & Shenseea – “Shake It to the Max (Fly) (Remix)” Rema – “Baby (Is It a Crime)” Tems ft. Asake – “Get It Right” Tyla – “Push 2 Start” Wizkid ft. Brent Faiyaz – “Piece of My Heart”
Best Country Chris Stapleton – “Think I’m in Love With You” Cody Johnson with Carrie Underwood – “I’m Gonna Love You” Jelly Roll – “Liar” Lainey Wilson – “4x4xU” Megan Moroney – “Am I Okay?” Morgan Wallen – “Smile”
Best Album Bad Bunny – Debí Tirar Más Fotos Kendrick Lamar – GNX Lady Gaga – Mayhem Morgan Wallen – I’m the Problem Sabrina Carpenter – Short n’ Sweet The Weeknd – Hurry Up Tomorrow
Best Long Form Video Ariana Grande – “Brighter Days Ahead” Bad Bunny – “Debí Tirar Más Fotos (Short Film)” Damiano David – “Funny Little Stories” Mac Miller – “Balloonerism” Miley Cyrus – “Something Beautiful” The Weeknd – “Hurry Up Tomorrow”
Video for Good Burna Boy – “Higher” Charli xcx – “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” Doechii – “Anxiety” Eminem ft. Jelly Roll – “Somebody Save Me” Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco – “Younger and Hotter Than Me” Zach Hood ft. Sasha Alex Sloan – “Sleepwalking”
Best Direction Ariana Grande – “Brighter Days Ahead” Charli xcx – “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us” Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra” Rosé & Bruno Mars – “Apt.” Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”
Best Art Direction Charli xcx – “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us” Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra” Lorde – “Man of the Year” Miley Cyrus – “End of the World” Rosé & Bruno Mars – “Apt.”
Best Cinematography Ariana Grande – “Brighter Days Ahead” Ed Sheeran – “Sapphire” Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us” Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra” Miley Cyrus – “Easy Lover” Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”
Best Editing Charli xcx – “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” Ed Sheeran – “Sapphire” Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us” Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra” Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild
Best Choreography Doechii – “Anxiety” FKA Twigs – “Eusexua” Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us” Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra” Tyla – “Push 2 Start” Zara Larsson – “Pretty Ugly”
Best Visual Effects Ariana Grande – “Brighter Days Ahead” Lady Gaga – “Abracadabra” Rosé & Bruno Mars – “Apt.” Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild” Tate McRae – “Just Keep Watching (From F1 The Movie)” The Weeknd – “Hurry Up Tomorrow”
Song of the Summer Addison Rae – “Headphones On” Alex Warren – “Ordinary” Benson Boone – “Mystical Magical” BigXthaPlug & Bailey Zimmerman – “All the Way” Chappell Roan – “The Subway” Demi Lovato – “Fast” Doja Cat – “Jealous Type” Huntr/x – “Golden” Jessie Murph – “Blue Strips” Justin Bieber – “Daisies” Moliy, Silent Addy, Skillibeng & Shenseea – “Shake It to the Max (Fly) (Remix)” Morgan Wallen & Tate McRae – “What I Want” Ravyn Lenae Featuring Rex Orange County – “Love Me Not” Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild” Sombr – “12 to 12” Tate McRae – “Just Keep Watching”
Best Group aespa All Time Low Backstreet Boys BLACKPINK Coldplay Evanescence Fuerza Regida Grupo Frontera Imagine Dragons Jonas Brothers KATSEYE My Chemical Romance SEVENTEEN Stray Kids The Marías Twenty One Pilots
Yes, the line to get into the party was long. But the process was efficient, and once inside, the venue was spacious enough to allow schmoozing with relative ease. At the party, Sydney Sweeney told me that the Christy premiere on Friday was the most emotional of her career. She sat behind former professional boxer, Christy Martin, whom she plays in the film, and couldn’t help but cry as the credits rolled. Sweeney felt a deep connection to the whole cast as they made their way onto the stage for their Q&A. Whatever online drama she had experienced in the last couple of weeks seemed behind her as she looked forward to the release of this film—and its potential awards season campaign.
Richard E. Grant and John Slattery at the 2025 Road to the Golden Globes Party.
Penske Media/Getty Images
Nina Hoss, co-star of the Amazon film Hedda—based on the play Hedda Gabler, and set to premiere Sunday night—was excited to finally see the film with an audience. At the party, Hoss (who was spotted chatting with Hedda costar Tessa Thompson) said that when she read the script, she was excited by the idea the idea of changing the gender of her character; she was interested to see what audiences thought about the decision, made by director Nia DaCosta.
Nina Hoss, Nicholas Pinnock, Tessa Thompson at the 2025 Road to the Golden Globes Party.
The sixth time will be the charm for Noah Wyle. The ER vet earned five consecutive Emmy nominations for playing Dr. John Carter on the medical drama over two decades ago, and should finally take home his first statue for his starring role as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch on yet another addictive medical drama. Wyle’s biggest competition is Adam Scott, who leads Severance, the most nominated show this season at the Emmys and the probable outstanding-drama-series winner. (Pascal, Brown, and Oldman, it’s an honor to be nominated!) But the combination of leading this season’s buzziest new prestige drama and the feeling that Wyle is long overdue for recognition means that Dr. Robby’s got this all sewn up. —Chris Murphy
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Zach Cherry, Severance PREDICTED WINNER: Walton Goggins, The White Lotus Jason Isaacs, The White Lotus James Marsden, Paradise Sam Rockwell, The White Lotus Tramell Tillman, Severance John Turturro, Severance
This one’s a bit of a nail-biter that may come down to which drama has a better overall night at the Emmys: Severance or The White Lotus. (James Marsden, thank you for playing.) Conventional wisdom states that Goggins has the best chance of the White Lotus pack, while Tillman is the standout from season two of Severance. But which actor will go all the way? Given the reach of his role and the je ne sais quoi of the performer himself, it seems like it’ll be Goggins by a nose—but if Severance sweeps the drama categories, Tillman could well get the boost he needs to win. —Hillary Busis
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Patricia Arquette, Severance PREDICTED WINNER: Carrie Coon, The White Lotus Katherine LaNasa, The Pitt Julianne Nicholson, Paradise Parker Posey, The White Lotus Natasha Rothwell, The White Lotus Aimee Lou Wood, The White Lotus
An actual race! Nearly all—at least a lot—of the White Lotus ladies are pitted against one another in this category, but it’s likely that Carrie Coon will edge out her costar Parker Posey for the win. Posey’s role generated the most memes for the series, but Coon’s monologue in the final episode gave this season its most emotional moment. Coon is also coming off a great season of another HBO show, The Gilded Age, which could be top of mind for Emmy voters. And if there is a groundswell of support for The Pitt, Katherine LaNasa could even pull off a surprise upset in the category. Tsunami! Lorazepam! —John Ross
OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES
Andor, “Welcome to the Rebellion” The Pitt, “2:00 P.M.” The Pitt, “7:00 A.M.” PREDICTED WINNER: Severance, “Cold Harbor” Slow Horses, “Hello Goodbye” The White Lotus, “Full-Moon Party”
Slow Horses won this category last year in what was considered the biggest surprise of the night. And The White Lotus won the writing award back when it was competing as an anthology series. The Pitt earning two nominations signals that the writing branch really likes that show. But the better strategy here is to just have one episode nominated—it’s very rare for a show with multiple nominations to win. (Just look at Mad Men, which went home empty-handed in the writing category when it had three nominations in 2012.) So Severance’s “Cold Harbor,” the incredible finale of the second season and one of the most talked-about episodes of TV this year, should walk away easily with this. —R.F.
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA SERIES
Andor, “Who Are You?” The Pitt, “6:00 P.M.” The Pitt, “7:00 A.M.” Severance, “Chikhai Bardo” PREDICTED WINNER: Severance, “Cold Harbor” Slow Horses, “Hello Goodbye” The White Lotus, “Amor Fati”
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Hillary Busis, Rebecca Ford, John Ross, Chris Murphy, Savannah Walsh
Welcome back, friends and fools, to year FIVE of the Vulture Movies Fantasy League. We are about to turn the corner into a fall movie season that is packed with box-office behemoths, visionary auteurs bringing their latest films into the bosom of awards season, and a whole lotta questions about whether a vampire movie about race in America can play the long game all the way to Oscar gold.
If you’ve played the Movies Fantasy League before, the game hasn’t changed much; if you’re new, welcome to the circus. You can check out the rules for how to play on our MFL hub, but here is the nutshell summary: You select a roster of exactly eight films within a budget of 100 imaginary dollars. Once the scoring phase of the game begins, the films you’ve drafted will accumulate points for achieving milestones in box-office take, precursor awards/nominations, critical approval, and more. The movies we expect to do best will cost more, so your first task will be to manage your budget wisely.
In order to help you make wise choices, we have assembled the following draft guide. Below, you will find a listing for every movie that’s eligible to draft in the MFL this year. You can see how much they cost, the talent behind them, what film festivals they’ve played, and when they will debut to the public, either in theaters or on streaming (if they haven’t already).
Movies begin to accumulate points on kickoff day, September 26. Any movie that opens on that day or after is eligible to earn box-office points. Anything that has already opened, or will open before the 26th, is box-office ineligible and will be denoted as such in the guide. Between September 26 and the final deadline on December 18, you’ll still be able to draft a team, but during that span, you will only be able to draft films that haven’t started accruing points. That means you’ll be limited to unreleased movies that haven’t been nominated for any awards. So you’ll have to decide carefully when you want to draft your roster. We’ll remove movies from this guide when they’re no longer eligible to be drafted to avoid any confusion and disappointment.
It’s going to be an exciting few months, so why waste any time — read ahead and start researching!
Director: Jon M. Chu Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh Release date: November 21
Our top point-earner from last season, Wicked, was priced to sell at $20, mostly because there was still a lot of uncertainty around whether the film would bomb with critics (and subsequently awards voters). It didn’t, though, so last year’s success means a trip back to Oz for your fantasy squad won’t come cheap.
➼ Box-office ineligible Director: Ryan Coogler Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo Release date: Already released
Sinners is pretty much the only known quantity from the first half of 2025 that you can feel confident will be a major part of this year’s Oscar race. And while you won’t be able to benefit from the film’s hefty box office, the confidence of being able to select a film that you already know critics and audience loved could be worth the price tag.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro Release date: September 26
Paul Thomas Anderson hasn’t whiffed with the Academy since 2002’s Punch-Drunk Love (though it’s worth noting that 2014’s Inherent Vice only got a screenplay nomination). Academy members seem to be big PTA fans. Combine that with DiCaprio as a former ’60s radical, plus Oscar winners like del Toro and Sean Penn and breakthrough-ready talent like Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, and things are looking good. Plus, Warner Bros. is said to have pumped up to $175 million into this project, so you better believe it’s going to push hard to get a return on that investment.
Director: Noah Baumbach Film festivals: Venice, Telluride, New York Stars: George Clooney, Adam Sandler Release date: November 14
Baumbach had his big Oscar breakthrough with Marriage Story several years ago; now he’s back with a very Oscar-friendly story about an aged movie star (Clooney) and his loyal agent (Sandler). Oscar narratives abound: Clooney has big “we’re so back” potential, while the already-percolating Supporting Actor campaign for Sandler feels like it’s been in the works for 25 years. This has every indication of being Netflix’s top-tier awards push.
Director: Joachim Trier Stars: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård Film festivals: Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, New York Release date: November 17
While it fell short of winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Sentimental Value did emerge from the festival with buzz as the most likely of the Cannes competition titles to follow the path to Oscar victory recently traversed by recent Palme winners Anatomy of a Fall and Anora.
Director: James Cameron Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña Release date: December 19
The first Avatar made $2.9 billion worldwide and got nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The second Avatar made $2.3 billion worldwide and got four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture but not Best Director. Even with that rate of diminishing returns, the third Avatar should still bring in plenty of points. The question is whether this third one can deliver something that puts Cameron back in the Oscar conversation.
Director: Guillermo del Toro Stars: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi Film festivals: Venice, Toronto Release date: October 17
Del Toro has been hot with Oscar ever since The Shape of Water took Best Picture eight years ago. His strange but artful Pinocchio adaptation turned out to be a huge MFL bargain a couple years ago after it ran the table in the animation categories all season. The question is how much Netflix as the distributor will cap Frankenstein’s value. It’s giving del Toro’s film the rare three-week theatrical run as opposed to the customary two, but that doesn’t mean you should expect much in the way of box-office points. Still, given del Toro’s reputation — and the recent performance of other high-end gothic horror like Nosferatu — this should be a strong player across at least the craft awards (production design, costume, cinematography, visual effects) all season.
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Stars: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone Film festivals: Venice, Telluride Release date: October 24
With The Favourite and Poor Things, Lanthimos has directed two previous films to double-digit Oscar nomination totals, including Best Picture/Best Director nominations and Best Actress wins for Olivia Colman and Emma Stone. Whether he can do the same with a film from writer Will Tracy (Succession, hooray!; The Menu and The Regime, hmmm) remains to be seen. Plemons and Stone reunite after Lanthimos’s perplexing Kinds of Kindness, but Focus Features is putting out all the indicators that this has big Oscar ambitions.
Director: Scott Cooper Stars: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong Film festivals: New York Release date: October 24
Last year, Searchlight pushed the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown all the way to major Oscar nominations and a near Best Actor win for Timothée Chalamet. This year, 20th Century Studios wants in on that action with its Bruce Springsteen biopic starring TV’s most intense performer, Jeremy Allen White. Cooper has already put a guitar in one actor’s hands and directed him to an Oscar — Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart — and Strong is already starting to build Supporting Actor buzz after his nomination last year.
Directors: Jared Bush, Byron Howard Stars: Jason Bateman, Ginnifer Goodwin Release date: November 26
Last year, Moana 2 opened on Thanksgiving weekend and racked up $225 million right out of the gate, despite pretty much everyone agreeing the film wasn’t good. The original Zootopia cleared the original Moana’s domestic take by nearly $100 million. That math could really end up working in your favor.
Director: Benny Safdie Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt Film festivals: Venice, Toronto Release date: October 3
Of the two Solitary Safdie Sibling movies this year, this is the one about MMA fighting. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt reunite from their Jungle Cruise days to play real-life Ultimate Fighting Champion Mark Kerr (him) and his loyal, understandably concerned wife (her). If Blunt ends up with two Oscar nominations to her name for playing the Wife, that’s going to be wild, but that’s a conversation for another day. This movie is going to be either too middlebrow for awards appeal or the sentimental fave of awards season. (And I could see A24 making it a bit of a box-office hit, too.)
Director: Luca Guadagnino Stars: Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri Film festivals: Venice, New York Release date: October 10
Guadagnino struck out, Oscar-wise, with his two features last year, Challengers and Queer. But this year, he returns with Oscar winner Julia Roberts, Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield, and Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri in a hot-button drama about scandal and the generation gap in academia. Will this be Tár lite or something altogether trashier? It remains to be seen.
➼ Box-office ineligible Director: Edward Berger Stars: Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton Release date: October 15
Berger has directed two straight films to Oscar nominations in All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave; he’s trying for his third with this story about a maxed-out gambler (Farrell) who finds himself on the skids in Macau. The trailer looks intense, and Farrell’s part seems juicy. Don’t expect box-office points, however, as Netflix is giving this its customary two-week qualifying theatrical run, where box-office receipts are not usually reported.
Director: Hikari Stars: Brendan Fraser, Akira Emoto Film festivals: Toronto Release date: November 21
One big-time potential crowd-pleaser candidate for awards season is this film from Japanese director Hikari (Netflix’s Beef). It centers on Fraser as an American actor living in Tokyo who takes a job as a stand-in for various roles in real people’s lives. Lost in Translation meets a softer version of Yorgos Lanthimos’s Alps? Could really connect with people.
Director: Chloé Zhao Stars: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal Film festivals: Telluride, New York Release date: November 27
Zhao joins the laundry list of Oscar-winning directors releasing films this fall, though she’s looking to bounce back from her Marvel misadventure Eternals. Here, she’s adapting Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, a fictionalized account of William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne, in the aftermath of losing their young son, Hamnet. Yes, that name does look and sound awfully similar to Hamlet. Shakespeare has done well at the Oscars in the past — just ask Gwyneth Paltrow and Judi Dench how they got their trophies — and both Buckley and Mescal are young actors who have been recently admitted into the fold by Oscar voters (she was nominated for 2021’s The Lost Daughter, he for 2022’s Aftersun) and are seeking their first wins. That recipe could add up to a contender.
The year’s second solo Safdie is also a sporting affair, though in this case it’s about ping-pong champion Marty Mauser (Chalamet) and his exploits at the table-tennis … uh, table. This one looks quirkier than Josh’s more blunt instrument (no pun intended, Emily), but Chalamet has scored at the December box office two years in a row now (Wonka in 2023, A Complete Unknown last year). Maybe the prince of Christmas will deliver again.
Director: Joachim Rønning Stars: Jared Leto, Greta Lee Release date: October 10
Red flags exist if you’re looking for them. Rønning’s most prominent titles are a middling collection that includes the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the second Maleficent, and Young Woman and the Sea. 2010’s Tron: Legacy made decent money but left a lot of its audience nonplussed. But there’s a lot to be said for a visual spectacle (visual effects and sound awards feel like they’re in play), and it’s going to play in Imax for a couple weeks, which should help box-office totals.
Director: Jafar Panahi Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Ebrahim Azizi Film festivals: Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, New York Release date: October 15
Four of the last five winners of the Palme d’Or at Cannes have gone on to become Best Picture nominees at the Oscars, with two of them (Parasite and Anora) winning. So there’s definitely reason to be optimistic about It Was Just an Accident. Even if the film isn’t as broadly appealing as recent Palme winners, there’s a good chance it follows the awards trajectory of previous Cannes hits like The Zone of Interest.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow Stars: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson Film festivals: Venice, New York Release date: October 24
Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) returns to global politics, only this time, the crisis is fictional. The film depicts a U.S. White House scrambling to deal with an impending missile strike on America. It’s been a while since Bigelow was a major player on the Oscar scene, but working off of a script from the screenwriter of Jackie (and, um, The Maze Runner), interest will be piqued.
Director: Bradley Cooper Stars: Will Arnett, Laura Dern Film festivals: New York
Bradley Cooper’s stand-up comedy movie? Bradley Cooper’s divorced-guy movie? Bradley Cooper’s SmartLess movie? (Sean Hayes also co-stars.) Whatever this movie turns out to be, Cooper always makes awards season more interesting.
Director: Bill Condon Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, Tonatiuh Film festivals: Sundance Release date: October 10
Jennifer Lopez doing a full-blown musical from the director of Dreamgirls sounds like it could be a dream come true … or a fantastic nightmare. Either way, it will be a spectacle. In the old days, Lopez would be assured of a Golden Globe nomination no matter how it turned out. The Globes have gotten more buttoned-up lately, though, so we’ll see how it goes.
Director: Derek Cianfrance Stars: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst Film festivals: Toronto Release date: October 10
There was a while there in the 2010s where Channing Tatum was doing daring work with directors like Bennett Miller, Quentin Tarantino, the Wachowskis, and the Coens. Then he seemed to retreat into safer rom-com fare. Perhaps teaming up with the director of Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines for a film about a thief hiding out in the walls of a Toys “R” Us will get critics and audiences excited once again.
Director: James Vanderbilt Stars: Rami Malek, Russell Crowe Film festivals: Toronto Release date: November 7
Vanderbilt wrote the screenplay for David Fincher’s Zodiac, among others, but the only film he’s directed was the real-life journalism drama Truth that premiered in Toronto before fizzling in awards season. Hopefully history doesn’t repeat itself for this biographical drama/psychological thriller about the trials of Nazi officials after World War II. Malek, who hasn’t been nominated for an Oscar since he won for playing Freddie Mercury in 2018, plays a psychologist who examines the Nazi officials before trial. Crowe, who hasn’t been nominated since 2001’s A Beautiful Mind, plays Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring.
Director: Dan Trachtenberg Stars: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi Release date: November 7
After making the direct-to-Hulu Predator-universe movie Prey feel like a legitimate blockbuster a few years ago, Trachtenberg gets to take the next film in the series to theaters where it belongs. With a plot that pairs an outcast Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi) with an unlikely ally in Fanning’s Thia, Badlands could be the horror-inflected large-format movie that succeeds in the window between Tron and Wicked.
Director: Clint Bentley Stars: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones Film festivals: Sundance, Toronto Release date: November 7
The buzziest film out of Sundance this year was this lyrical period piece from Bentley, co-writer of last year’s Sing Sing. (That film’s director, Greg Kwedar, co-wrote Train Dreams as well.) Netflix promptly bought it up, which means you shouldn’t expect box-office points, but this kind of movie is an awards play anyway. And Train Dreams could definitely be this year’s indie darling.
Director: Emma Tammi Stars: Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard Release date: December 5
Two years ago, the first Five Nights at Freddy’s took me by surprise, and I dramatically underpriced it before it exploded for $137 million domestic on the backs of its legion of video-game fans. Not this year! If you want those box-office points, you’re gonna have to pay for them.
Director: Rian Johnson Stars: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close Film festivals: Toronto Release date: December 12
Rian Johnson’s two previous Benoit Blanc mysteries were great fun, and both got Best Original Screenplay nominations … and nothing more. That might just be the level for these movies … unless cast members like Close or O’Connor make a particularly attractive case for a supporting performance campaign. There’s also the fact that, with Netflix distributing this one as it did with Glass Onion, you won’t be getting box-office points.
Director: Craig Brewer Stars: Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson Release date: December 25
Jackman and Hudson — who both have put their musical skills to work onscreen before — play a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond tribute act. Brewer is a talented filmmaker (Hustle & Flow; Dolemite Is My Name) who could absolutely make a Christmas crowd-pleaser like this sing. Doesn’t this sound like a perfect holiday-weekend family-movie compromise? I’d also be willing to bet good money on Globe nominations for one or both of Jackman or Hudson.
➼ Box-office ineligible Director: Joseph Kosinski Stars: Brad Pitt, many cars Release date: Already released
After premiering at the end of June, Kosinski’s follow-up to Top Gun: Maverick has been a bit slept on for just how big a blockbuster it was (a quiet $600 million worldwide). You won’t be able to reap any points for those dollars, hence the bargain price. But this movie will certainly contend for at least some of the technical Oscars come year end.
Director: Kate Winslet Stars: Kate Winslet, Toni Collette, Andrea Riseborough Release date: December 12
Oscar winner Kate Winslet makes her directorial debut with this story of four adult siblings who have to rally around their ailing mother at Christmastime. A star as big as Winslet having her first go at directing a movie is always going to be a big deal, and Netflix releasing this at Christmastime (it hits the platform on Christmas Eve) indicates that it thinks it will be a crowd-pleaser.
Director: Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans Stars: Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo Release date: Already released
Netflix’s big success story of this year so far has been how well it’s done to ride the wave of KPop Demon Hunters. The songs are hits, the sing-along version of the movie was No. 1 at the box office, and it’s probably going to be a major contender for the Oscars for Best Song and Best Animated Feature.
Director: Mary Bronstein Stars: Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald Film festivals: Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, New York Release date: October 10
Byrne won the lead acting prize at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, which if nothing else is an indicator of just how impactful her performance is as a mother well past the end of her rope. There’s a pretty wide range of outcomes for this one, but look to the indie awards to give this movie some early points.
Director: Richard Linklater Stars: Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley Film festivals: Berlin, Toronto, New York Release date: October 17
Ethan Hawke reteams with Linklater for this biopic of famed songwriter Lorenz Hart, who faces one long night of reckoning after the opening of his ex-professional-partner’s musical Oklahoma! Andrew Scott’s performance as Richard Rodgers won a prize at Berlin, and you have to figure one of these years, Scott is going to break through with an Oscar nomination.
Director: Lynne Ramsay Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson Film festivals: Cannes Release date: November 7
Lynne Ramsay has been a critics’ darling her whole career, but that’s never translated into mainstream appreciation. But she’s never worked with Jennifer Lawrence before, either. The film’s Cannes reception was a bit inscrutable, but Lawrence playing a young mother battling psychosis is a tempting bit of awards bait.
Director: Edgar Wright Stars: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin Release date: November 7
An adaptation of the Stephen King novel and a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film, The Running Man looks to be a great showcase for Glen Powell’s ever-blossoming star power, as well as a get-right opportunity for Edgar Wright after Last Night in Soho disappointed.
Director: James L. Brooks Stars: Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis Release date: December 12
The legendary James L. Brooks hasn’t directed a movie since 2010’s disappointing How Do You Know. Fifteen years later, Brooks is back with a story about a young idealist trying to balance a professional life in politics with her wacky family. Whether Brooks can recapture the magic of Broadcast News and Terms of Endearment is one of this fall’s big questions.
Popcorn emoji (🍿) denotes a film that is eligible for box-office points based on its release date.
Anaconda $5 🍿 Him $5 🍿 Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie $5 🍿 Now You See Me: Now You Don’t $5 🍿 The Housemaid $5 🍿 Zero A.D. $5 🍿 Dust Bunny $3 🍿 Regretting You $3 🍿 Sisu 2 $3 🍿 Soul on Fire $3 🍿 Eternity $2 🍿 Good Fortune $2 🍿 Trap House $2 🍿
Black Phone 2 $5 🍿 Keeper $5 🍿 The Strangers — Chapter 2 $5 🍿 Bone Lake $2 🍿 Shelby Oaks $2 🍿 Silent Night, Deadly Night $1 🍿
Anemone $5 🍿 A Private Life $5 🍿 Eleanor the Great $5 🍿 Father, Mother, Sister, Brother $5 🍿 Hedda $5 🍿 No Other Choice $5 🍿 Peter Hujar’s Day $5 🍿 The Lost Bus $5 The Mastermind $5 🍿 The Secret Agent $5 🍿 The Testament of Ann Lee $5 🍿 Christy $5 🍿
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey $5 Black Bag $5 Eddington $5 Highest 2 Lowest $5 Materialists $5 Nouvelle Vague $5 🍿 Pillion $5 🍿 The History of Sound $5 The Life of Chuck $5 Caught Stealing $3 Friendship $3 Misericordia $3 Sorry, Baby $3 Steve $3 🍿 Dead Man’s Wire $3 🍿 Cloud $2 Eephus $2 Pavements $2 Splitsville $2 On Swift Horses $1 Preparation for the Next Life $1 Sacramento $1 The Friend $1
Captain America: Brave New World $3 The Monkey $3 Honey Don’t! $3 One of Them Days $2 The Naked Gun $3 The Phoenician Scheme $3 Weapons $3 Drop $2 Presence $2 The Old Guard 2 $2
28 Years Later $5 A Minecraft Movie $5 How to Train Your Dragon $5 Lilo & Stitch $5 Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning $5 Superman $5 Mickey 17 $3 Warfare $3 Thunderbolts $3 The Fantastic Four: First Steps $3 Jurassic World Rebirth $3 The Long Walk $3 100 Nights of Hero $2 🍿
Predators $5 Come See Me in the Good Light $3 🍿 Cover-Up $2 🍿 Sally $3 2000 Meters to Andriivka $2 Diane Warren: Relentless $2 Prime Minister $2 Selena Y Los Dinos $2 🍿 The Alabama Solution $2 🍿 The Perfect Neighbor $2 🍿 Apocalypse in the Tropics $1 Deaf President Now! $1 Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore $1 Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5 $1 🍿 The Voice of Hind Rajab $1 🍿 Zodiac Killer Project $1 🍿 Architecton $1
Elio$5 The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants $5 🍿 Arco $3 🍿 Ne Zha II $3 Scarlet $3 🍿 A Magnificent Life $2 🍿 Dog Man $2 In Your Dreams $2 🍿 Smurfs $2 The Bad Guys 2 $2 The Twits $2 🍿 Pets on a Train $1 🍿
Caught by the Tides $3 Sound of Falling $3 🍿 Sirāt $3 🍿 Parthenope $2 On Becoming a Guinea Fowl $2 The President’s Cake $2 🍿 Left-Handed Girl $2 🍿
Couture $2 🍿 In the Hand of Dante $2 🍿 Last Days $2 🍿 Late Fame $2 🍿 Rebuilding $2 🍿 Atropia $1 🍿 Love Me $1 Lurker $1 Plainclothes $1 Poetic License $1 🍿 Relay $1 Rose of Nevada $1 🍿 Sacrifice $1 🍿 The Captive $1 🍿 The Christophers $1 🍿 The Thing With Feathers $1 🍿 Tuner $1 🍿
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale $3 Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie $3 The Ballad of Wallis Island $3 The Man With the Bag $3 🍿 The Roses $3 Ballerina $2 Hurry Up Tomorrow $2 Snow White $2 The Accountant 2 $2 The Legend of Ochi $2 The Wedding Banquet $2 Alto Knights $1 Bring Her Back $1 Companion $1 Death of a Unicorn $1 Echo Valley $1 Fountain of Youth $1 Freakier Friday $1 Havoc $1 I Know What You Did Last Summer $1 I Wish You All The Best $1 🍿 Magic Farm $1 M3GAN 2.0 $1 Nobody 2 $1 Novocaine $1 Opus $1 Sarah’s Oil $1 🍿 Spinal Tap II: The End Continues $1 Straw $1 The Assessment $1 The Conjuring: Last Rites $1 The Electric State $1 The Surfer $1 The Thursday Murder Club $1 Wolf Man $1 The Woman in the Yard $1
Oh. What. Fun. $3 🍿 All of You $1 🍿 Swiped $1 🍿 Ruth & Boaz $1 🍿 The Woman in Cabin 10 $1 🍿
Photo: Vulture; Photos: Lucasfilm Ltd., FX, Apple TV+, ABC
At their best and most pure, the Emmys ought to be a recommendation engine, where the TV industry presents its picks for the best of the best and encourages the home audience to go back and watch anything good they might’ve missed while they were busy with Love Island earlier this year. The TV Academy nominated 21 total shows across Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Drama Series, and Outstanding Limited Series or Anthology. I don’t think they nominated any outright bad shows, but some are certainly more worthy of their nominations than others. And since the way I show love and appreciation is by making lists, I’ve decided to rank all 21, from worst to best. These rankings are based on the season they were nominated for only. And I have done my best to bridge the apples-to-oranges nature of comparing dramas, comedies, and limited series. Be thankful I didn’t decide to include the talk and reality shows or you’d be in for some real chaos.
Photo: Nick Wall/Netflix
Platform: Netflix 2025 Emmy nominations: 10
Returning for the first time since 2023, Black Mirror delivered what you’d expect: a series of parables and dark prophecies about our technological future. I can’t say for sure how much of my low ranking here is attributable to the fact that the terrifying technological present has made the showless novel or, whether after seven seasons, these stories have simply become less impactful and more predictable.
Photo: Patrick Harbron/Disney
Platform: Hulu 2025 Emmy nominations: 7
I was riding so high on Only Murders in the Building after its musical-themed third season; it was the perfect example of a show taking a big swing to ward off stagnation. I respected the swing the show took in season four, decamping to Los Angeles to deal with a film adaptation of the titular podcast. Unfortunately, rather than stay in L.A., the show became bicoastal, keeping one foot in the Arconia with a new cadre of eccentrics (and yes, Richard Kind in an eye patch was a highlight). But the resulting season had to juggle far too many elements, and only a few of them worked: Molly Shannon as a harried Hollywood producer — yes. Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria as the actors playing Charles, Oliver, and Mabel — no. The longer the season went on, the more tiresome it became, culminating in a massive “who cares” of a killer reveal. If history is any indicator, the odd-numbered seasons of Only Murders are the good ones, so there’s reason to be optimistic for the fifth. But this one was a real dud.
Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO
Platform: HBO 2025 Emmy nominations: 16
It’s not that I think The Last of Us took some great dip in quality in its second season. The actors were across-the-board great, including some excellent new additions in Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine O’Hara, and Jeffrey Wright. But once the Big Thing happens in the second episode, the season becomes narratively unbalanced and too unsatisfying. That the show brings Joel back for a flashback episode feels like an admission that Ellie on her own doesn’t have enough story to fill up a full season while we wait for the confrontation with Abby that comes much further down the line. Once the entire series is complete, there’s every chance season two will age better in closer proximity to what comes next. We’re not there yet.
Photo: Miles Crist/Netlfix
Platform: Netflix 2025 Emmy nominations: 11
This got tagged as trash by many, and unsurprisingly so, as the Monster(s) series sits at the nexus point of two trends that are morally unfashionable at the moment: true crime and Ryan Murphy. There is certainly a layer of ick that pervades this often gleeful depiction of the 1989 murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik, and the media circus that followed. But while Murphy and co-creator Ian Brennan take liberties with the Menendez case, their decision to tell the story from multiple and often contradictory angles is a satisfying one. Cooper Koch was rightly praised (and Emmy nominated) for his frighteningly malleable turn as Erik Menendez, but I thought it was too bad that Nicholas Alexander Chavez (as coked-up alpha brother Lyle) and Ari Graynor (as attorney Leslie Abramson) were passed over.
Photo: Saeed Adyani/Netflix
Platform: Netflix 2025 Emmy nominations: 3
The title of this rom-com turned out to be a dare that a bunch of viewers — and certainly a critical mass of Emmy voters — took Netflix up on. Nobody Wants This nails the fundamentals: two strong leads in Adam Brody and Kristen Bell and at least a few supporting characters who pop. The premise — handsome young rabbi meets shiksa with a sex podcast — got the show in hot water over whether its POV denigrated Jewish women (creator Erin Foster converted to Judaism to marry her husband, leading to a lot of raised eyebrows about the show’s autobiographical nature), but what the show needs more than refuge from the takes is simply to be funnier. It’s not unfunny. It just should be more funny. Brody and Bell have the “rom” part nailed; they could use some help on the script level when it comes to the “com.”
Photo: Brian Roedel/Disney
Platform: Hulu 2025 Emmy nominations: 4
Full disclosure: At the outset, I thought Paradise looked so dumb. There have been so many postapocalyptic shows (Silo, Fallout, Snowpiercer) in which humanity has to exist in some kind of metaphorical bubble (or a literal bubble, if you’re Under the Dome). The concept of an artificial Perfect American Town built deep inside a mountain to protect selected citizens from a vaguely articulated disaster event was one thing, but to add a murder-mystery element to that, and the murder victim is the president? A hat on a hat on a hat on a hat! Somehow, though, Paradise turns out to be compelling popcorn TV, punctuated by its two Emmy-nominated performances: Sterling K. Brown is all leading-man intensity as the Secret Service agent determined to get to the truth, while Julianne Nicholson’s Machiavellian deep-state operator manages to be delicious in her villainy as she also maintains a shred of her former “good” self.
Photo: Kenny Laubbacher/Max
Platform: HBO Max 2025 Emmy nominations: 14
Oh, Hacks. I want to defend you against your harshest critics, even if I often agree with them. It doesn’t bother me that what we see of Deborah Vance’s comedy doesn’t scan as comedy-legend caliber, or that her conflicts with Ava are predicated on tired generation-gap premises. At its best, Hacks is a workplace comedy in which the workplace is the entire comedy-industrial complex, and I like watching Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder maneuver within those environs. My frustration comes from how shockingly repetitive the show is formally. Just an endless loop of Deborah and Ava working well together, breaking up because of a betrayal, warily reuniting because of necessity, discovering that they work best together, then breaking up because of another betrayal and starting the cycle all over again. After four seasons of this, it’s hard to just enjoy Deborah and Ava for who they are, and I’m forced to dwell on things like how Megan Stalter’s unbearable Kayla is somehow the fourth lead on this show.
Photo: Gilles Mingasson/Disney
Platform: ABC 2025 Emmy nominations: 6
Four seasons in, Abbott Elementaryis doing exactly what a good network sitcom should: settling into place as a reliable but decreasingly remarkable part of a regular TV diet. And yet: To be able to pull out an episode as creative as that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover is proof that Abbott is still more than worthy of its continued place of Emmy prominence.
Photo: FX Network
Platform: FX 2025 Emmy nominations: 13
It’s thematically appropriate that The Bear has become the hot stove of the TV-awards conversation: Touch it and you’ll get burned. Season three— the one that aired last summer — was where the deeply predictable backlash kicked in. It was a comedy that not only wasn’t funny but wasn’t even attempting to be a comedy. There were some realhighlights, and I want to give creator Christopher Storer and his team extra credit for their ambition. But lots of characters spent the season spinning their wheels, and even good individual episodes like the Tina flashback (featuring Ayo Edebiri’s Emmy-nominated direction) seemed too obviously a tactic to pad out the season.
Photo: Copyright 2024, FX. All Rights Reserved.
Platform: FX 2025 Emmy nominations: 6
In its final run, What We Do in the Shadows proved it could still deliver some of TV’s biggest laughs. Placing Guillermo and Nadja in a corporate setting yielded multiple strong episodes (a tip of the cap to Tim Heidecker as their jackass boss), as did Laszlo’s attempt to play Dr. Frankenstein. The series finale — nominated for a writing Emmy — was a creative way to play the “we all know there’s no ending that will satisfy everyone” card by “hypnotizing” the audience into accepting one of a myriad of final acts. It will remain an enduring shame that this show garnered only one acting nomination (for Matt Berry last year).
Photo: Alex Bailey/Netflix
Platform: Netflix 2025 Emmy nominations: 2
The Diplomat is not a sophisticated political thriller, though it does its best to fake it. Keri Russell’s performance as the new U.S. ambassador to the U.K. — or is she on the fast track to vice-president? — sits right in her sweet spot of capable-yet-irritable operator, and her scenes opposite David Gyasi (as her U.K. counterpart and possible love interest), Celia Imrie (as a master manipulator), and especially Allison Janney (as a hurricane in female form) crackle with an urgent chemistry.
Photo: Fabio Lovino/HBO
Platform: HBO 2025 Emmy nominations: 23
After pulling off the high-wire acts of class-conscious character satire and murder mystery in seasons one and two, it was inevitable that Mike White’s show would sooner or later lose its footing, so credit to season three for terminating the suspense. The White Lotus had its moments, of course — Parker Posey’s maintained mood of distress and dismay, all packaged in that ridiculous Durham accent; that Carrie Coon monologue that exists better in isolation than in context — but the seams struggled to hold it all together as satisfyingly as the previous seasons had. The finale-episode shoot-out felt like an act of throwing up one’s hands and admitting defeat at the hands of a runaway plot.
Photo: Apple TV+
Platform: Apple TV+ 2025 Emmy nominations: 7
Shrinking has maintained the psychology practice of Harrison Ford’s Dr. Paul Rhoades as its nominal central base, but increasingly (and to the show’s benefit) it has become TV’s best hangout comedy. This alignment has allowed the supporting cast to shine, with Michael Urie and Jessica Williams joining Jason Segel and Ford as acting nominees, and key players like Christa Miller, Ted McGinley, and Wendie Malick orbiting freely. It hasn’t all worked (adding co-creator Brett Goldstein to the ensemble as the sad-sack drunk driver responsible for Jimmy’s wife’s death was a mistake I hope the show is able to back out of in season three), but as Cougar Town was at its best, Shrinking is a multigenerational story about gathering your network of emotional support and then hanging out with them every minute of the day.
Photo: Macall Polay / HBO
Platform: HBO Max 2025 Emmy nominations: 24
My extreme disinterest in a spinoff series about a character from The Batman that I found to be a superfluous waste of Colin Farrell’s valuable time was only matched by my surprise at how much The Penguin gripped me. Kudos to showrunner Lauren LeFranc for navigating the waters of franchise IP, taking the handoff from Matt Reeves’s film and telling a completely independent story. A story, it should be noted, that for significant stretches isn’t even the titular Penguin’s story. As good as Farrell is at operating under all those prosthetics, Cristin Milioti walks away with the season as a spurned mobster’s daughter, and LeFranc doesn’t wrest the narrative away from her unless she absolutely has to. Mob stories are a dime a dozen these days, and superhero yarns are probably worth even less, but The Penguin told a dark, twisty, operatic tale of at least two sociopaths, and it was riveting.
Photo: Apple
Platform: Apple TV+ 2025 Emmy nominations: 5
Slow Horses is the most digestible show on television, and I could not mean that more complimentarily. In its fourth season, the format remains in lockstep with the three that preceded it: The discarded MI5 agents at Slough House, led by the somehow-ever-more-slovenly Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) are embroiled in a new unfurling terrorist threat, and one of their own (Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright) is on the run. While the individuals within Slough House — and the handful of higher-ups at the Park, like Kristin Scott Thomas’s coolly capable Diana Taverner — develop their characters over the course of the series, the discrete plots told over a tight six episodes are TV’s best approximation of reading a really satisfying spy novel. This season had several gnarly shoot-outs, the addition of new characters played by Hugo Weaving (as an American!) and Battlestar Galactica’s James Callis (as a sniveling little weasel, if you can believe it), plus, yes, new scenes of Lamb farting to punctuate a scene. Bring on season five!
Photo: Ben Blackall/Netflix
Platform: Netflix 2025 Emmy nominations: 13
Over the course of four episodes, creators Stephen Graham and Jack Thornedeliver a gripping, challenging miniseries. A 13-year-old boy is accused of stabbing a female classmate to death, and over the course of four episodes, the tale becomes thornier and more troublesome, as the culprit is revealed not only to be the child but the pervasive toxic misogyny that seduces boys before their parents even know it’s a threat. The bravado of Adolescence’s visual gimmick, where each episode is presented as a single take, is often more showy than it is effective, but when it does click into place, as it does in the show’s counseling session, it’s really thrilling.
Photo: Apple TV+
Platform: Apple TV+ 2025 Emmy nominations: 27
Taking a 33-month break between the finale of season one and the premiere of season two might have proved fatal for another series, but Severance was able to establish new stakes for its central quartet and then plunge them into far more complicated waters. The love pentagon that developed between Innie Mark S., Helly, Helena Egan, Outie Mark S., and Gemma was so twisty and complex it seemed to discourage social media’s favorite pastime, unhinged shipping. Meanwhile, Tramell Tillman’s Mr. Milchick went on his own journey of self-discovery. As any good second season does, Severance plumbed deeper, explored further, traveled to chilly seaside towns and back in time to reveal the fate of its presumed-dead wife. Not all of it satisfied, but the central conundrum of Innies versus Outies trapped inside a corporate cult remained as compelling as ever.
Photo: Apple TV+
Platform: Apple TV+ 2025 Emmy nominations: 23
The movie business is facing a treacherous and possibly bleak future, and while The Studio is acutely aware of that, its response is to pull back the curtain and reveal utter lunacy. One thing I loved about its first season was that it never leaned on one aspect of Hollywood for too long. Yes, there’s debauchery, sure the studio-tentpole-development process is stupider than you ever imagined, and it turns out Ron Howard is a mean little bastard. But the show lightly bounces between these observations, with only Seth Rogen’s inept but earnest studio head as the constant. Does The Studio eviscerate Hollywood enough for everyone’s tastes? No. Is it a surprise Hollywood is embracing it? Of course not. But it’s the flat-out funniest of the nominated comedies this year, and I support it breaking through the Emmy walls like the Kool-Aid Man (in theaters next summer).
Photo: Sarah Shatz/FX
Platform: FX 2025 Emmy nominations: 9
There’s no way a show about a woman (Michelle Williams) dealing with her terminal-cancer diagnosis could be anything but maudlin. Even knowing that Williams’s character responds to her diagnosis by embarking on a sexual awakening, it still seems like the show is destined for maudlin. And yet Dying for Sex never is, even till the very end, even as the tears are running down your face. Williams and the Emmy-nominated-yet-still-underrated Jenny Slate are the main attraction here, but key supporting turns by Esco Jouléy, Sissy Spacek, Rob Delaney, Jay Duplass, and the deeply slept-on David Rasche, along with some late-inning relief pitching by Paula Pell, are all so incredibly good. If you avoided this show because you were worried it would make you feel like crap, I encourage you to reconsider.
Photo: John Johnson/Max
Platform: HBO Max 2025 Emmy nominations: 13
The longform, procedural, network-style medical drama is back, baby — and this time it’s got that HBO sparkle. The Pitt is so many great things at once: a return vehicle for Noah Wyle (Emmy nominated for the first time since 1999), a showcase for a crackerjack ensemble cast (Katherine LaNasa’s much deserved nomination stands in for a good half-dozen castmates who should have joined her), and a satisfying 15 episodes that never felt like one story stretched out over many hours. Cases flowed through the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room at a steady pace, some dispatched within a single episode, others playing out over three or four, and the stories unfold at their own pace, keeping the audience at a very effective imbalance throughout. And even with the green farm kid getting fluids splashed on him all season or the seemingly stalwart senior resident showing himself to be a heel, you felt like you were watching a group of professionals doing their best in trying circumstances. An inspirational show for our time.
Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Platform: Disney+ 2025 Emmy nominations: 14
Andor is also an inspirational show for our time, albeit in a very different way. Over the course of two seasons, we saw the radicalization of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) from disaffected thief to committed leader of a rebellion. Creator Tony Gilroy was unafraid to expand the field in season two, with Andor himself often taking a back seat to the expansion of characters like Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), not to mention those within the Empire. Gilroy’s talent as a writer helped make Andor TV’s most satisfying multicharacter drama, but his verve as a showrunner is what took Andor to its greatest heights: a show that called out genocide by name and reclaimed the Star Wars legacy as a battle cry against fascists above all.
Tramell Tillman’s performance embodies the Apple TV+ show’s guiding metaphor. Photo: Apple TV+
Tucked in the midpoint of its season-two finale, “Cold Harbor,” is a moment that bottles the disorientation that makes Severance such irresistible television. Seth Milchick, played by Tramell Tillman, meets one of his employees, Dylan (Zach Cherry), in a sterile conference room to resolve the lingering issue of the latter’s resignation request. Despite enduring repeated humiliations from his employer, Lumon Industries, and though he’s oversubscribed, Milchick nevertheless handles the exchange with faultless professionalism. “As it may yield an embarrassing, emotional response in you, and as I am duly swamped, I shall leave you to read it in solitude,” Milchick says, his diction measured and verbose as he slides forward a folder with three exacting fingers. When Dylan takes it, the camera cuts back just as Milchick pivots and darts out the door like a bat out of hell, his ramrod posture still discernible even as the odd framing crops him off. It’s a fleeting and strange beat, cartoonish if it weren’t so unsettling, but one that effectively crystallizes Severance’s surreal tone — and at its center, the Magnetic Mr. Milchick.
As Lumon’s middle-manager par excellence, Tillman was the breakout performer of Severance’s first season. Season two gives the character more power and complications that challenge his sense of self, and Tillman capitalizes on the material, repeatedly seizing the spotlight every second he’s on the screen. Tillman earned himself an Emmy nomination for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and though pundits are placing their bets on The White Lotus’s Walton Goggins, Tillman deserves to take up more space in the conversation. Beyond the historic possibility of becoming the first Black actor to win the category, he doesn’t get enough credit for embodying the strange essence of Severance, a show that broke out in no small part due to the boldness of its peculiarities. In a series defined by unusual, carefully calibrated choices, from its mysterious goats to the elliptical nature of its central corporation to the constant presence of archaic language (“Has it verve?” “The most of its flock”), Tillman delivers the performance that feels the most singular.
The exchange with Dylan doesn’t come close to Milchick’s most dazzling showcase. That comes later, in the finale’s unhinged marching-band sequence, in which his electrifying physicality shifts to genuine menace as he tries to break down the vending-machine barricade Helly (Britt Lower) built to prevent Milchick from stopping her and Mark (Adam Scott) from freeing his wife. It’s a distilled version of the force first glimpsed in season one’s “Defiant Jazz” scene, in which Milchick grooves out with Mark, Helly, and the rest of the MDR crew in a corporate-mandated effort at boosting worker morale (or “merriment”). That moment worked in the opposite direction, injecting brief humanity into a character who had until then been cast as a Sphinx-like authority figure.
What makes both scenes pop is their contrast. As Milchick, Tillman holds his body with a statuelike composure, which makes his bursts of movement land with amplified intensity. He is the vessel through which Severance constantly communicates Lumon’s dominance over its workers, his very stillness humming with the implied threat of corporate violence. That threat is made literal in “Cold Harbor” through another character, Mr. Drummond, a hulking Lumon higher-up played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson who savagely attempts to kill a spying Mark in the series’s most visceral confrontation to date. But Severance keeps Milchick more enigmatic. The danger he represents never fully erupts but instead simmers perpetually beneath the skin. We continue to learn surprisingly little about him, even compared to Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), who gets her own standalone episode this season, but the glimpses of Milchick we do see are tantalizing: the sharp leather jacket and motorcycle, the flickers of unease on his face hinting that he recognizes the system’s wrongness, and his fierce defense of traits central to his identity, especially his ornate, loquacious speech. That verbosity can be read as a battleground of race, class, and corporate respectability, and it speaks to Tillman’s performance that it all comes through without the character having to spell it out. His obliqueness is the quality that makes him so consistently compelling, accentuated by how the show never really lets you settle on how you’re supposed to feel about him: Is he an antagonist, a victim, or something in between?
In this, Milchick embodies a crucial facet of Severance’s workplace metaphor. While the show’s sympathies rest squarely with the macrodata refiners as put-upon workers (including even Helly, though the philosophical ambiguity as to whether she can be considered her own person is part of the show’s conceptual fun), Milchick is the consummate middle manager, suspended between the ruthless authority of capital and the moral clarity of labor. His position grows even more complicated in the second season when he’s nominally promoted after Lumon benches Cobel as manager of the severed floor. The “elevation” means little, as he’s immediately wedged between another subordinate, Miss Huang (Sarah Bock), and Mr. Drummond, who looms over him as a corporate enforcer. The effect is a tightening vise. Drummond belittles him after a poor performance review, specifically targeting his speech; Milchick displaces that humiliation onto Miss Huang, and then, in a remarkable scene, onto himself. Alone before a mirror, laboring to internalize Drummond’s order to he simplify his language, the camera zooms in as he repeats a line he once delivered to Ms. Huang, whittling it down with each iteration from “You must eradicate from your essence childish folly” to “You must abandon childish things” to the blunt, simple “Grow up.” A sequence that could very well dance on the edge of hokeyness becomes, in Tillman’s hands, a scene of a man struggling between dueling impulses. His voice gradually descends into a growl as he vibrates with a mixture of pain, anger, and yearning.
Severance may ground its narrative and moral thrust in the plight of its macrodata refiners, but Milchick is in many ways the essence of the show’s thesis, embodying the ways corporate culture twists, consumes, and corrupts all it touches. Nothing about Milchick works without Tillman’s exacting performance, and I’m rooting for him to have a long, unpredictable career. We’ve already seen flashes of what that might look like. In Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning, where he plays the captain of a nuclear submarine Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is trying to commandeer, he delivered the film’s single best acting performance, radiating more chemistry with Cruise in a single scene than all of Hunt’s love interests combined — “Mister, if you’ve come to poke the bear, you’ve come to the right man” — and so much militant erotic charge it could power the nuclear sub they’re inside. That moment, too, capitalizes on Tillman’s ability to radiate intimidation by way of an otherworldly strangeness, a quality that feels exciting in its sheer potential and, in this moment, award-worthy in its own right.
“Don’t speak!” Dianne Wiest is unstoppable as the actress Helen Sinclair, one of the all-time great “diva” roles in Woody Allen’s zany gangland comedy Bullets Over Broadway. (This was one of the few Allen films in which he had a cowriter; in this case, it was the humor columnist, playwright, director, and actor Doug McGrath.) With this win, Wiest became just the second woman to win two best-supporting-actress Academy Awards, tying Shelley Winters for the honor.
Anna Paquin — 1994 The Piano (1993)
Just 11 years old when she won (but still not the youngest winner in this category!), Anna Paquin bolted out of her seat in a fetchingpurple hat when Gene Hackman read her name at the Oscar ceremony. Adorable! Then she stood behind the podium in a state of shock, half-giggling, half-hyperventilating. It’s a great moment! Then a little Hollywood kicked in and she started thanking people. If you can believe it, Jane Campion was only the second woman ever to be nominated in the best-director category.
Marisa Tomei — 1993 My Cousin Vinny (1992)
A great performance, a great film, a great and righteous win. We’re saying that because, back in the day, there were some who felt Marisa Tomei’s comedic turn in the admittedly light My Cousin Vinny was some kind of blight on the Oscars. It even spun into a conspiracy theory that the announcement of her name was some kind of accident. Tomei was also a former soaps and sitcom star up against three heavyweight Brits (Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave, and Miranda Richardson), as well as Australian Judy Davis in Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives. But time has washed all that away—and Tomei has had two more nominations since.
Mercedes Ruehl — 1992 The Fisher King (1991)
Mercedes Ruehl is probably a bigger name to Broadway aficionados than movie lovers, but her turn in Terry Gilliam’s outstanding fantasy-drama The Fisher King was absolutely the right choice for the best-supporting-actress prize this year. She is marvelous as the hard-working video store owner who helps get Jeff Bridges back on his feet after he abandons his career as a talk radio host who inadvertently inspires a killing spree. (Today, someone like that would just say, “Hit like and subscribe!”)
Whoopi Goldberg — 1991 Ghost (1990)
The second Black woman to win in this category (after a 51-year gap), Whoopi Goldberg, who would later host the Oscars four times, was hilarious and touching in the part of the medium Oda Mae Brown in the blockbuster sensation Ghost. As it happened, she was handed her Oscar by Denzel Washington, who had become the second Black man to win the best-supporting-actor prize the year before. Whoopi’s win also added her name to the list of Star Trek alumni who have won an Oscar.
Brenda Fricker — 1990 My Left Foot (1989)
Somehow, Brenda Fricker is the only Irish woman to win an Oscar for either supporting or lead actress. This doesn’t seem right, considering Irish contributions to film arts, but it’s the truth. (There have been wins for Irish women in other Oscar categories, so that’s something, until Saoirse Ronan eventually wins one for acting—she’s got four nominations already.) Accepting her award for My Left Foot (which also got Daniel Day-Lewis his first of three trophies), she thanked the real “Mrs. Brown” and said that “anybody who gives birth 22 times deserves one of these.”
Geena Davis — 1989 The Accidental Tourist (1988)
Perhaps a bit of an upset over Sigourney Weaver in Working Girl (her third nomination and third loss), Geena Davis won the best-supporting-actress prize for her role as the zany dog trainer who teaches William Hurt how to embrace life after tragedy in Lawrence Kasdan’s terrific comic drama. Oscar producers were probably rooting for Weaver, too, as her costar Melanie Griffith (and then husband Don Johnson) were the presenters for this category.
Olympia Dukakis — 1988 Moonstruck (1987)
This was one of three wins for Moonstruck, which also received a best-actress trophy for Cher and best original screenplay for John Patrick Shanley. (Alas, Vincent Gardenia had tough competition for best supporting actor opposite Sean Connery in The Untouchables. Olympia Dukakis was the obvious best-supporting-actress winner as Rose, head of the Castorini family in one of the all-time great romantic comedies. She concluded her acceptance speech by adding, “Okay, Michael, let’s go!”—a reference to her cousin Michael Dukakis, who was running for president at the time (and would lose by a considerable margin).
Dianne Wiest — 1987 Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
She may not have deserved Cole Porter, but she deserved this Oscar win. This was Dianne Wiest’s first of two best-supporting-actress Oscars, both of which came from appearing in Woody Allen films. Hannah and Her Sisters is such a sweeping view of New York City characters that she barely shares any screen time with her costar Michael Caine, who also won a best-supporting-actor award for this film. (Allen won best original screenplay, too, and was nominated for best director while the film was nominated for best picture.)
Anjelica Huston — 1986 Prizzi’s Honor (1985)
With this award, Anjelica Huston became the only person to win an Oscar in a film directed by their parent, in this case John Huston. (Nearly 40 years earlier, John Huston directed his father, Walter Huston, to an Oscar in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Not sure if this double record will ever be broken!) Prizzi’s Honor, an ahead-of-its-time mafia comedy, costarred Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner and has one of the most shocking endings in the history of movies.
Peggy Ashcroft — 1985 A Passage to India (1984)
“Mrs. Mooooooooore!” Sir David Lean’s final film was nominated for 11 Oscars, including best picture, but won only two: best score for Maurice Jarre (his third after Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, all Lean films) and best supporting actress for Dame Peggy Ashcroft, who was 77 at the time of her win, making her the oldest winner in this category. Based on E.M. Forster’s novel, costarring Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, James Fox, Alec Guinness, Roshan Seth, and others, the film is either progressive for its time or a reactionary ode to the days of the British Raj, depending on your point of view. All can agree, though, that Peggy Ashcroft’s performance as the kind British lady who prefers to travel in comfort is terrific.
Linda Hunt — 1984 The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
An unusual award in the sense that Linda Hunt (a white woman from New Jersey) plays the part of Billy Kwan, a Chinese Australian man. This would likely not fly today, but 40 years ago it was seen as a brave—and even noble—casting choice. The film is beyond canceled, despite being a stern look at Indonesia’s attempted military coup and democratic struggles during the late 1960s.
Jessica Lange — 1983 Tootsie (1982)
This was one wild night for Jessica Lange at the Oscars. She won best supporting actress over her costar Teri Garr from Tootsie (tough choice!), but also over her costar Kim Stanley in the Frances Farmer biopic Frances. For a brief moment, it looked like Lange might be a double-winner, as she was nominated for best actress for Frances too—but that prize went to Meryl Streep for Sophie’s Choice. Anyhow, despite Tootsie’s 10 nominations (including best picture), this was its only win. That it lost best original screenplay to Gandhi (a terrific movie, sure) is a bit of a scandal.
Maureen Stapleton — 1982 Reds (1981)
A three-hour-plus movie about internecine squabbles between leftists sounds like more of an obligatory chore than a good time, but Warren Beatty’s exhilarating and juicy Reds is absolutely terrific. Part of that is due to Maureen Stapleton’s performance as the community’s den mother (inasmuch as anarchists can have den mothers) Emma Goldman. She had been nominated three times previously (first in 1958, for Lonelyhearts), and when she accepted her award, she said she was “thrilled, happy, delighted,” paused to add “sober,” then said she wanted to thank “everyone she ever met in her entire life.”
Mary Steenburgen — 1981 Melvin and Howard (1980)
Jonathan Demme’s breezy tall tale about Melvin Dummar, a drifter, gas station employee, game show contestant, and American dreamer who claimed that Howard Hughes bequeathed him his fortune, is one of the great movies of this era that doesn’t get enough attention. This shaggy indie included a juicy part for Mary Steenburgen as the put-upon wife trying to keep a family together in the face of a doofus husband.
Celebrities, prepare to be roasted. Variety has announced that comedian Nikki Glaser will host the 82nd Golden Globes Awards.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be hosting the Golden Globes,” Glaser told Variety. “It’s one of my favorite nights of television and now I get a front row seat (actually, I think I have to host from the stage).”
A veteran comic and host of Max’s Fboy Island, Glaser ascended to new heights this year with her viral roast of football legend Tom Brady on Netflix’s The Roast of Tom Brady a.k.a The Greatest Roast of All Time. “I didn’t know how big it was until it was over because, obviously, it was live,” Glaser told VF earlier this year. “Text messages were rolling in like someone in my life had died.” Glaser followed up her roast with an HBO comedy special called Someday You’ll Die, nominated for outstanding variety special at this year’s Emmys.
Now she’s taking on one of the least sought-after gigs in town: award show host. Four-time Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel recently turned down the opportunity to return to that show in 2025, saying that taking on the gig “was just too much.” Last year’s Governor Awards host, JohnMulaney, also reportedly turned down the gig. As of writing, the 2025 Oscars still do not have a host.
The Golden Globes—dubbed Hollywood’s Party of the Year for the ceremony’s more laid-back feel and sometimes tipsy acceptance speeches—also has a spotty track record with hosts. Ricky Gervais was the go-to emcee in the 2010s, hosting for the fifth and final time in 2020. But after the longtime Golden Globes voting body, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, was rocked by multiple scandals in 2021—which returning hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler had no trouble making light of—the awards regrouped, dissolving the HFPA and canceling the telecast in 2022.
Since returning to television, the Globes have been hosted by Emmy-winning comedian Jerrod Carmichael in 2023, and, most recently, comedian Jo Koy in 2024. Koy notoriously flopped as host, lobbing punchlines that earned weak laughs and causing celebrity guests like Taylor Swift to visibly turn on him as the night wore on. It wasn’t all bad news for Koy, though: the 2024 Golden Globes ceremony averaged 10 million viewers, up nearly 50% from the previous year, and reached its largest audience since 2020. Still, after the ceremony, Koy told ABC program GMA 3 that it had been a rough night.“It’s a tough room,” he said. “And it was a hard job, I’m not going to lie.”
Glaser, however, sounds up for the challenge. “The Golden Globes is not only a huge night for TV and film, but also for comedy,” she said in a statement. “It’s one of the few times that show business not only allows, but encourages itself to be lovingly mocked (at least I hope so). (God I hope so). It’s an exciting, yet challenging gig because it’s live, unpredictable, and in front of Hollywood’s biggest stars (who also might be getting wasted while seated next to their recent exes).”
The 2025 Golden Globe Awards will take place on January 5th, 2025, airing live on CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+. Unlike Koy, who said he only had a week and a half to prepare material for his hosting stint, Glaser’s got ample time to get ready—and after her Brady roast, it’s clear that she thrives in live situations. Nominees, you might want to start thickening your skin now.
First, a reminder: the Emmys 2024 haven’t actually happened yet. The Emmy Awards held this past January were in fact honoring TV shows released between June 2022 and May 2023; they were handed out in 2024 only because the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes pushed the ceremony out of its usual September perch. So: Now that that’s out of the way, which TV series should we expect to walk away with nominations for the actual Emmys 2024? VF’s experts have educated guesses for every major category.
COMEDY SERIES
Abbott Elementary The Bear Curb Your Enthusiasm The Gentlemen Hacks Only Murders in the Building Reservation Dogs What We Do in the Shadows
Five returning nominees here feel fairly locked in. We’ll start with reigning champ The Bear, which—while a bit more dramatic than your average comedy-series contender—has swept races not just at the Emmys, but at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and various industry guilds. It’s the front-runner. After a two-year hiatus, Max’s Hacks returned triumphant and has emerged as the primary challenger with its series-best season three. Abbott Elementary and Only Murders in the Building have been Emmy mainstays for their first seasons too, and will comfortably return to the fold for their own strong third seasons. Curb Your Enthusiasm meanwhile is up for its final season more than 20 years after its first nod in this category.
After that, things get tricky. The big remaining streamers each have one newbie they’d love to sneak in, with each carrying obvious advantages and disadvantages. Apple TV+ has Palm Royale, the starriest and most heavily marketed of the bunch. But it’s designated “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes and faded in visibility over the spring. Prime Video’s I’m a Virgo was severely underseen—and aired a full year ago—but ranked among the best-reviewed shows in 2023. The best-positioned may be Netflix’s The Gentlemen, which, while not an obvious awards play on its face—Guy Ritchie hasn’t exactly been in the Academy’s conversation ever—was a success for the streamer that critics also embraced.
Can all three freshmen get in? Those first two face especially tough hurdles, especially when past nominee What We Do in the Shadows is a proven hit with the TV Academy, and another acclaimed FX half-hour, Reservation Dogs, is on its last chance for its final season—after being completely snubbed above the line until now, no less. Maybe, given the scattered nature of the field, enough voters have come around for Reservation Dogs to sneak in. —David Canfield
ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm Theo James, The Gentlemen Steve Martin, Only Murders in the Building Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building Jeremy Allen White, The Bear
This category is straightforward. Jeremy Allen White will be back for The Bear’s second season, primed to win once again. The only other 2023 nominee on the ballot is Only Murders in the Building’s Martin Short, so expect him to return as well. His costar, Steve Martin, fell off after being nominated for season one, but I’d bet on him finding his way back as a nominee—along with Curb’s Larry David, also snubbed for his most recent season—given the lack of alternatives. The most viable of them is The Gentlemen’s Theo James, seeing as he’s fresh off his first Emmy nod for The White Lotus and The Gentlemen found a significant audience. You could argue past Emmy winner Jharrel Jerome stands a shot for his terrific work in I’m a Virgo, or that Kelsey Grammer could get checked off for the Frasier revival, but I’m not convinced either series is on the TV Academy’s radar enough to put their leads ahead of a rather obvious five. —DC
ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary Ayo Edebiri, The Bear Maya Rudolph, Loot Jean Smart, Hacks Kristen Wiig, Palm Royale
We’ve got a race here, as three of the presumed nominees are coming off wins for their respective roles. Jean Smart won for Hacks two years ago, before taking off the last cycle. In her place, Quinta Brunson took home the gold for Abbott Elementary. Ayo Edebiri won the supporting-actress prize for The Bear’s first season, but this time around is bumping up to lead. All three are certain at least to make it to nominations. Beyond them? Even when Only Murders was at its hottest, voters snubbed Selena Gomez, so although this is her best chance, it remains a climb. It’s unclear just how many Academy members watched—and for that matter, liked—Apple’s relevant contenders, Palm Royale and Loot, but both Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are Academy favorites. Their charming, consistent runs on the campaign trail these last few months may just be enough to get them into the race. For those looking outside the box, I’d hope Netflix’s push for Girls5Eva nets Renee Elise Goldsberry the nod she’s been unfairly denied thus far. It’s one of the best comic performances on TV. —DC
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Lionel Boyce, The Bear Paul W. Downs, Hacks Matty Matheson, The Bear Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear Oliver Platt, The Bear Tyler James Williams, Abbott Elementary
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David Canfield, Rebecca Ford, Hillary Busis, Richard Lawson, Chris Murphy, Savannah Walsh, Anthony Breznican, Julie Miller
When it comes to Emmy voters, they like what they like. The shows they picked last year are more often than not the shows they will pick this year. We all groaned at five consecutive years of Modern Family winning Outstanding Comedy and The Handmaid’s Tale raking in a dozen or more nominations long past its prime. But that kind of rut-digging reaches the point of parody when it comes to the reality-TV categories, where Emmy voters have been nominating the same shows for ten, 15, and even 20 years.
This goes all the way back to 2003, when The Amazing Race won the very first Outstanding Reality Competition Emmy. Survivor and American Idol were the more popular shows, but The Amazing Race had a prestige sheen (world travel! Cinematography!), so it wasn’t a huge surprise when it won. What was a surprise was The Amazing Race going on to win the category for the first seven years of its existence, nine of the first ten, and ten in total. This continued long past the point where The Amazing Race was considered one of the premier reality-TV shows; past the early seasons of Project Runway (which has never won) and Top Chef (which won only once, in 2010). After The Amazing Race won all its Emmys, The Voice won three out of four years, followed by RuPaul’s Drag Race winning five out of the last six years.
In the 21 years the Outstanding Reality Competition category has existed, only five shows have ever won, including a surprise victory for Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls in 2022. Moreover, only 17 shows have ever even been nominated. This category covers, per the Emmy rules, “programs that include a competitive element for a prize […] with produced contestant story elements and other reality-style competitive elements.” This excludes “unstructured reality” shows (basically anything on Bravo) as well as game shows like The Floor or “structured reality” shows like Shark Tank, which apparently doesn’t contain sufficient “story elements” to qualify. (Ask me to explain why Chopped is a Reality Competition while Shark Tank is a Structured Reality show, and I will curl up into a ball.) But even though Reality Competition only represents a fraction of the reality shows produced, five winners and 17 nominees in two decades is a shocking number. At least with Outstanding Variety Talk Series, the one where all the late-night shows get nominated, you understand there are only a handful of shows to choose from. Over the same span, there have been 52 shows nominated for Outstanding Drama and 54 nominated for Outstanding Comedy, and even with those categories eventually expanding to more nominees, that is a wild discrepancy.
This kind of rubber-stamping shows up in a lot of the reality categories. Outstanding Host of a Reality Program has only had six winners since that category debuted in 2008 (RuPaul is currently on an eight-year streak). The Outstanding Structured Reality Program Emmy has gone to Netflix’s Queer Eye for the last six years in a row, and has nominated Antiques Road Show for 14 straight years, Shark Tank for 12 straight years, and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives in seven of the last ten years. Meanwhile, the Emmys have wholesale ignored entire subgenres of reality; The Bachelor franchise has never been nominated for an Emmy in any of its iterations. The Challenge has been similarly blanked, and its parent series, no less groundbreaking a show as The Real World, was only ever nominated for one Emmy, back in 2000 for Outstanding Picture Editing in a Non-Fiction Program, which it lost to PBS’s American Experience documentary on New York City.
Famously, just last year, Vanderpump Rules became the first show in the Real Housewives universe to receive Emmy nominations, for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program and Outstanding Editing (Unstructured Reality). This category — which has existed since 2014, when the Outstanding Reality Program category (i.e. everything that wasn’t a competition) was split into Structured and Unstructured — has been a hodgepodge of shows from Discovery (Deadliest Catch), A&E (Intervention and Born This Way), and recently Netflix (Selling Sunset, Cheer, Love on the Spectrum). It’s the one reality category where voters cycle in new nominees (last year it was Vanderpump and the winner, Welcome to Wrexham).
So, what explains this uncommonly rigid voting pattern in Reality Competition? Part of it is that reality shows just keep going. If Game of Thrones had lasted 20 years, the Emmys might still be voting for it. But I’ve always wondered how much industry intransigence has to do with this. In the years after Survivor debuted, there was a pervasive sense of unease in Hollywood, as cheaper-to-make reality shows took up more space on network lineups and left less room for shows with writers and actors. Adding a Reality category to the Emmys felt like capitulation to the Fear Factor–watching hordes. Perhaps block voting for the same five shows every year was a way to keep most reality shows from getting extra shine. Of course, conspiratorial thinking like that requires a kind of coordination that only ever happens when Andrea Riseborough is involved. But at the very least, we can say that Emmy voters haven’t shown much interest in seeking out worthy reality shows beyond a narrow few.
The narrow few that are expected to be nominated this year are the same ones that were nominated last year: RuPaul’s Drag Race, Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Voice, and Top Chef. You could make the case for The Nailed It Baking Challenge, since the original was nominated four times from 2019-2022. But just one year removed from the strikes, it’s hard to imagine voting for a show that canceled a season mid-stream amid union talks from its workers.
There is one possible hope for a category shakeup in the form of Peacock’s The Traitors. The all-reality-stars second season was enough of a cultural flashpoint that Emmy voters might just pay attention. While the show is still tinkering with how to perfect gameplay, the character editing in season two was incredible: the Peter Pals alliance, Parvati shooting inscrutable glances across the room, every single Phaedra interjection. The challenges may not have been any better at influencing game play, but at least they involved slamming coffin lids in eliminated players’ faces and snatching up reality stars in Ewok-style tree nets.
Season one was only nominated for Outstanding Casting for a Reality Program, which it won, indicating that voters are at least aware of and in favor of the show, opening the door to even more nominations this year. The shows The Traitors beat in that category, including Drag Race, Top Chef, and Queer Eye, are all bona fide Emmy favorites; considering how much reality TV success lies in casting, it’s a good bellwether category. And vibes-wise, it does feel like Alan Cumming crashing the Emmys red carpet in a turquoise tartan sash is inevitable. That’s the optimistic view; the pessimistic view is that one low-level award is all voters are willing to give to this show, and Emmy voters seem to have lost their Peacock password, having previously slighted shows like Girls5Eva and Mrs. Davis (and even under-rewarding Poker Face last year).
A Traitors nomination, while welcome, would only change the Reality Competition lineup by 20 percent. For a category that’s become fossilized, that’s not nearly enough, which is why I’m proposing a radical solution: Clear the decks. Bar voters from selecting any show that’s previously been nominated. There are plenty of other reality shows out there, and if the Emmys are supposed to be about the year’s best television, they’re overlooking much of what’s new and good in one of TV’s major genres. If voters have latched onto Drag Race in its celebration of queerness and gender transgression, then honor what’s queer and transgressive in a show like The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula. If the tried-and-true social strategy of Survivor has been worthy year-in and year-out, then The Traitors taking the paranoia of vote-out shows to maniacal new heights is worth supporting. If The Amazing Race is commendable for the production challenges inherent in a race around the world, wouldn’t the nervy innovations of a show like Alone be worth a nomination some time?
If Emmy voters aren’t going to acknowledge the evolution of reality-TV competitions beyond their approved handful, then this is a broken category. But it doesn’t have to be. Realistically, we’re not going to see a complete overhaul of the reality TV categories, short of a rule that caps the number of consecutive years a show can get nominated. But I’m never going to quit hollering about it. And if the Academy wants to take some advice this year, we’ve got some suggestions at the ready.
I’m sorry, is The Amazing Race delivering TV like Tom Hanks’s niece (by marriage! All the weirdness in the Hanks family tree falls under Rita’s branches) throwing an absolute hissyfit in the season premiere because she got eliminated? Is The Voice giving you Franklin (née Frankie) Jonas in sweater after enviable sweater? This has been the most cleverly conceived social-strategy show in many years, complicating classic alliance play with multiple threat levels (you want to get rid of the clever players who can guess your identity, but you might need them for help when you have no idea who the hell Donny Osmond’s kid is) and devising weekly games that allow both the players and the audience to put together clues. This is the best play-along-at-home show since we all decided to vote for Sanjaya that one year on American Idol.
One good thing about the Emmys’ reality-TV stubbornness is that it never fell for the insincere “charms” of The Bachelor. But this spin-off of the show deserves to be the exception, if only for recognizing after two decades that love stories are more interesting among people who have actually lived life.
Nobody thought this show was a good idea, and plenty of people remain chagrined that the original series’ anti-capitalist message got watered down with a spin-off. (Then there were all those reports of shivering, poorly cared-for contestants.) Caveats aside, though, Squid Game: The Challenge improbably edited a game that started with 456 players into a narrative that maintained compelling stakes, characters, and storylines, all while the original series’ sinisterly simplistic games weeded out the competition pitilessly.
There’s room for more sweaty wilderness reality competitions beyond Survivor. The History Channel’s Alone, which continues to be the most genuinely perilous show on television, has been dropping survivalists in remote locations to forage, hunt, build shelters, starve, and outlast each other for almost a decade — and it’s only gotten better over time. Alone enters its eleventh season this summer, but the show’s grand innovations and contributions to the reality genre have been present from the very beginning: a storytelling framework that relies on competitors documenting themselves, a robust production infrastructure, and total commitment to the hardcore nature of its premise. Very few things in reality television are as unique as Alone; even fewer achieve its real highs.
The reality-competition category has included shows that involve singing, dancing, cooking, and designing clothes. But not once has the Emmys recognized a program where people make shit out of glass. The time has come to change that with Blown Away, the only glass-blowing reality competition and also the only show that features terms like annealer and gloryhole on a regular basis. The artists on this series sweat — truly, literally — through every challenge, melting and manipulating glass until it looks like bubble gum, then molding it into magnificent sculptures. (Or watch it shatter in their grasp, an event that never gets less nerve-wracking despite the dozens of times it happens.) Blown Away is about the fragility and delicacy of creating art in a fast-paced, industrial environment that seems designed to break it before it can even be seen. Sounds pretty timely to me.
The human body is capable of astonishing things, of effort and physicality and strength that is nearly incomprehensible. Such is the experience of watching Netflix’s Physical: 100, a South Korean reality competition that pits 100 extremely fit people against each other in a series of grueling individual and team challenges to determine whose body is the best. This premise seems a lot simpler than it is: As people of all kinds of backgrounds converge — professional athletes, military veterans, models, MMA fighters, firefighters — many competitors assume they’ll dominate based on how ripped they are or how sturdy or tall, and those expectations trickle down to viewers, too. Surely the most muscular will rise about the rest, given that so many cultures prize ab count over other aspects of fitness. But part of the delight of watching Physical: 100 is how often that assumption is undercut by the contestants’ varying degrees of success regardless of body type. Those subversions make the viewer wonder what, exactly, winning takes. Is it a particular kind of athletic ability? Willpower or determination or stubbornness? Physical: 100 is set up to make us obsess over finding that X-factor, and the cliffhanger-heavy episodic structure and clever editing amp up the drama. It’s a unique format that upends so much of what we’ve come to expect from physical-competition shows, and it deserves recognition for that.
Jen Chaney, Roxana Hadadi, and Nicholas Quah contributed submissions.
Ronnie Dunn, Sammy Hagar, Kix Brooks, Lainey Wilson, Roger Clemens and Lukas NelsonJeff Kravitz/Getty Images for CMT
There wasn’t a dry eye in Austin’s Moody Center as Lainey Wilson and more country superstars paid tribute to the late Toby Keithtwo months after his death at the CMT Music Awards.
Wilson, 31, was joined by Brooks & Dunn, Sammy Hagar and Lukas Nelson on Sunday, April 7. Former MLB player Roger Clemens exclusively told Us Weekly that he was looking forward to remember Keith. “Hopefully, I don’t get too emotional,” he told Us on the red carpet. “We miss him dearly and just an honor to be asked to come and present one of his songs, so I’m looking forward to it.”
He added that he wanted to recognize the family and “stay upbeat” throughout the night. “Toby did leave us with some great songs. I mean, you know what I’m saying? A lot of great ones, and they’re fun to sing too,” Clemens, 61, said. “Sometimes I can sing ’em pretty good and there’s other ones I can’t sing very well, but I give it my best.”
The retired athlete took the stage to introduce the tribute first. “It’s an honor to be here and celebrate Big Dog Daddy Toby Keith, a true friend, patriot and great American. Toby was in Houston, off and on for three years while he was battling that damn C-word. Through it all, he always kept his humor and his wit,” Clemens shared during the show.
The 2024 CMT Music Awards took over Texas, which means fan-favorite country stars flocked to the red carpet. The biggest names of the genre brought their fashion A-game to Austin’s Moody Center on Sunday, April 7. We’re talking flirty frocks, glamorous gowns, stylish suits — paired with bold hair, fierce makeup and accessories to remember. […]
He added, “A perfect example of it, my two younger boys, who played baseball right here at the University of Texas, they were in Oklahoma playing the Sooners, Toby’s university. No, y’all can’t boo tonight. This is for Tony. Toby told my boys, if you hit a home room off our Oklahoma pitcher to day I’ll sit on your dugout and I’ll sing “the eyes of Texas’ with you … true to form, Toby sat on that dugout and with his funny wit, he sang “I’ve been working on the railroad.’”
Clemens introduced Brooks & Dunn, who played Keith’s hit “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” and they introduced Hagar.
“Toby and I, we spent a lot of time in Cabo together over the years,” the rocker, 76, said. “We closed the Cabo Wabo down a lot more times than probably we even remember. Just put it like this, it’s hard to get thrown out of your own bar, and we managed to do that.”
Hagar continued, “We had this routine. I’d go down early and I’d I’d be on stage with the band and I’d see this big commotion going on at the front door and I would look up and big dog daddy and his posse walking through the door and I would turn to the band and I would say.”
Ronnie Dunn, Sammy Hagar, Kix Brooks, Lainey Wilson, Roger Clemens and Lukas NelsonRick Kern/Getty Images for CMT
Then, Hagar launched into Keith’s song “I Love This Bar” and revealed his shirt said “Forever a Sooner.”
Following Hagar, songwriters Lukas Nelson and Riley Green came out to pay their respects. “Toby was not a shy guy. He had a big personality,” Nelson said. “I met him when I was younger, when he was working on Beer for my horses” with dad. I got lucky I got the opportunity to watch his artistry in person.”
Green added, “That guy could come up with a hook like no other and sang the hell out of every song that he wrote somehow while making it look easy.”
They introduced Lainey Wilson, who covered Keith’s “How Do Ya Like Me Now?” Finally, Clemens returned to the stage to end with the tribute with a shout-out to the family and a toast.
“Thanks for sharing your dad with all of us,” Clemens said as he struggled to control his emotions. “Thank you. Trish, we love you. Thank you for sharing your husband with the world Trish, thank you.”
The 2024 CMT Music Awards celebrates some of the biggest names in country music. The Sunday, April 7, awards show kicks off at 8 p.m. ET at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. Kelsea Ballerini makes her return to host the awards show for the fourth time — with 2024 marking her first time doing […]
He and many audience members raised red Solo cups in reference to Keith’s “Red Solo Cup” track. “Everybody at home, raise your fist if you don’t have a Solo cup,” he said. “Repeat after me: whiskey for my men and beer for my horses.”
News broke in February that Keith had died at the age of 62.
“Toby Keith passed peacefully last night on February 5th, surrounded by his family. He fought his fight with grace and courage,” a statement shared via his social media accounts read on February 6. “Please respect the privacy of his family at this time.”
Keith, who is survived by wife Tricia Lucus and their three children, had been diagnosed with stomach cancer less than one year earlier.
“Last fall I was diagnosed with stomach cancer,” the “Red Solo Cup” singer wrote via Instagram in June 2022. “I’ve spent the last 6 months receiving chemo, radiation and surgery. So far, so good. I need time to breathe, recover and relax.”
He continued at the time, “I am looking forward to spending this time with my family. But I will see the fans sooner than later. I can’t wait.”
The 2024 CMT Music Awards was the ultimate date night for country music’s hottest couples on Sunday, April 7. Jelly Roll, who is nominated for three awards, brought wife Bunnie XO to the ceremony. The singer, 39, opted for an all-black look with a beige leather jacket and a diamond cross necklace. Bunnie XO, 44, […]
Nearly one year later, Keith was honored with the Country Icon Award at the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards in September 2023. On the red carpet, he offered a health update.
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“I’ve been OK, just been rocking and rolling,” Keith told Extra. “I walked some dark hallways, Almighty is riding shotgun. But I feel pretty good … You have good days and bad days … it’s a little bit of a roller coaster, but I’m doing a lot better than I was this time last year.”
Keith had sold more than 44 million records worldwide and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame one day after his death. He also had a longstanding history with the CMT Awards, having scored 30 nominations and seven wins over the course of his career. Keith also cohosted the ceremony twice in 2003 and 2012, the first of which was when he won three trophies including Video of the Year for “Courtesy of The Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).”
The CMT Music Awards will further celebrate Keith’s legacy in a one-hour TV special on Thursday, April 11, that airs on CMT at 10 p.m. ET.
The 2024 Grammy Awards were full of captivating performances and heartfelt speeches — but not all the best moments were featured on TV.
While viewers saw Taylor Swift make history on Sunday, February 4, as the only artist to win Album of the Year four times, they didn’t see fangirl Swift, 34, at work during the commercial breaks. Swift, who won two Grammys during the night, was also one of the busiest singers in the audience.
During the first hour of the show, Swift was spotted grabbing Dua Lipa to fawn over the British singer, 28. The pair hugged and took a selfie, an insider exclusively told Us Weekly.
Swift later found herself in the middle of the mob scene that surrounded Beyoncé once the “Lemonade” singer, 42, arrived at the event. Swift was then seen talking and hugging both Lipa, 28, and Beyoncé, per an eyewitness.
The best in music brought their fashion A-game to the 2024 Grammys. Industry icons and buzzy newcomers rocked the red carpet at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 4. We’re talking billowing gowns, skin-baring frocks, eye-catching suits and out-of-this-world hair and glam. Footwear was also memorable, with fan-favorite stars strutting their stuff […]
Swift, who announced her 11th studio album during the awards show, kept the good times rolling, hugging New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was also in the audience. The “Lavender Haze” singer later shared a sweet embrace with Billie Eilish, the insider told Us.
Scroll down for a look at the behind-the-scenes moments from the 2024 Grammys:
Champagne Kisses
Heidi Klum grabbed a glass of champagne from her husband, Tom Kaulitz, and gave him a kiss outside the theater, a source told Us.
Lending a Hand
Robyn BECK / AFP
Jelly Roll was spotted adjusting his wife Bunnie XO’s dress before she stepped into the venue. The “Save Me” singer, 39, was later seen with Luke Bryan before the show kicked off.
Feeling Cagey
Chrissy Teigen gasped and grabbed onto her husband John Legend’s arm when Lipa’s cage flipped over for the first time during her “Training Season” performance.
Girl Power
Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Olivia Rodrigo and Eilish, 22, proved that girl power is alive and well during the early moments of the awards show. Rodrigo, 20, took selfies with fans before rushing to her seat, according to an eyewitness. Eilish was later seen “running through the crowd” to hug Rodrigo. The pair chatted for a while and Rodrigo complimented Eilish on her hair, per the insider.
No. 1 Fangirl
Swift immediately started singing from the audience when Tracy Chapman took the stage with Luke Combs for a “Fast Car” duet. She was spotted swaying and dancing as she sang “every word for the whole performance,” an insider told Us.
When Miley Cyrus took the stage to perform “Flowers,” Swift was once again seen partying. Swift opted to spin around longtime pal Kelsea Ballerini as Cyrus slayed the stage. Throughout the event, the insider spotted Swift taking a picture with SZA and Jelly Roll.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images The 2024 Grammys were bigger than ever with new categories and a star-studded lineup of chart-topping performers. Trevor Noah returned as host for the fourth consecutive year, taking the stage at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 4. Nominations were announced in November 2023 with three new categories introduced […]
Feeling Herself
Meryl Streep was seen “bouncing her shoulders” and dancing to a Bad Bunny song during one of the commercial breaks. Streep, 74, was nominated for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording for Big Tree.Michelle Obama won the category for The Light We Carry: Overcoming In Uncertain Times.
Lucky No. 13
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After Swift received her 13th career Grammy win for Best Pop Vocal Album during the award show, she stunned the audience — and fans — by announcing her next album, The Tortured Poets Department. The crowd applauded and screamed over the news, per an insider, who told Us Swift received a standing ovation.
Feeling the Love
Cyrus and Eilish shared a sweet moment during the broadcast and fawned over each other, according to an eyewitness, who noticed the women “jumping up and hugging” during a break.
Sleuth Céline
Stewart Cook/CBS
Céline Dion arrived mid-show with designer Law Roach via an elevator, a source told Us, noting that the singer, who has been battling stiff-person syndrome, looked “healthy and great.” Dion, 55, surprised the audience to announce the Album of the Year winner.
Proud Wife
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Beyoncé looked “so proud” as she clapped and watched her husband, Jay-Z, accept the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. Lizzo and Gayle King were spotted running over to her table during Jay-Z’s speech after the rapper told the audience that some people “don’t deserve” to be nominated.
The Beyonce Effect
Beyoncé appeared to be in the center of almost every conversation throughout the evening. She was spotted talking with Swift, Lipa, Lizzo, 35, King, 69. Streep also stopped by Beyoncé’s table to say, according to CNN reporter Elizabeth Wagmeister. Kacey Musgraves was seen talking with the former Destiny’s Child singer at one point as well, Wagmeister shared via X.
Drink Up!
JAY-Z turns his GRAMMY into a drink cup after using his speech to call out The Academy on Beyoncé’s behalf. pic.twitter.com/3Srr2mUlRx
Jay-Z, 54, toasted to his win by turning his Grammy trophy into a cup and taking a shot out of the vessel, according to a video shared via X.
Don’t Feel Blue
Beyoncé dipped out of the show early, an insider told Us, noting there was an hour left in the show. Before she exited the venue, her daughter Blue Ivy spotted her so they could watch Burna Boy perform.
What’s Your Flavor?
Flavor Flav shared a behind-the-scenes look from the Grammys via social media. His celebrity encounters included a hug with Cyrus backstage and taking photos with Swift and Boygenius.
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Friends Come First
While Swift won big at the Grammys, her pal Ice Spice lost the Best New Artist category. Swift walked straight over to the rapper, 24, to console her and give her a big hug, an insider told Us.
Swift also showed support for Victoria Monét, who won the category, by jumping and applauding from her seat.
She might kill her ex. Photo: Andrew Chin/Getty Images
The Grammys are for the girls this year. An impressive number of women are nominated for music’s top honors, and now, many of them will be taking the stage too. The boys are performing with girls as well — Brandy is joining Burna Boy along with 21 Savage, while Tracy Chapman will duet her song “Fast Car” with Luke Combs. Grande Girlie Joni Mitchell will take the stage for the very first time in Grammys history. SZA, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, and Olivia Rodrigo are also set to perform — as well as Billy Joel, an honorary girlie after Rodrigo name-dropped him in her 2021 song “Deja Vu.” Variety also reported that Miley Cyrus was rehearsing to perform “Flowers,” which was perhaps meant to be a surprise given that she has yet to officially be announced as a performer.
Meanwhile,SZA, Phoebe Bridgers, and Victoria Monét are some of the night’s top honorees — not to mention Taylor Swift, who’s looking to set some records with Midnights. It all goes down February 4 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Below is everything you need to know before you get the girls together to watch.
SZA leads the Grammy pack with nine nominations for her second album, SOS, including in the top categories of Album, Record, and Song of the Year. Bridgers and Monét are just behind her with seven apiece, followed by the rest of boygenius, Jack Antonoff, Batiste, Brandy Clark, Miley Cyrus, Eilish, Rodrigo, and a little lady named Taylor Swift, all with six each. Women showed up strong when the nominees were announced on November 10, with female artists in seven out of the eight slots for Album, Record, and Song of the Year. SZA has a chance to add some serious hardware, Swift could set a record for Album of the Year wins — or Batiste could surprise us all again after playing the dark horse in 2022. Don’t put it past the Academy.
Even Burna Boy will be joined by a girlie, when Brandy takes the stage for the first time in decades alongside him and 21 Savage for the Grammys’ first-ever Afrobeats performance. Tracy Chapman will make an even rarer appearance to prove she really does like Combs’s “Fast Car” cover, dueting her hit with him. They’re just two legends scheduled, along with Mitchell (for the first time ever), Joel (for the first time in decades), and U2 (live from the Sphere in Las Vegas). SZA, Rodrigo, Eilish, and Lipa are also among the women performing — and some of the night’s top nominees. They could be part of a few brewing Grammy Moments™: a possible Barbie medley between Eilish and Lipa and a chance for Rodrigo to perform with one of her faves, Joel. Travis Scott will also perform.
Nope — it’s Trevor Noah again. The comedian is hosting the Grammys for the fourth consecutive year, the Academy announced on December 13. Hey, at least this show can hold down a host. Noah is also up for some hardware himself this year, in Best Comedy Album for I Wish You Would.
The women are back as announced presenters, however. Christina Aguilera, Meryl Streep, Samara Joy, Taylor Tomlinson, and Oprah Winfrey are all set to present. Oh, and Lionel Richie, Lenny Kravitz, Maluma, and Barbie boy Mark Ronson.
As usual, most of the Grammy Awards will be given out before the televised show. That happens at the Premiere Ceremony, which streams on February 4 beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET on YouTube. And with a somewhat loaded list of performers, this year’s may actually be worth tuning in to. They’ll include singer-songwriter Clark, a top nominee with six nods, as well as nominees Laufey, Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, Kirk Franklin, Gaby Moreno, Adam Blackstone, and Bob James. Other performers will include Sheila E., Pentatonix, Larkin Poe, Jordin Sparks, and J. Ivy, plus drummer Harvey Mason Sr., father of the Recording Academy’s own CEO. Songwriter of the Year nominee Justin Tranter will host the preshow; presenters include current nominees Carly Pearce, Natalia Lafourcade, Rufus Wainwright, Patti Austin, and Molly Tuttle, along with Jimmy Jam.
Quite a lot, actually. Most prominently, the number of nominees in the Big Four categories (Album, Record, and Song of the Year, plus Best New Artist) is being reduced from ten to eight. The Academy had upped the nominees in those categories to ten just two years ago, out of diversity concerns; there had been eight nominees since the 2019 awards. Also, the Non-Classical Producer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year will move to the general category, where all Academy members can vote on those awards. The Grammys are adding three awards this year: Best African Music Performance, Best Pop Dance Recording, and Best Alternative Jazz Album. Oh, and at least you won’t have to worry about AI — the Academy added a rule against contributions by artificial intelligence to submissions.
The ceremony will air on CBS and Paramount+ With Showtime on February 4, beginning at 8 p.m. ET.
This story has been updated throughout with additional information.
Now that the 2024 Oscar nominations are here, it’s homework time. Sure, nobody but the Oscar voters themselves are required to watch all of the Oscar nominees, but why not head into the awards on March 10 as informed as you can be? Plus, between some of last year’s biggest blockbusters, heart-wrenching documentaries, and what might be the best superhero movie ever, there’s a lot of great stuff to catch up on.
Below, a guide to where you can catch all of this year’s nominees, including streaming links for everything that’s already available for you right at home. Happy viewing!
STREAMING
American Symphony(Netflix)
Oscar and Grammy winner Jon Batiste gets the full documentary treatment with this heartbreaking, intricately crafted portrait of an artist approaching the most ambitious work of his career, and of a marriage facing down a devastating disease. The Netflix film was rather shockingly snubbed for best documentary, where it was expected to win, but Batiste’s original song “It Never Went Away” was nominated in a competitive category alongside two Barbie songs.
Barbie(Max)
Last year’s box office champ is now nominated for eight Oscars, and even without best-director and best-actress nods, it will be a force to be reckoned with at the March 10 ceremony. The Oscar-nominated costumes and production design might be what first caught our eye, but the infinitely quotable screenplay and performances (also Oscar-nominated!) are what’s made it endure.
Bobi Wine: The People’s President(Disney+)
A rousing portrait of political movement and dissent, this documentary examines the effort of singer Bobi Wine to run a democratic campaign against the sitting autocratic government of Uganda—and his plea for the people to make a change.
The Creator(Hulu)
Hailed for the visual effects it accomplished on a relatively modest $80 million budget, the Gareth Edwards–directed sci-fi film earned a nomination for those dazzling effects as well as one for sound. If you ask our critic, it deserved to be a sleeper hit—maybe now’s the time.
El Conde(Netflix)
Rich in classic cinematic references ranging from Nosferatu to Superman, this decidedly strange anti-biopic from Spencer’s Pablo Larraín felt too weird even for the Academy. The gist: Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is a vampire who won’t stop haunting the country he nearly destroyed. But Edward Lachman’s stark, dreamy black-and-white cinematography proved too stunning for his peers to deny.
Elemental(Disney+)
Pixar Animation’s 27th feature film is set in a world of anthropomorphic elements of nature and centers around two: Ember, a fire element, and Wade, a water element. It’s a classic Pixar movie, a heartwarming tale about embracing differences with gorgeous visuals, and it’s nominated for best animated feature.
The Eternal Memory(Paramount+)
In this stunningly moving Chilean documentary, a journalist suffering from Alzheimer’s and his wife, a noted actor, simply take life day by day. Maite Alberdi’s intimate hand captures the heartbreak, humor, and enduring love between a couple treating every day as if it could be their last—or just any other.
Flamin’ Hot(Disney+, Hulu)
You may not have expected Eva Longoria’s zippy directorial debut—a biopic of the man who claimed (rather controversially) to be the inventor of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos—to enter the Oscar conversation after its swift drop on Hulu. But when one asks Diane Warren to contribute an original song, that equation quickly changes—and indeed, Warren’s “The Fire Inside” has given the songwriter, remarkably, her 15th nomination.
Golda(Fubo)
Helen Mirren may be a versatile, transformational actor, but she’d never gone under prosthetics for a role the way this eponymous biopic required. For rendering the Oscar winner completely unrecognizable in the role of Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who guided her country through a time of brutal war, makeup artist Karen Hartley-Thomas and her team earned a deserved surprise nomination.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3(Disney+)
Nominated in the best-visual-effects category, the conclusion to the Guardians of the Galaxy series was one significant bright spot in Marvel’s otherwise rough 2023.
The Holdovers(Peacock)
The 1970-set film is director Alexander Payne’s first feature since 2017’s drama Downsizing and reunites the director with his Sideways star and now best-actor nominee Paul Giamatti. In the film, Giamatti plays a cranky professor at an all-boys East Coast prep school forced to stay on campus over the holidays and chaperone a handful of students and fellow employees, including grieving mother and cook Mary Lamb, played by fellow new nominee Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny(Disney+)
The latest entrant in the iconic franchise struggled at the box office even as it brought Harrison Ford back in gear—and winningly paired him with Phoebe Waller-Bridge—but the Academy wasn’t ready to give up on the legendary composer John Williams, breaking his own record this year with his 54th Oscar nomination for the score.
Killers of the Flower Moon(Apple TV+)
One could argue that the three-hour Western crime drama, which is based on the 2017 book by David Grann, has been an Oscar contender since production was announced. With three icons of cinema involved in director Martin Scorsese and stars Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, the film was always going to be a must-see, and with Lily Gladstone’s powerful, moving performance at its true center, it’s no wonder the film has 10 nominations.
Maestro(Netflix)
Bradley Cooper’s passion project, about the life and loves of famed composer Leonard Bernstein, has long been a front-runner to land Oscar nominations. The film received seven nods in total, including best picture, acting nominations for writer-director-star Cooper and Carey Mulligan, best original screenplay, best cinematography, best sound, and best makeup and hairstyling.
May December(Netflix)
A “sly wonder” when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, the latest from Todd Haynes was picked up by Netflix and got a robust awards-season push, including a lot of buzz for stars Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton. In the end it landed just one Oscar nomination, for the screenplay by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, but it’s already well on its way to becoming a modern classic.
Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One(Paramount+)
Overshadowed last summer by the Barbenheimer phenomenon, the latest Mission: Impossible isn’t quite the Oscar force that Tom Cruise’s last movie was, but it has two well-earned nominations for its sound and visual effects.
Nimona(Netflix)
The animated adaptation of ND Stevenson’s graphic novel features stellar lead voice performances from Riz Ahmed and Chloë Grace Moretz, plus an elegant animation style that helps it stand apart from so many mainstream animated releases.
Nyad(Netflix)
Nominated for both Annette Bening’s rigorous lead performance as the marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, and Jodie Foster’s warm supporting turn as her coach, Bonnie Stoll,Nyad is a sports drama that really lifts off thanks to the friendship at its center. As Vanity Fair chief critic Richard Lawson wrote in his review, “Nyad crackles most when Nyad and Bonnie are grooving together on land.”
Rustin(Netflix)
Colman Domingo’s best-actor nomination makes him the first openly gay actor nominated for an Oscar in more than 20 years—a feat even more special because his nod is for playing civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin, whose pivotal role in organizing the March on Washington was often overlooked until now.
Society of the Snow(Netflix)
The harrowing true story of the Uruguayan rugby team who survived a plane crash in the Andes has never been more vivid than in J.A. Bayona’s film, an Oscar contender for both best international feature and hair and makeup. Bayona says he prepared the actors extensively so he could film “almost like a documentary”—a commitment to realism that absolutely comes through.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse(Netflix)
Another strike against the “sequel is never better than the original” crowd, this spectacular second cinematic chapter in the saga of Miles Morales joined the ranks of Barbie and Oppenheimer as a dual box-office and critical phenomenon. From an Oscar-nominated team including Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Kemp Powers, the kinetic animation style and dizzying energy hurtled this story to a cliff-hanger—one just juicy enough to keep us both satisfied and hungry for more.
RENTABLE
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet’s layered legal thriller has been picking up acclaim and awards-season steam this month, particularly after taking home the best-screenplay trophy at the Golden Globes. After winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Triet’s film has also received seven BAFTA nominations and is now up for five Oscars, including best actress for Sandra Hüller’s powerful performance.
Four Daughters
This innovative, experimental documentary provides an intimate, if controlled, depiction of ordinary Tunisian family life, after two daughters disappear from a family of four children. Director Kaouther Ben Hania places actors in the roles of the missing daughters to carefully explore feelings of grief, loss, confusion, and love in a broken family unit. It’s an exclusive in the Kino Film Collection in addition to being available to rent.
Oppenheimer
The most-nominated film of the year and best-picture favorite, Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic may earn stars Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, and Robert Downey Jr. their first Oscars in addition to accolades for its mind-boggling visuals and score. With a rigorous attention to real history but a brisk pace that makes three hours fly by, it’s a spectacle that still hits hard on the small screen.
Napoleon
The Ridley Scott–directed epic about France’s notorious conqueror, played by Joaquin Phoenix, picked up three nominations from the Academy, including best achievement in production design, costume design, and visual effects.
Past Lives
Celine Song’s celebrated first feature, which she wrote and directed, has been a critical darling since its Sundance debut in 2023. The film, about two friends drifting in and out of each other’s lives over nearly three decades, played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, has two nominations for Song’s original screenplay and best picture.
The Color Purple
This starry big-screen adaptation of Alice Walker’s beloved novel and the Broadway show it inspired boasts a talented ensemble and two icons as executive producers, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. Though Danielle Brooks received the film’s only Oscar nomination, the entire cast has been celebrating both the making and release of the film.
20 Days in Mariupol
This harrowing, immersive documentary emerged as one of the year’s most decorated ever since premiering more than a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov breathtakingly documents the 20 days he spent in a Ukranian city under siege immediately following the Russian invasion. It’s both nominated for best documentary and was Ukraine’s shortlisted entry for international feature. (Currently streaming for free on YouTube.)
ONLY IN THEATERS
The Boy and the Heron
The critical acclaim and box office success of what may or may not beHayao Miyazaki’s final film was enough to land the beloved director a Golden Globe for his fantastical coming-of-age film, also up for the best-animated-feature Oscar.
Somehow, this relatively low-budget Japanese phenomenon is the first Godzilla movie to ever receive an Oscar nomination, for its visual effects. And how appropriate, with director Takashi Yamazaki conjuring a sense of terror and wonder in his portrait of a postwar Japan under siege from an iconic movie monster.
Poor Things
Combine Frankenstein with a coming-of-age road-trip saga and you come close to describing what makes Poor Things, nominated for 11 Oscars, so special. Led by Emma Stone’s richest performance yet, courtesy of her enduring collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos, it’s a visually dazzling and surprisingly moving period piece so appealing that costar Ramy Youssef agreed to do it before reading a word of the script.
The Teachers’ Lounge
Led by a ferociously brilliant Leonie Benesch, this German social thriller was the surprise talk of festivals all around the world in 2023, from its Berlin premiere to its North American launch in Telluride. Accordingly, while flashier titles took up more oxygen in the international-film race, it’s no surprise that this portrait of a modern-day elementary school teacher facing a profound moral quandary made its way into the Oscars’ final five.
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s “chilling presentation of evil,” as we’ve described it, is a Holocaust movie unlike any other. The film paints a stark portrait of a family, the patriarch played by Christian Friedel and matriarch by Sandra Hüller, who live a lavish life despite being located right next to Auschwitz. It has five Oscar nominations including best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay.
NOT AVAILABLE YET
Io Capitano
This best-international-feature nominee from Italy and director Matteo Garrone is a moving “Homeric adventure” about two Senegalese teenagers who leave their home in Dakar in search of a better life in Europe. In addition to the Oscar and Golden Globe nomination, star Seydou Sarr received the best-young-actor award at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Perfect Days
Made by German director Wim Wenders but filmed in Japan, this international-feature nominee doesn’t open in North American theaters until February 7—plenty of time to catch this lovely, meditative film before Oscar night.
Robot Dreams
This first animated feature from award-winning Spanish director Pablo Berger (Blancanieves) is based on the graphic novel by Sara Varon and revolves around a lonely dog living in Manhattan who decides to build himself a robot for company. The moving story about the importance of friendship is nominated for best animated feature but is not yet available in theaters or to stream.
To Kill a Tiger
This best-documentary-feature nominee centers around Ranjit, a farmer and loving father in India seeking justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the survivor of a brutal sexual assault. Director Nisha Pahuja worked for nearly 10 years to bring the story to big screens.
Every year, Awards Season is special for one reason: we all come together in outrage against a very specific group of voters, and publicly shame them until we grow bored. The Golden Globes and Emmys are great predictors of who will be ultimately nominated for an Oscar…but this year, it appears that the Academy stopped watching movies altogether.
When I woke up yesterday, I was bombarded by thousands of Tweets calling for the evisceration of the Academy after the 2024 Oscar Nominee list was revealed. It’s your modern-day mob mentality — and get your pitchforks ready, because there were quite a few notable snubs.
Okay, so I was already up in arms about the lack of nominations for Jacob Elordi and Charles Melton. But nothing was more offensive than the glaringly obvious Barbie irony: the Academy chose to honor “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling in a movie created by women, for women, about the struggles of feminism in a male-dominated society.
This is no hate to Ryan Gosling, who has owned his Ken-ergy in the best, candid way possible. He has supported his cast and uplifted its women during every single press event, red carpet, and personal statement. But the fact that they chose to nominate the one song about men taking over is laughable. Commenting on the lack of nominations himself, Gosling took to social media to say:
“ But there is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film…To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement,”
Sure, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” was nominated considering it’s a beautiful, haunting ballad that perfectly fits the film. But the Oscars have proven they’re Billie stans before by honoring her James Bond ballad. What about the two women who made Barbie possible? Who revived cinema and brought millions of moviegoers to the theaters dressed in pink? Who created a whole movement surrounding celebrating women after years of being told we should bring each other down?
Barbie was a statistically bigger first-week success story than its release-day twin, Oppenheimer, and the biggest film of the year. Yet, no nomination for the director and face of the film. It’s almost like the Academy realized this movie was about them…
Here’s the worst part: you don’t have to let them win if you don’t want to. To not even recognize Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s work and impact on the 2023 cinemascape is like saying Taylor Swift didn’t dominate the music industry this year. It’s just a lie.
So I will end this the way Taylor Swift would, with lyrics from “The Man”:
Fans of The Bear are getting fed on the regular thanks to awards season, and the cast’s appearance at the 2023 Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, January 15, was no exception.
Lionel Boyce, Matty Matheson, Oliver Platt and Ebon Moss-Bachrach were among the first of the cast to hit the red carpet outside Peacock Theater. Ayo Edebiri soon followed and reminded Us why she’s such a mega star during her red carpet interview.
“I didn’t dream of nights like this, I dreamed of dental insurance,” Edebiri, 28, said before entering the theater.
After much anticipation and a postponement, the 2023 Emmy Awards are almost underway at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Monday, January 15. The Television Academy announced in August 2023 that the 75th annual ceremony was pushed to January 2024 amid actors, writers and other entertainment workers going on strike. Both the Writers Guild […]
The Bear is nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the awards show, which was postponed from September 2023 due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes. The cast also received a handful of nods, including Jeremy Allen White for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, Ebon Moss-Bachrach for Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and Ayo Edebiri for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
Earlier this month, the Hulu series earned four trophies at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards: Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy Series, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation, and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation.
The Bear follows chef Carmy Berzatto (White) as he returns from New York City to Chicago to manage his brother’s sandwich shop after his death. The show premiered in June 2022 and released its second season one year later. It was renewed for season 3 in November 2023.
The series has been sweeping up accolades during the 2023-2024 awards season. Prior to the Emmys, The Bear won Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards on January 7, while White, 32, and Edebiri received Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy, respectively.
At the Golden Globes, the cast made headlines for defending White when reporters repeatedly brought up his Calvin Klein underwear ad, which broke the internet earlier this month. “I have a really serious question to ask you all,” an Extra journalist said as the group gathered backstage following the show’s win.
Amid a strange awards season, one thing has remained the same: a few deserving celebrities have ended their glammed-up evenings with a shiny new talking piece to display on their mantle. Or … somewhere else! When it comes to storing their awards, celebrities have been known to choose some interesting spots for safekeeping. While many […]
Edebiri responded under her breath, “I feel like I know what it is,” as the interviewer picked up an enlarged photo from the shoot. Edebiri promptly retrieved the prop and hid it from view as White laughed.
“I’m putting it away for my boy! That’s my boy,” she noted. “This is a work function!”
Moss-Bachrach, 46, subsequently chimed in: “We’re not at [the] underwear awards, you know what I mean? We’re here to talk about our show.”
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White addressed the viral campaign in the press room after his Golden Globes win, confessing, “It’s been a weird couple of days. It is bizarre doing a Calvin Klein ad, and now it is even more bizarre having it come out. But everything feels OK for now, thank you.”
Scroll down to see what The Bear cast wore on the Emmys red carpet:
Witherspoon, 47, and Ava Phillippe, 24, struck a pose together on the red carpet at the 29th annual ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California on Sunday, January 14. She wore a black strapless Celine gown adorned with a bow at the waistline and paired the look with Christian Louboutin shoes and Bulgari jewelry. Phillippe, for her part, rocked a strapless black embellished tulle dress by Monique Lhuillier with Louboutin shoes and a Celine bag.
Before smiling for the photos, Ava gave a quick hug to Witherspoon’s pal Jennifer Aniston. Witherspoon attended the awards show on Sunday in celebration of The Morning Show, in which she is nominated for Best Actress in a Drama Series. (Aniston, 54, is also nominated for the same award.)
Witherspoon took to her Instagram on Sunday to share snaps standing next to her daughter, writing, “Mother daughter date night.”
The stars are out and rocking the red carpet at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards. Ahead of the 29th annual ceremony at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, on Sunday, January 14, the biggest names in Hollywood showed Us their fashionable side in looks to remember. After posing for photographers and mingling with their fellow […]
It’s been a family affair to awards shows for Witherspoon, who previously brought son Deacon Phillippe, 20, as her plus one to the Golden Globes last week. Witherspoon wore a strapless black gown with an asymmetrical blush-colored twisted top and matching black heels, and paired the look with a diamond choker necklace, diamond earrings and a bracelet. Deacon, for his part, rocked a black tux.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
While walking the red carpet, Deacon made headlines when he sweetly swiped his hand across a strand of Witherspoon’s hair to fix it back.
Before hitting the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Witherspoon and Deacon attended the Vanity Fair pre-Golden Globes party in Los Angeles. She donned a sparkly red gown with matching red heels and a black jacket while Deacon wore a navy blue suit with a white shirt.
The awards show last week was the first one Witherspoon had attended since her divorce from Jim Toth in March. The former couple, who share son Tennessee, 11, wed after her split from ex Ryan Phillippe. (Witherspoon shares Deacon and Ava with Ryan, 49.)
After Witherspoon settled her divorce from Toth, she was all smiles with Ava in a sweet snap as they leaned against each other while drinking wine.
“Summer nights with my favorite daughter,” Witherspoon captioned the post in August 2023. Ava, for her part, gushed about her mom in the comments section. “Looooove you!” she wrote.
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The post came hours after Witherspoon and Toth’s divorce settlement was revealed. Per legal paperwork obtained by Us Weekly, the pair will have equal shared custody of their 10-year-old son and equally split his expenses.
The former couple didn’t request any child or spousal support, and submitted a request to dismiss the need for a parenting seminar because they’ve been “effectively coparenting” since the end of their relationship. The pair also kept their own cars and bank accounts.
A few doctors from Grey Sloan Memorial are about to have a long-awaited reunion.
Grey’s Anatomy alums Katherine Heigl and Justin Chambers, who played Izzie Stephens and Alex Karev, respectively, on the ABC series, are set to make an appearance at the 2023 Emmy Awards alongside their former castmates. The duo will take the stage during the Monday, January 15, ceremony alongside Ellen Pompeo (Meredith Grey), James Pickens Jr. (Richard Webber) and Chandra Wilson (Miranda Bailey), to announce one of the night’s major categories.
The medical drama won’t be the only iconic show linking back up at the 75th annual awards show, which will take place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Other notable actors from iconic shows reuniting on stage include: Lorraine Bracco and Michael Imperioli from The Sopranos, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, Carl Anthony Payne II and Tichina Arnold from Martin, Calista Flockhart, Greg Germann, Peter MacNicol and Gil Bellows from Ally McBeal, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live, Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott from American Horror Story: Murder House and Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Rhea Perlman,John Ratzenberger and George Wendt from Cheers.
“It was really about, how can we celebrate 75 years of television differently?” Emmys executive producer Jesse Collins told The Associated Pressearlier this month.
The night … was March 27, 2005. Television titan Shonda Rhimes knew what she had just created — but audiences still had no idea. The Grey’s Anatomy pilot introduced several characters, including the show’s protagonist, legacy surgical resident Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). Spunky, undoubtedly intelligent and full of heart, the show wouldn’t survive without its […]
Fans have been wanting Heigl 45, and Chambers, 53 — who played love interests on the show — to reunite since Heigl abruptly exited the series during season six in 2010. Her departure came after Heigl publicly feuded with series creator Shonda Rhimes.
In November 2020, Krista Vernoff, who worked on seasons 1 through of Grey’s before returning as the showrunner for season 14, told the Los Angeles Times that there was a plan to wrap up Izzie’s arc in a different way.
The 75th Annual Emmy Awards will not take place in September 2023 as originally planned — but the show will go on! The Television Academy announced in August 2023 that this year’s Emmys are now set to air in January 2024 because actors, writers and other entertainment workers continue to strike. Both the Writers Guild of […]
“There was a resolution to Izzie’s story. We had planned to have her come back for an episode to really properly tie up Izzie and Alex,” she explained to the outlet. “And I wrote that episode, and it was beautiful. The day before it was supposed to start prepping or shooting, I can’t remember, we got a call that Katie wasn’t coming. Just wasn’t coming. Wasn’t going to do it. It became my job to stay up all night for multiple nights and reimagine a script that didn’t include Izzie.”
Vernoff added: “And for years and years and years and years and years, the fans scream at us, ‘How could you?’ Well, that’s the behind-the-scenes story. That’s what happened. I’m not saying that to bash Katie. I don’t know what was happening in her life.”
Sources close to Heigl, however, rebutted Vernoff’s claims at the time, sharing that the showrunner was “mistaken” when recalling her departure from the series. “Katherine was back in L.A. after parental leave (when she adopted her daughter) waiting to be called to set,” the insider told Us Weekly at the time.
Chambers, meanwhile, remained on the series until season 16. After his exit, it was revealed that his character left his wife, Jo (Camilla Luddington), to reunite offscreen with Heigl’s Izzie. Heigl later reacted to the news of the plot twist, telling Entertainment Tonight, “I didn’t see it. … Wasn’t he with someone? Listen, isn’t that an a–hole move? I’m sorry!”
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As Grey’s Anatomy gears up for its season 20 premiere in March, Heigl’s official stance remains that she will “never say never” to reprising her role on the show. “I think it would just be completely dependent upon the team over there, how they feel about it, and the story,” she told The Washington Times in 2021.
The 2023 Emmy Awards air on Fox Monday, January 15 at 8 p.m. ET.
In 2019, the same year that Succession competed for the Emmys for the first time, its network sibling Game of Thrones received a slightly unexpected final embrace from the Television Academy for its last season—unexpected, if only because the final run of HBO’s fantasy was so widely panned. Yet Thrones proved too big to fail, winning awards for outstanding drama series, acting, directing, and a slew of technical achievements. As the Emmys put a stamp on the end of a defining era in TV, a new one dawned. Succession won just one trophy in 2019, for creator Jesse Armstrong’s season-finale script—but from there, it would go on to dominate.
But Succession’s road to its final Emmy moment has not been entirely smooth. A pandemic and an actors strike (not to mention an unwieldy corporate merger) helped delay the Shakespearean family drama’s Hollywood swan song to this Monday, when the Television Academy is poised to deliver a total sweep, barring any major surprises. Armstrong decided to end the show a bit earlier than most dramas of its popularity and acclaim, at season four; accordingly, perhaps, by all accounts it is going out on a high, having already won the equivalent Golden Globe and surely picking up many industry guild prizes later this winter. Here is one cultural phenomenon that did not overstay its welcome.
Succession was nominated for more 2024 Emmys than any other program, with a staggering total of 27. Nipping at its heels was another HBO freshman now positioned to define the landscape going forward—The Last of Us, up for 24 awards. Already, the postapocalyptic drama dominated last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys. It’s doing to Succession what Succession did to Thrones: continuing an extraordinary network legacy, even amid existential industry threats.
The big question this year is not whether Succession will win for its goodbye run, but exactly who will win for its goodbye. Sarah Snook, nominated twice in supporting, appears to be an overwhelming front-runner for her first shot in lead actress, and should walk away with some Emmy gold before all is said and done. The supporting-actor race has come down to a past winner in Matthew MacFadyen, who arguably had his best season yet as he somehow wound up in the big chair by series’ end, and Alexander Skarsgård, a past winner for a different show (Big Little Lies) whose gleefully antagonistic turn imbued the show with fresh energy. Over in supporting actress, J. Smith-Cameron can’t even be counted out if Succession runs the table, though that may be a place for another network-mate, The White Lotus, to pick up an award for its scene-stealer Jennifer Coolidge.
And then there’s the matter of best actor. Fully half of the Emmys’ six nominees in the category belong to Succession, with Jeremy Strong a previous winner, Brian Cox a two-time nominee, and Kieran Culkin a newbie to the field, having previously competed—like Snook—in supporting. Also like Snook, Culkin’s billing upgrade may just take him all the way, as Roman’s emotionally tortured arc in the final scene allowed Culkin to run away with many of the most celebrated episodes. Due to the Emmys’ winner-take-all, unranked voting system, there’s also a small chance that The Last of Us pulls off a grand upset here, with Pedro Pascal sneaking around three Roys who split votes, and kick-starting a new phase. How poetic would that be?
There is less (read: no) chance of that happening in the top category, where Succession will meet a fond farewell and reign, one last time, as the king of dramatic television. It’s been a remarkable run against remarkable tumult, appropriate for a show so steeped in an era of cynical chaos. But of course, this won’t be all for Armstrong and the Roys. They’ll still have to go to the SAG Awards next month. Succession may be over, but awards season never stops.
